Trading Summary (February 24, 2003)

The bears had a firm grip on the bulls’ nose rings in trading on Monday, with the TSX Composite index off 56.33 points at 6,502.30 by the end of the trading day. Almost all the market sectors were lower; the sole exceptions were energy and real estate stocks.

With much of the selling ascribed to another increase in geopolitical tension, it was a little unusual that the golds fell back. The TSX Gold index was down 3.03 points at 177.27, a steeper loss than the broad market suffered. That happened even as gold prices firmed, with the London afternoon fix at US$355.20 and later Comex trading about US50 higher. Pacific Rim markets were bidding gold up to US$359 after the New York close.

Meridian Gold was the big loser, despite a fairly rosy year-end financial report after the market close. The stock fell $1.74 to $19.86, an 8% hit, with volume just over half a million. Meridian reported income of US$41.5 million on revenues of US$133.6 million for the year, up 7% over last year’s earnings and 16% over last year’s revenues.

The big trading was again in Placer Dome, which saw just over 3 million shares move as it fell 22 to $14.68. Kinross Gold was also heavily traded, and slipped 23 to $10.97.

Junior gold producer McWatters Mining picked up half a cent, closing at 27.5, after announcing that it would be taking over the East Malartic mill from Barrick, essentially at the cost of assuming the property’s reclamation liabilities, and that it would also be buying the minority interest in its Sigma-Lamaque mine, currently held by SOQUEM.

The TSX Metals and Mining index was down 0.95 point at 133.20, making a softer landing than most of the market today. The main trading activity, and the biggest price move, were both in Ivanhoe Mining, which rose 21 to $3.55 on a volume of 2.7 million shares. There’s still apparently some speculation over the company’s planned release (on Wednesday) of a resource figure from the Turquoise Hill prospect in Mongolia.

With three-month London nickel hitting US$8,955 per tonne, Inco was up 6 at $33.40, but Falconbridge was down 15 at $17.44, Sherritt International off 5 at $4.65, and LionOre Mining International back 5 at $5.80.

Junior cobalt explorer Canmine Resources rose half a cent to 2.5 despite end-of-day news on Friday that the court-appointed monitor in its bankruptcy protection case had recommended that protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act not be extended.

Canada’s junior exchange closed the day with advancer’s beating decliners 342 to 307. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index added another 8.28 points, or 0.75%, to its value and closed at 1,110.48, with 45.2 million shares traded.

Stornoway Ventures and Northern Empire Minerals were the chart leaders again. Shares of Stornoway jumped 16 and closed at $1.64 on a volume of 1.57 million. Northern Empire’s issue tacked on 14 and closed at $1.61 on 1.9 million shares. The partners have traded heavily since announcing the discovery of two diamond-bearing kimberlites on the Melville Peninsula in Nunavut. They also recently picked up more ground in the vicinity of their Aviat project located 850 km northwest of the territorial capital of Iqaluit.

NDT Ventures finished the day up 6 to 24 on 737,000 shares. NDT and joint venture partner Navigator Exploration hold 1 million acres of ground on the Melville Peninsula which includes ground between the recent AV-1 diamond discovery on the Aviat Project and De Beers Canada Exploration 8 million acre Baffin Island property. Navigator lost a penny and closed at 50 on 323,000 shares.

Tom Exploration closed at 47, up 7 on 709,000 shares. The company recently closed a private placement of 85 units for $85,000 for the exploration of the Kelly Lake property in the Belleterre camp. Each unit consists of 2,000 flow through shares at $0.40 per share and 500 common shares with a hold period of four months. Each warrant entitles the holder to purchase one common share at a price of $0.52 within eighteen months from the approval of the regulatory authorities.