Trading Summary (December 20, 2002)

With gold dropping US$5.80 to US$340.30 per oz. in New York, Toronto’s Gold Index shed 2.87 points or about 1.5% to make 191.17 on Friday. The golds joined the utilities sector as the only declining subindices. The diversified miners put in a 1.59-point gain to 128.69. Overall, the S&P TSX Composite Index rose 23.65 to 6,560.62.

Kinross Gold remained the busiest of the major gold producers shedding 20 to $3.44 with about 5.5 million shares changing hands. Placer Dome was next in line edging up 6 pennies to $17.10. Barrick Gold dropped a dime to hit $23.60.

GoldCorp dropped another 17 to $19.15 after making gains on recently tabled exploration results from the Red Lake mine in northwestern Ontario.

in the lower ranks, Cumberland Resources retreated 20 to $2.60. The company recently awarded AMEC the contract to perform the feasibility study for its wholly owned Meadowbank gold project, 70 km north of Baker Lake, Nunavut.

Miramar Mining popped onto the TSX’s top ten traded list grabbing 15 or around 9% of value to settle at $1.78 with nearly 2.5 million shares traded.

Fording was the most active issue on the diversified mining & metals index, slipping 21 to $32.97. On Friday, Fording took a swipe at the Sherritt Coal Partnership II’s revised bid calling it, “inadequate, self serving and inferior.”

For its part, Sherritt International rose 3 to $4.24. Teck Cominco, Fording’s partner in a competing three-way offer, advanced 19 to $11.30. The third member of that triad, Westshore Terminals Income Fund, climbed 6 to $4.77.

Metallica Resources plummeted 9 or 8% to $1.05 after announcing that Noranda has budgeted just US$830,000 for Metallica’s El Morro copper-gold property in Chile in 2003. Noranda can take a 70% stake in El Morro by paying Metallica US$10 million before September 2005. Noranda’s issue ended 12 lower at $14.07.