Trading Summary (October 31, 2002)

Toronto’s gold stocks dropped 6.31 points or 3.7% to lead declining subindices on the day despite a US$1.30-per-oz. gain to US$317.60 per oz. by gold in New York. The base metal miners weren’t much more successful, shedding 2.23 points or 1.8% to 122.05. In the end, the S&P/TSX Composite Index was 81.57 points lower at 6,248.79.

Placer Dome saw the most action among the golds, falling 45 to $13.65 with about 4.6 million shares on the go. Barrick Gold was next volume-wise, ending 92 lower at $23.45 on 3.1 million shares. Kinross Gold stood out with a 4 gain to $2.59.

Sharing Kinross’ spotlight was junior NovaGold Resources, which grabbed 24 to make $4.94. Recent step-out drilling directly south of the main Acma deposit returned the highest grades ever found on the Donlin Creek gold deposit in Alaska. Several follow-up holes drilled in the Akivik discovery, about 1 km farther south, returned high-grade values as well.

Attracting attention on the minus side was Agnico Eagle Mines, which surrendered $2.56 or about 12% to settle at $18.84. Earlier this week, the company announced a $167-million offering of 12 million units at $13.90 apiece. Each unit comprises one share and half a warrant. Each whole warrant allows the holder to buy one share for $19. Proceeds will be used to fund acquisitions, capital expenditures and other corporate activity.

Some junior gold miners making waves were: Aurizon Mines, up 19 or 18% to $1.26; and River Gold Mines, plus 24 or 9.4% to $2.79.

On the base metal side, Sherritt International fell a dime to $4.20 with about 1.4 million shares traded. On Thursday, Sherritt posted a net loss of $1.1 million (or 7 per share) on revenue of $207.7 million. The loss came compliments of a $29.8-millliion writedown on its investment in Aussie laterite nickel miner Anaconda Nickel.

Nickel miner Inco led the group on a volume basis, falling $1.20 or nearly 4% to $29.75 with over 2 million shares traded. Alcan lost 92 to $43.85 on just more than a million shares. Swedish miner Boliden swam upstream to a dime gain to $2.35.

Canada’s junior exchange charged ahead on heavy trading with 35.3 million shares changing hands. Advancers pummeled decliners, 349-to-258 and the Venture Exchange S&P Composite Index jumped 15.42 points, or 1.72% to finish the day at 914.69.

Canadian Royalties jumped 25 and closed the day at $1.00 with 1.2 million shares traded. The company has won the legal battle over a disputed ground on its Phoenix nickel-copper-platinum-palladium property in northern Quebec. Canadian Royalties will, therefore, retain all of its rights in the Expo-Ungava and Phoenix Properties, which includes the area along the boundary, commonly referred to as the TK Zone.

Pan Asia Mining closed up 1 to a nickel with 1.0 million shares traded. The company has not maintained the requirements for a Tier 1 company listing on the exchange and has Tier classification has been changed to a Tier 2 company. At last report the company was exploring for diamonds on four parcels of land in the southern part of the Shandong province in China.

Goldminco tacked on a penny and closed at 9 with 347,500 shares traded. The junior recently completed a rock chip sampling program on its Balabag gold project in the Philippines. Samples were analyzed for gold and silver. The highest gold sample returned 33.8 grams gold and the best silver assay returned 1,346.0 grams silver per tonne. The sampling program was used to optimize targets for a 1,000 metre diamond drilling program.