While gold prices ended the report period virtually unchanged at around US$317 per oz., gold bugs drew encouragement that most of the gold miners showed uncharacteristic strength and added to the previous week’s gains.
Among the U.S.-listed majors: Newmont Mining jumped $1.14 to US$25.94; AngloGold shot up $2.01 to US$27.36 on a suprisingly upbeat third-quarter report and news of a share split; Gold Fields rose 53 to US$11.99; Durban Deep was up 4 to US$3.24; Harmony Gold advanced 77 to US$14.17; and Ashanti Goldfields rose 6 to US$5.40.
Another good sign was that U.S. silver stocks moved in sympathy with the golds: Coeur d’Alene Mines was up 4 to US$1.51 as the company boosted by 24%, or 4 million oz., the silver reserves at its Martha mine in Argentina, and Hecla Mining tacked on 5 to reach US$3.55. After rising $2 over the past two weeks, Apex Silver Mines gave back 13 to end at US$14.62.
The good news didn’t stop there: Amid strengthening copper, zinc and nickel prices, the base metal miners, for the most part, regained the losses suffered in the previous week: Anglo American rebounded 28 to US$13.40; BHP Billiton rose 32 to US$10.85; Rio Tinto soared $5.24 to US$78.24; Phelps Dodge gained $1.31 to hit US$30.76; Alcoa was up 99 to US$23.36; and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold shot up $1.12 to US$13.57.
The volume leader was cobalt refiner OM Group, which fell $2.57, to US$6.38. OM’s share price collapsed on Oct. 29, with the revelation that plummeting cobalt prices were forcing a major restructuring. A month ago, shares traded above US$40.
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