Trading Summary (October 10, 2003)

The Toronto stock market was up slightly on Friday, with the TSX Composite index adding 29.12 points to finish at 7,633.61. Most of the market sectors advanced, but only modestly; the base metal miners led with a 0.9% gain.

The TSX Mining and Metals index picked up 1.65 points in that gain, closing at 179.78, but still made a 52-week high in doing so. Inco was the only base metal stock to fall back, sliding 73 to $40.22, and nickel rival Falconbridge was unchanged at $24.

The big winner on the day was Aur Resources, which jumped 30 to $5.17 and made its own 52-week high. It traded only lightly, however, with about 365,000 shares in action. Another small miner, nickel producer LionOre Mining International, picked up 18 to close at $7.83 on a volume of 1.5 million shares.

Cameco was also up sharply on Friday, rising $1.62 to $52.48, again in light trading. It was announced that the Bruce-A nuclear power reactor in Southern Ontario, in which Cameco owns a minority interest, came back on line earlier in the week.

Over on the gold side, the TSX Gold index was up only a 0.02-point hair, at 191.85 points. That came out of a day of advances by the lightweight members of the index, coupled with declines from a number of the index heavyweights. In that latter class were Barrick Gold, which was off 27 at $24.85, Kinross Gold, which was off 6 at $9.96, Meridian Gold, which was off 45 at $15.70, and Agnico-Eagle Mines, which was down 32 at $16.68.

The big advances and big trading volumes were in the smaller producers: Bema Gold picked up 11 to close at $3.59 on a volume of 3.5 million shares, Eldorado Gold was up 11 at $3.61 on 1.2 million, and Wheaton River Minerals added 7 to close at $2.47 with 5.3 million shares trading.

Canada’s junior exchange ended the trading week by surging to a new all time high. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index popped 25.22 points, or 1.81%, and closed at 1,421.36.

Spider Resources added 2.5 to close at 15.5 on 2.7 million shares traded. The junior along with partner KWG Resources have resumed drilling on the McFauld’s Lake massive sulphide project in the James Bay lowlands of Ontario. At last report, 6 new electromagnetic anomalies have been delineated by the AEM survey on the joint venture property in the immediate vicinity of the McFauld’s occurrence. KWG closed at 24.5, up 3.5 on over 1.2 million shares traded.

Investors to profits in Sparton Resources following a 2-day run up. The junior recently reported that kimberlite indicator minerals have been found in till samples taken from its 100% owned property located in the Otish mountains of northern Quebec. Following the news the junior agreed to sell two million special warrants at a price of $0.43 per unit. Each special warrant holds one share and one warrant. The warrants are exercisable at $0.54 for a period of two years. Sparton ended the day at 80, down 5 on 2.26 million shares traded.

Pacific Ridge Resources added half a penny to close at 17.5 on nearly 2.6 million shares traded. At last report, the junior was completing deposit modeling and selcting drill targets for a second bout of drilling on its Golden Arrow gold project near Tonopah, Nevada.