Trading Summary (February 14, 2003)

The market was Blixed into a rally early on Friday, when the avuncular alopecic in charge of United Nations arms inspections in Iraq presented a waffling report to the Security Council. Punters took this as a cue to buy and by the end of the day the North American equity markets were flying.

The TSX Composite index rose 34 points to 6,487.13, a gain of just over half a percent, with telecommunications and information technology stocks posting the highest gains — an almost infallible sign of the old “new” economy thinking taking hold, if only for a day or so. Naturally, before anyone could say, “that’s so September 10th,” the gold index was hit for a 3% loss: it closed at 184.06, down 5.46 points.

It was the majors and the minors that took the brunt of the punishment in the gold stocks today. Placer Dome was the most heavily traded on the index, with 2.7 million shares trading and the stock falling 59 to $15.99. Barrick Gold, whose new chief executive, Gregory Wilkins, said the company’s hedge book was “a little larger than we would really like it to be,” settled at $24, 87 lower than Thursday.

Off the gold index, there were all kinds of Eldorado Gold shares flying around, with the stock falling a nickel to $2.08 on a volume of 3.4 million shares. But unlike Eldorado, other small gold producers generally fell further in percentage terms than did the index members: Cambior was down 8 at $1.86 and Thistle Mining was off a nickel at 73.

The base metal and mining stocks weren’t hit like the golds, but they didn’t share in the general market rally either. The metals and mining index was off 0.69 point at 129.69.

The big news on the base-metal side was a downgrade in Cameco’s credit rating, from A-3 to Baa-1, by rating agency Moody’s Investor Services. Moody’s was reacting to a deal by Cameco to buy up a further one-sixth interest in Ontario nuclear generation company Bruce Power for $209 million, which will be debt-financed. Cameco closed at $36.10, down 5.

Canada’s junior exchange ended the week on an up tick with advancers beating decliners 316 to 270. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index climbed 8.36 points, or 0.77% and closed at 1,095.49, with 37 million shares traded.

Diagem International Resource closed at 28, up 5 on 3 million shares. The company holds several projects in the Juina diamond province of Mato Grosso state in Brazil and is processing diamonds from gravel deposits at a pilot plant. The company also states that line cutting, geological mapping and shallow drilling of the Acori 2 kimberlite pipe has been completed over the last three weeks.

Northern Empire Minerals added 16 to its value and closed at $1.07 on 1.2 million shares. The company and its joint venture partner Stornoway Ventures recently recovered diamonds from two kimberlite showings on the Melville Peninsula project in Nunavut. Stornoway tacked on 15 and closed at $1.03 on 1.8 million shares. Northern Empire also recently picked up an additional 3,642 sq. km of exploration ground on Victoria Island. This increases the company’s total land position to 40,468 sq. km with projects in the Coronation, Melville Peninsula, Victoria Island and Rankin Inlet areas of Nunavut as well as property in the Otish Mountains region of Quebec.

Goldminco traded 880,540 shares on news that it has picked up 2,516 sq. km of promising ground in Australia, as a result of an agreement with Placer Dome through various subsidiaries. The agreement states that Goldminco is entitled any projects which Placer Dome Asia Pacific divests itself. The junior also gets carried through to development and is reimbursed for all its exploration costs on any joint-venture deal it contributes. The deal covers southeast Asia, China, Australia and New Zealand.Goldminco is also currently in the midst of a 1,000 metre drill program on the Balabag gold-silver property in the Philippines. Shares in the junior closed up a penny to 14.