Trading Summary (July 26, 2001)

A bevy of poor earnings reports in recent days helped the Toronto Stock Exchange to lose another 21.22 points to end at 7,602.6 on Thursday. At day’s end, only four of the TSE’s 14 subindexes finished in the black. The gold and precious minerals and metals and minerals subindexes were not among that number, falling 141.15 points and 14.22 points, respectively.

Gold finished the day off US90 at US$266.20 per oz. in New York. Platinum fell US$4 per oz. to US$455 per oz. Platinum and silver were slightly higher. The base metals saw mixed results on the London Metal Exchange. Nickel, tin and zinc were lower. The rest made modest gains.

Diversified miner Teck appeared in the middle of the TSE’s most active issue list with just fewer than 2.5 million shares on the go. The stock lost 50 to $11.75. Teck posted second-quarter earnings of $23 million (21 per share) on revenue of $582 million, compared with year-ago earnings of $11 million (9 per share) on revenue of $151 million. The increase is thanks to continued power sales from merger partner Cominco’s Waneta hydroelectric dam near Trail, B.C. Cominco shares were de-listed on Monday.

The country’s base metal miners saw mostly losses across the board. Inco fell 33 to $25.39, rival Falconbridge dropped a dime to $16.25, Noranda also shed a dime to $16.14 and Boliden fell half a penny to 29.5. Boliden posted substantially lower second-quarter operating losses of US$11 million and a net income of US$8.6 million, thanks to some asset sales. The struggling miner also said that the terms for a proposed share issue, which is part of a bailout package, have been fulfilled.

The golds were awash in red, led by Meridian Gold, which slipped 24 to $12.55 with more than 1.2 million shares traded. Others on the slide included Barrick Gold, off 70 to $23.25, Placer Dome, 87 lower at $15.62, royalty company Franco-Nevada Mining, which dropped 35 to 420.65, Goldcorp, down 50 to $15.40, and Kinross Gold, down 3 to $1.21.

Canada’s junior exchange remained stuck in its summer rut with all indexes showing little change on the day. The Canadian Venture Exchange composite index lost 5.12 points, or 0.2%, and closed the day at 3,075.44. The Mining Index ended the day virtually unchanged, up 0.09 of a point, and closed at 7,292.70.

Andean American Mining tacked on 1 to 25 on 332,589 shares. The junior recently announced that the heap-leach gold-silver pilot plant on its Santa Rosa project, 550 km south of Lima, Peru, is now fully functional. Andean American also has a separate exploration joint venture with Placer Dome over the area.

Argosy Minerals got beaten down following the official announcement that Norilsk Nickel would complete a feasibility study over the junior’s Nakety-Bogota nickel laterite property in New Caledonia. The company ended the day down 11 to 31 on 164,855 shares. Stock in the company had run up over the past month on speculation that a deal would happen.

Grayd Resource continued to move higher on news that a US$350,000 exploration program has been launched over its White gold property in Alaska. Shares in Grayd ended the day at 20, up 4 on a volume of 81,000.

Radius Explorations lost 10 to close at $1.05 on 66,200 shares. The Simon Ridgway-led junior recently completed seven drill holes over the Lupita zone on the Tambor gold property in Guatemala. Results are expected any day now.