Trading Summary (July 16, 2002)

After opening lower, Toronto Stock recovered in the afternoon a managed to end in the black on Tuesday. Led by the technology and healthcare stocks, the S&P/TSX Composite Index finished the day off 19.9 points higher at 6,695.66 points, better than the 2% losses posted by the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500. The Nasdaq dropped about 0.5%.

The TSX’s golds started off lower and continued to slide so throughout the ending at 183.52, off 3.02 points from its previous close. The yellow metal shed US$2.50 to end the day at US$317.10 in New York.

Barrick Gold was the best performer of the nations gold major gaining 20 to make $26.90 with more than 3.2 million shares traded. Placer Dome lost 12 to $16.08 and Kinross Gold fell 15 to $3.33 as the TSX’s fourth most-traded issue with a volume of about 4.7 million shares. Most of the remaining gold miners performed similarly.

The base metal miners were mixed in thinner trading. Alcan grabbed 27 to hit $48.57 after posting second-quarter earnings of US$71 million, or 46 per share, compared with year-ago earnings of US$74 million, or 41 per share.

Teck Cominco’s B class of shares advanced 20 to $12.80. On Tuesday, the company announced it has inked an exploration and evaluation program at Wolfden Resources’ High Lake volcanogenic massive sulphide property on Bathurst Inlet in Nunavut.

Inco, which rose 16 to $29.49 was the busiest base metal issues with more than 2 million shares changing hands. On Tuesday, an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled that a suit by Port Colborne residents against Inco, the Ontario government, the Region of Niagara and the City of Port Colborne didn’t constitute a class suit. The judgement did leave the door open for individual actions against each of the defendants. The resident’s $750-million suit claims exposure to carcinogenic nickel oxides from one of Inco’s refineries.

The S&P TSX Venture Exchange composite index finished the day down 13.97 points or 1.25%, and closed at 1,105.37 with a volume of 25.8 million shares.

American Bonanza Gold Mining continues to be the junior market’s darling. The company 1 and closed at 18 with 995,771 shares traded. The company has $2 million set aside for advancing the Copperstone project in Arizona, which hosts an estimated total resource of 2.1 million tons grading 0.58 oz. gold per ton.

International Barytex Resources tacked on 5 and closed at 35 on 551,250 shares. The company holds a number of properties in the Yukon including the Mel zinc-lead-barite property and the Barb lead-zinc-silver property both in the Watson Lake District.

Vedron Gold found a penny and closed at 20 on 549,500 shares. The company holds the Fuller gold deposit adjacent to the Dome Mine in Timmins Ontario. An exploration program currently underway is designed to increase the existing gold resource. Placer Dome stands to earn a 51% interest in the property by performing $4.5 million in exploration work over a period of three years.

National Gold dropped 3 and finished the day at 47 on 510,948 shares. The company holds the Mulatos gold resource on the Salamandra property in Mexico, 220 km east of Hermosillo. National Gold optioned half of the Salamandra property to Chester Millar’s Alamos Minerals for the assumption of 50% of the $10.25 million property payments and an additional $4.375 million in expenditures and payments to bring the property into test production.