Wall Street shows restraint, July 6-10

The Greek crisis and the Chinese stock market crash monopolized headlines, while the U.S. trade deficit widened to US$42 billion in May from US$40.9 billion in April. U.S. market indexes were relatively flat, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average edging up 0.2% to 17,760.41, and the S&P 500 Index slipping 0.01% to 2,076.62. The Philadelphia Gold & Silver Index dropped 5.8% to 59.01.

Randgold Resources climbed US26¢ to US$64.41 per share. Despite a small decrease in production on planned lower grades to 279,531 oz. gold during the first quarter from 287,048 oz. in the fourth quarter of 2014, total cash costs per oz. fell to US$708 per oz., from US$712 per oz. First-quarter profit slipped to US$51.3 million from US$54.4 million in the previous quarter due to increased spending on exploration and higher corporate costs, as well as an adverse exchange rate. Operational net cash rose from US$69.3 million to US$101.7 million, and the cash flow, combined with decreasing capital expenditure after the first phase of construction at Kibali, boosted cash-on-hand by 71% to US$141.2 million.

Strong second-quarter production results at Taseko’s 75%-owned Gibraltar mine in B.C. sent the company’s shares up 13.1% to US55¢ — the highest percentage gain of the week. Gibraltar produced 39.8 million lb. copper and 479,000 lb. molybdenum for 40% and 18% first-quarter increases. The company said the higher production owed to improved copper grades, better design mill throughput, higher copper recoveries and flat mine-site spending. Gibraltar is the second-largest open-pit copper-moly mine in Canada.

Depressed iron ore prices rattled the shares of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. Benchmark 62% iron fines fell to US$44.10 per tonne, an all-time low, before recovering to US$50 per tonne. Shares of BHP Billiton fell US$2.89 to US$38.40, while Rio Tinto’s dropped US$1.19 to US$38.53. Rio Tinto is preparing the first metal shipments from its Kitimat aluminim smelter in B.C., after modernizing the facility to boost production capacity by 48%, and make it one of the lowest-cost smelters in the world. The smelter’s annual production rate is 420,000 tonnes.