Trading Summary (October 23, 2002)

With gold off US80 at US$311.90 per oz. in New York, and investors cashing in gains, the Toronto Stock Exchange’s Gold Index shed 4.03 points or 2.4% to 163.08, evaporating about half of Tuesday’s gains. The Diversified Metals & Mining subindex added 2.49 points to reach 124.94. With most of the other subindices ending in the black, the S&P/TSX Composite Index ended Wednesday 43.51 points higher at 6,335.17.

Coal miner Fording managed to steal the spotlight again, grabbing another dime to hit $32.10 on the backs of about 3.4 million shares. Fording has rebuffed the Sherritt Coal Partnership’s recent $29-per-share takeover bid, and announced plans to convert itself into an income trust. The nickel-gain came despite Fording posting lower third-quarter net income of $9 million (or 18 per basic share) on revenue of $212.2 million on Wednesday.

Shares of Sherritt International, half of the bidding Partnership, continued to recover from a fall immediately after the bid announcement on Monday, tacking on another 8 to make $4.23.

Other gainers among the base metal miners were: Inco, plus 70 to $30.55; Falconbridge, up 38 to $15.13; Noranda, plus 19 to $15.19; and LionOre Mining International, which advanced a dime to $4.15. On Wednesday, Noranda announced a reduction of 100 employees at its CCR copper refinery in Montreal.

Canada’s gold miners were a sorry lot. Placer Dome was the most active, slipping 23 to $13.45. Placer’s third-quarter net profit came to US$28 million (or US8 per share), compared with a loss of US$211 million (US65 per share) a year earlier.Kinross Gold fell 6 to $2.52 and Barrick Gold dropped 47 to $22.98. The mid-tier producers were no better. Meridian Gold retreated $1.05 to $25.35 despite steady third-quarter earnings of US$9 million, slightly off last year’s pace. Agnico-Eagle Mines (AGE-T) shed 86 to hit $20.32. On Wednesday, Agnico reported a narrower third-quarter loss of US$630,000 (a penny per share) on higher revenue of US$20.2 million. Most of the others performed as miserably.

Canada’s junior exchange traded lower on the day with advancers beating to decliners 259 to 252. The Venture Exchange S&P Composite Index closed down 1.47 points, or 0.16%, to 903.54 on a volume of 26.3 million shares.

Spider Resources tacked on 2 and closed the day at 8 with 1.58 million shares crossing the floor. Spider and its joint venture partner KWG Resources have received additional analytical results from De Beers Canada Exploration regarding their 2002 exploration program on the Spider #3 project area in Ontario These new results include values over various short (0.5-metre) sections as high as 7.09% copper, 4.67% zinc, 2.68% lead, 150.6 grams silver and 0.76 gram gold per tonne. The entire 8 meter section that was drilled and sampled, using reverse circulation techniques, averaged 1.61% copper, 0.34% zinc, 0.13% lead, 9.9 grams silver and 0.13 gram gold.

Wolfden Resources jumped 12 and closed at 68 on 667,000 shares. The company announced that drilling at its 100% owned High Lake property in the Northwest Territories intersected high grade copper mineralization at depth and down-plunge in the B-Zone. In addition, a regional airborne geophysical survey has identified a number of anomalies with signatures similar to those of the High Lake deposits. This year’s diamond drill program has intersected semi-massive and massive sulphide mineralization in the B-Zone over 100 meters below the limits of last year’s drilling. The deposit remains open at this depth.

Red Lake Resources found a penny and closed at 19 on 420,500 shares. The junior its joint venture partner Fronteer Development Group recently completed a high-resolution airborne Mag/EM survey over their Mink Lake, Swain East, Sol D’Or and Grace Lake properties. A total of 766 line km were flown at a line spacing of 75 metres. Analysis of the data have revealed a number of targets which are currently being investigated.