Canadian politics have no effect on TSX

An eventful period in politics didn’t translate into much excitement on the TSX, as the TSX Composite Index rose only slightly for the Mar. 21-25 period, gaining 120 points to finish at 14,039.39 points.

As a coalition of opposition parties brought down the Conservative government, the market shrugged indifference, seemingly more concerned with macro economic factors.

On the economic growth front, retail sales in the country fell by 0.3% month over month n January and volumes were down as well, with vehicles and home-related items falling the most. But while consumer spending slowed, business investment and exports are still expected to drive real growth going forward.

Continuing tensions in North Africa and the Middle East underlined gold’s strength as the metal was up US$9 to US$1,436. Gold miners moved in-step with the metal as evidenced by the Global Gold Index climbing 17 points to finish at 397.29 points.

The diversified miners also tracked higher on the back of stronger copper, aluminum, nickel, tin and lead prices. The Capped Metals and Mining index was up 9 points to 1,425.48.

Starcore International Mines shares were the largest gainer by percentage for the period, shooting up 67% to 15¢. The upswing came after Starcore announced that Goldcorp had cancelled the subordinated security interest it held over its mining properties. Goldcorp held the interest as collateral on silver sales to be made by Starcore to Goldcorp from its San Martin Mine in Mexico. The cancellation signals that Goldcorp is either sufficiently confident in Starcore’s ability to provide the silver, or that it no longer requires the metal from the company. Starcore had agreed to sell Goldcorp silver production at the prevailing spot price until 2029.

After initially dropping on word that Russia’s Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ) was making a smaller offer for it, Mantra Resources rebounded for the period and finished 25% higher at $6.68. The company announced it would accept the new offer for the company and its key asset, the Mkuju River uranium project in Tanzania.

The lower price was good news for Uranium One which has a deal with ARMZ to buy Mantra from it within a specified time frame. While initially ARMZ had agreed to buy Mantra for A$8 per share, the revised offer comes in at A$7.02 per share. The new offer came in light of the fall in market cap of nearly all uranium companies in the wake of Japan’s nuclear plant disaster.

Year end results and a resource update were enough to send Silver Bear Resources shares higher. The company’s shares gained 24% to close out the period at 93¢. The higher market cap came courtesy of a new resource estimate at its Mangazeisky silver project in Russian which put 1.1 million tonnes grading 514 grams silver for 18 million oz. in the indicated category, and 1.7 million tonnes grading 554 grams silver per tonne for 31 million oz. in the inferred category.