Trading Summary (May 01, 2002)

The newly named S&P/TSX Composite Index ended its first day of trading 16.09 points lower at 7,647.3. The golds tacked on 60.18 to hit 6,563.2 while the base metal miners lost 10.02 point settling at 4,492.45.

Gold rebounded to the tune of US30 per oz. to hit US$308.70 per oz. in New York on Wednesday. No great surprise that most of the Toronto Stock Exchange’s busiest issues were miners of the yellow metal. Barrick Gold was at the top of the list gaining 49 to $32.14 on 6.8 million shares. Trailing behind were Placer Dome, off 11 at $18.54, Kinross Gold, 6 higher at $2.70, TVX Gold, gaining 3 pennies to $1.33, and struggling gold miner McWatters Mining dropping a penny to make 12.

Kinross has posted a first quarter net loss of US$7.9 million (or 3 per basic and fully diluted share), compared with a year-earlier loss of US$3.5-million (2 per share). Lower gold production and higher cash costs are to blame.

Zinc miner Breakwater Resources was the most traded base metal miner shedding half a penny to 22 with 2.5 million shares on the go. Sherritt International gained 2 to reach $4.82 and Alcan was unchanged at $57.90 on more than 1.1 million shares.

On Wednesday, Alcan announced the acquisition of Alcotex Tecnologia Industrial’s facilities in Camaari, Bahia State, Brazil. The Group is gearing up to open its first South American composite plant. Alcan has created a new company, Alcan Composites Brasil, to oversee this new operation, a joint venture with Brazil’s NJK Group.

Inmet Mining grabbed a dime to finish at $5.10 after posting first-quarter net income of $1.4 million (or a penny per fully diluted share), compared with the year-ago period’s net loss of $2.8 million (a dime per share).

Canada’s junior exchange bounced in and out of positive territory all day to end the session virtually unchanged. The S&P-CDNX Composite Index lost 0.28 of a point to close at 1158.17.

ECU Silver Mining lost 1 to close at 5 on 507,600 shares. Last December, the company inked a deal with a subsidiary of Hecla Mining, allowing a subsidiary of ECU to explore and do small scale mining on the high grade gold and silver mineralization on the San Sebastian property, in Durango state, Mexico.

Quaterra Resources added 2 to close at 12 on 375,000 shares. The company’s joint venture partner Eastmain Resources has a 2,000-metre diamond drill program is underway at the Abitibi Extension project, in Ontario. The program is slated to test up to 15 geophysical anomalies on the North French and Chabbie Lake claim blocks.

Making a nice move higher, Philex Gold added 25 to $1.37 on 234,500 shares. Investors bid up stock in the company on news that their joint venture partner, Anglo American has cut 366 metres grading 1.7% copper and 4.5 grams gold at the Boyongan prospect in the Philippines.

Andean American Mining continued to climb, rising 6 to close at $1.10 on 103,000 shares. Shares in the junior got a boost on news of its first quarter production results from the pilot plant on the Santa Rosa gold property in Peru. The company has sold 5,227 oz of gold so far this year.