Toronto Stock Exchange Investors take breather on quiet holiday

With investors taking a breather over the holiday period, the market ends this short Christmas week on a quiet note. At noon the widely followed composite 300 was off 1.91 pts to 3,042.66, but that’s an improvement over last week’s close of 3,028.39 pts. Gold mining issues, however, were looking weak all morning with the price of the yellow metal down to $389(US)-bid $390(US)-ask on the Montreal spot market and the gold index down 30.57 pts at noon. Metals and minerals were off at this point too by 14.69 pts, while the oil and gas index dipped 3.30 pts. Wilco Mining kept the market hopping as this week’s most active gold. Deak International has recently become the largest shareholder of the company, which happens to be one of the oldest on the exchange having been listed on the Standard Stock Exchange back in 1917. Reactivated earlier this year under Douglas Hume, who is also president of Nuinsco Resources, Wilco has two properties in the Noranda area of Quebec and has recently acquired an option on a 960-acre gold propsect at Wine Harbour in Nova Scotia. Wilco jumped 14 cents over the week to new- high at 52 cents and close at 45 cents .

Another big winner over the week was Viceroy Resources with a $1.25 advance to close at $9.25, a new-high. Earlier this fall the company discovered a new high grade deposit area on its Castle Mountain open pit heap leach gold project in San Bernardino Cty, Calif.

Dome Exploration operator of the Musselwhite Grubstake has completed 75,000 ft of drilling this past year on the Snoppy Lake property north of Pickle Lake Ont and has approved a further $2 million next year for surface drilling. Dome Exploration is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dome Mines. Other partners in the grubstake are Esso Minerals Canada, Inco Ltd and Lacana Mining. Dome was off 13 cents on the week to close at $10.63, while Inco closed at $16.38 and Lacana at $9.13.

Campbell Red Lake bullish on the Detour Lake project, was down 50 cents on the week for a close of $26.88. Teck Corp is greeting the new year with earnings of $24 million for 1986, a 50% improvement over 1985. Its B shares were up 38 cents on the week to close at $23.13.

Courtroom opponets Lac Minerals and International Corona have been playing a game of see-saw on the market ever since the hearings over the ownership of the Page- Williams mine ended at the Ontario Court of Appeal this fall. Lac was down 50 cents on the week to close at $27. Corona took a 13 cents dip to close at $28.25.

American Barrick now has a 100% interest in Nevada’s Goldstrike mine, which is still subject to net smelter return and net profits royalty to Franco Nevada Mining. The week was good to American Barrick with a 75 cents gain to close at $20.75.

Franco Nevada, meanwhile, was up 15 cents on the week to new-high at $3.15 with a close today of $3.10. The latest news with Franco is that it has raised $2.65 million through a private placement of one million shares with a group of European financial institutions. Working capital now stands at $3.3 million which will allow the company, as it says, to “take advantage of opportunities that present themselves.”

The banking group into whose hands Rio Algom passed the East Kemptville tin project about a month ago says it intends to continue the tin mining operation. Rio will continue to manage the operations on behalf of this group called the East Kemptville Tin Corp. Rio’s price at noon was $20.25.

Falconbridge Ltd holds the honour of being this week’s most active trader. It seems to be pulling itself out of the doldrums with an 88 cents gain on the week to close at $16.75. Noranda Inc was off 13 cents this week to close at $19.75.