Trading Summary (October 17, 2003)

The telecom sector was alone in the black in Toronto on Friday, edging 0.12 of a point higher to 59.84. The golds dropped 3.99 points, or 2%, to 192.63 to rank among the largest losers; the diversified miners were right behind shedding 3.46 points to 178.88. In the end, the S&P/TSX composite index was 75.33 points lower at 7,717.47.

Ivanhoe Mines took over as the nation’s busiest mining issue, gaining 34, or 3.1%, to make 10.99 on a trading volume of more than 4.3 million shares. On Friday, Ivanhoe announced that it has arranged a US$50-million private placement to help fund ongoing work at its Turquoise Hill copper-gold project in Mongolia.

Shares in High River Gold Mines fell another 4 to $1.84, this time on just more than 475,000 shares after the company announced that South Africa’s Harmony Gold had sold off its 16.2% interest in the company on Oct. 16.

Diamond Fields International shot up 9, or more nearly 13%, to 79. DFI resumed production in the Marshall Fork marine diamond deposit in Luderitz Bay, Namibia at the end of September. The company also recently acquired a nickel discovery on Ammassilik Island off the southeast coast of Greenland. Chip sampling there averaged 1% nickel, 0.3% copper, plus minor precious metal values.

One of the newsmaker among the base metal miners was Falconbridge, which staged a nickel-powered turnaround to post a third-quarter profit of US$21.3 million on Friday. That’s better than the US$15 million loss during the corresponding period of 2002. The issue finished 65 poorer at $22.65.

Canada’s junior exchange ended the trading week by moving modestly lower as investor’s elected to lighten their load going into the weekend. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index lost 1.28 points, or 0.09% and closed at 1,435.60.

A rising copper price had investors gobbling up shares in Taseko Mines. Back in July, the Hunter Dickinson led company launched an exploration drilling program over its Gibraltar copper property, near Williams Lake in south-central British Columbia. The program was designed to test several areas adjacent to the previous porphyry copper deposits, which produced 1.8 billion lbs of copper and 19 million lbs of molybdenum over 27 years of operation on the Gibraltar property. Taseko ended the day at 71, up 11 on 5.6 million shares traded.

Amerigo Resources finished the day at $1.39, up 4 on 2.4 million shares traded. Investors recently bid up the stock after the junior reported net earnings after tax of US$537,313 during its second quarter. This is up from a loss of US$45,384 in the year-earlier quarter. In July the company acquired the Chilean MVC copper property. In July and August Amerigo produced and sold 4.72 million pounds of copper, for a cash cost of 58.7 per pound, and a total cost of 61.7 per pound.

Inca Pacific Resources gave back 1 to close at 17.5 on 801,800 shares traded. The junior is currently drilling the Antoro Sur project in Central Peru where hole 1 returned 38.3 metres grading 1% copper and 0.33 gram gold per tonne and hole 7 yielded 48.5metres grading 0.67% copper and 0.12 gram gold. At last report 18 holes have been completed. Results for the remaining 11 holes are pending.