Vote sparks markets

A strong rally on the Thursday following the U.S. election took American equity markets higher during the reporting period Nov. 3-9, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining 3.5% to finish at 10,386.37 and the S&P 500 index up 3% at 1,164.08.

With gold breaking through the US$430-per-oz. barrier, most of the gold equities went on a tear. Newmont Mining was up US$3.21 at US$49.02, AngloGold Ashanti up US$2.60 at US$38.24 and Minas Buenaventura up US$1.31 at US$25.31. Over on the Nasdaq, Randgold Resources finished US$1.66 higher at US$12.03.

One of the more actively traded golds was Durban Roodepoort Deeps, which saw 15.3 million shares moving, second only to Newmont. It rose US15 to US$1.88. Among the few gold stocks losing ground were hunter Harmony Gold Mining, down US31 at US$11.26, and hunted Gold Fields, which was US28 lower at US$13.90.

Junior silver explorer New Jersey Mining was up US19 at US78 following its discovery of a surface showing in northern Idaho.

The base metals stocks were led by Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold, which was up US$4.14 at US$39.13. The copper-sensitive equities did best all around, with Phelps Dodge up US$5.97 at US$93.37 and Southern Peru Copper US$2.48 higher at US$45.66.

WMC Resources was up US12 at US$20.62, on speculation that a bid higher than that from Swiss-based Xstrata might be forthcoming. Xstrata’s all-cash bid of A$6.35 per share would put the value of New York-listed WMC shares around US$19.35.