Trading Summary (April 30, 2003)

A US$5.30-per-oz. surge in the price of gold in New York sent the Toronto Stock Exchange’s gold index 4.11 points or 2.7% higher on Wednesday. The yellow metal ended the day at US$338.70 per oz.; the gold index finished at 155.37 points. The diversified miners failed to tag along scraping together another 0.35 of a point to make 119.44. Overall, the S&P/TSX Composite Index gained 40.68 points to reach 6,586.07 as the major North American bourses headed south.

Eldorado Gold put in a nice performance, gaining 15 or nearly 8% to end at $2.05 with just short of 3.2 million shares on the go. On Wednesday, Eldorado posted net earnings of US$2.6 million (or a penny per share) on revenue of US$9.2 million, compared with a year-ago loss of US$300,000 (nil per share) on US$5 million.

South American Gold & Copper finished as the most active mining stock, rising half a cent to 6.5 on about 4 million shares. The company recently uncovered a large tourmaline breccia pipe at its Pimenton property in the Central Chilean copper belt. The brecciated intrusive contains fine to coarsely disseminated chalcopyrite and pyrite. The pipe strikes for 1.5 km to the northeast and is at least 700 meters wide.

Canada’s major gold producers were close behind. Barrick Gold made 31 to reach $21.79; Kinross Gold finished 39 higher at $8.85; and Placer Dome grabbed 38 to make $14.35.

Inco was the most traded base metal miner, falling 41 to $26.24 on just more than 1.1 million shares. Falconbridge added another 55 to hit $16.80 after announcing a longer-than-previously-predicted shutdown at its Kidd metallurgical site in Timmins, Ont., this summer.

Canada’s junior exchange posted its strongest gains in nearly a month as investors bought select gold issues. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index gained 13.55 points, or 1.32% and closed at 1,044.24.

Spider Resources continued to dominate the trading floor, ending the day down unchanged at 13 on nearly 1.7 million shares traded. The junior recently reported drill results from the Spider #3 massive sulphide project in the James Bay Lowlands of Ontario. Hole 6 drilled below the previously reported massive sulphides in the first two holes intersecting 2.9% Copper and 0.45% zinc over 5.6 metres and a deeper zinc-rich section running 5.4% zinc and 0.3% copper over 9.65 metres. Holes 3 and 4 were drilled 100 metres to the northeast with hole 3 yielding 5.25% zinc and 0.58% copper over 3.95 metres. Hole 4 testing the down dip continuation of the mineralization intersecting 2.41% zinc and 0.495% copper over 8.7 metres.

New Shoshoni Ventures moved higher, climbing 6 to close at 61 on 354,395 shares traded. The junior has sent in one holes of a recently completed 3-hole program over the DB-2 kimberlite near the Drybones Bay kimberlite in the Northwest Territories for analysis.

American Bonanza Gold Mines tacked on 1 to close at 24 on 451,000 shares. The junior is in the middle of an underground exploration program on its Copperstone gold project in Arizona.