TSX down slightly as miners fall

TSX Composite Index came off a bit as the holiday season approached. The Index fell roughly 160 points to finish up at 13, 201 points for the Dec. 13 – 17 period.

The weaker market came despite positive economic news as manufacturing sales were up almost 2%, home sales were up over 5% and forward looking indicators pointed to continued strength in the coming months. On the less optimistic side of things, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney said that the level of household indebtedness was concerning.

The gold sector felt some downward pressure also for the period as the debt issues in Europe had investors fleeing the Euro and moving into the Greenback. That meant a stronger U.S. dollar which had the yellow metal down US$20 to finish at US$1,368.50. The Global Gold Index was off 15 points and finished at 416.90.

The Capped Metals & Mining Index was also off, as it fell roughly 50 points to finish at 1,446.31 points. That move came despite underlying base metals holding on to their value as copper stayed above US$4.00 per lb, and nickel and tin prices gained slightly while lead and zinc prices were flat.

Claude Resources (CRJ-T, CGR-X) enjoyed the highest percentage gain of any of the miners for the period. The Saskatoon-based company’s carved out higher prices for its shares on the back of historical assays from its Amisk gold property, where a section of historical drill core returned 241 metres of 2.16 grams gold and 18.9 grams silver. The company says it is outlining an extensive, bulk-mineable gold system that is open along strike to the northeast, southwest, southeast and down-dip.

Claude also said the previous holders of the property failed to detect such wide stretches of mineralization because they focused on high grade vein systems leaving broad envelopes of mineralization largely unsampled.

Treasury Metals also enjoyed a strong period as its shares were up 28% to 96¢. The increase was likely tied to optimism around its planned 20,000 metre diamond drill program at its Goliath Gold Project near Dryden, Ontario. The program will look to upgrade inferred resources into the measured and indicated so that a feasibility study can get underway.

With silver prices riding high optimism also gathered around United Mining Group’s shares. The company announced it had increased its land holding at its Crescent Mine project in Idaho’s Silver Belt by 265% to 3.79 sq km. The company’s land package is bounded on the east by the Sunshine Mine property and to the west by the Bunker Hill deposit. Silver Valley is the second largest silver-producing district in the world

As for Talon Metals the company’s drill results failed to impress and the company’s shares fell 13% to 99¢ as a result. The results came from the Target Area 1 at its Trairão Iron Project in Brazil’s Pará State. The drop came despite intercepts ranging between 7 metres grading of 42.27% iron and 50 metres grading 48.7% iron.