Miners passed by in broad advance

The five trading days March 19-25 saw a modest advance by the U.S. stock markets, but gold and base metal equities were left out. Both major indices rose about 1%; the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 86 points to finish at 8,280.23, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 picked up 8.29 points to finish at 874.74.

The gold stocks responded to further weakening in bullion prices in the usual fashion. The worst beating among the larger U.S.-listed golds was taken by Ashanti Goldfields, which was down US56 to US$5.24. Gold Fields fell US68 to US$9.94, with 10.5 million shares moving, and Newmont Mining was off US98 on a volume of 16.7 million shares.

Losses were worse in the mid-tier; Durban Roodepoort Deep was off US49 at US$2.37, while Harmony Gold dropped by a buck to US$11.50. Interestingly, the smaller producers didn’t suffer nearly as much, with Hecla Mining off US8 at US$3.03, and Randgold Resources down US29 at US$11.89.

Slowly struggling back from lows in February, Stillwater Mining was up US14 at $2.76, even though palladium and platinum prices plunged. Anglo American Platinum felt the draft, though, sliding US$1.75 to US$29.90.

BHP Billiton and Southern Peru Copper were the lone gainers among the large base metal producers; BHP rose US15 to US$11.26, while Southern Peru rose US8 to US$15.61. But most had a bad week; Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold was down US86 at US$16.81, Rio Tinto slipped US$1.96 to US$79.90, and Anglo American fell back US23 to US$14.93.

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