Trading Summary (February 05, 2002)

The golds continued to shine on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday rising another 230.31 points or 3.8% to end ay 6,285.4, their highest in about two years. The base metal issues joined nine other declining subindices dropping 42.81 points or 1% to 4,301.44. The technology and consumer products sectors both put in 2.5% losses. Overall, the TSE 300 composite index shed 67.57 pints to end at 75,23.5.

Gold’s good fortune continued in New York with the yellow metal leading the shinnies with a US$8.50-per-oz. gain to US$297.50 per oz. Silver managed to grab a dime to hit US$4.39 per oz. Platinum gained US$4 to US$454 per oz., while palladium fell a buck to US$369 per oz. Nickel gained US$205 to US$6270 per tonne on a mixed London Metal Exchange board.

Not surprisingly, Canada’s gold miners were well represented in the TSE top ten traded list. TVX Gold ranked second adding 2 pennies to reach 96 with about 15.4 million shares traded. Falling in line behind TVX, Kinross Gold rose 17 or 10% to $1.87; South American Copper & Gold tacked on a nickel or 71% to $12; Barrick Gold finished $1.15 higher at $29.85; Franco-Nevada Mining found $1.44 to reach $31.85; and Placer Dome grew by 67 to $21.67.

The gains were enough to send Barrick, Placer, Kinross and Franco to new 52-week highs. The same could be said for Normandy Mining, Goldcorp, Pan American Silver and Meridian Mining to name a few. One of those was High River Gold, which gained a quarter to $1.43. On Tuesday, High River announced record gold production for 2001.

Ivanhoe Mines saw more than 3 million shares cross the floor to gain a dime to $3.05. The latest drill results from the Turquoise Ridge copper-gold porphyry discovery in southern Mongolia show that the Southwest Oyu zone has high grades and considerable size potential.

Canada’s base metal mines were seeing red. Alcan was the busiest with just fewer than 900,000 shares on the go. The aluminum giant’s stock slipped 63 to $59.21.

Inco dropped 32 to $27.95; Falconbridge shed 15 to settle at $16.30; Noranda lost 6 to $15.54; and Teck Cominco’s B shares slid a dime to $13.20. Sherritt International could count themselves lucky ending unchanged at $4.26. On Tuesday, Inco posted a fourth-quarter loss of US$5 million on revenue of US$463 million.

Canada’s junior exchange continued to move higher on heavy volume. The S&P-CDNX Composite Index gained 6.03 points, or 0.5% to close at 1141.33.

A strong surge in the price of gold helped boost shares of Rubicon Minerals. The junior ended the day up 14 at $1.14 on a volume of just less than 1 million. The company closed a deal to acquire the McFinley gold project in the prolific Red Lake mining camp of Ontario.

Samex Mining ended the day unchanged at 14 on 564,100 shares. The junior has been seeking a joint venture partner or financing for the Eskapa Core zone in Chile.

Seabridge Resources dropped 3 to 75 on 331,500 shares. The company inked a deal to pick up the Red Mountain gold property in northern British Columbia.

Starfield Resources managed to fight off some early selling pressure to end the day unchanged at $1.12 on 304,700 shares. Stock in the company has doubled already this year. The company is gearing up to resume drilling on its Ferguson Lake nickel-copper-platinum-palladium project in Nunavut.

Sultan Minerals added 4 to 35 on 219,000 shares. The company is about ready to resume drilling on its Gold Mountain zone on the Kena property near Nelson, British Columbia.