Trading Summary (April 24, 2002)

The Toronto Stock Exchange slipped 4.44 points to finish at 7,713.4 on Wednesday, but that was no fault of the utilities subindex, which rocketed more than 10% to 9,934. Fuelling the subindex was BCE’s announcement that it was cutting itself free of its debt-ridden long-distance subsidiary Teleglobe. BCE CEO Jean Monty has also resigned. The gold & precious minerals subindex was one of just two other positive-finishing subindices on the TSE gaining 45.03 points or 0.7%. The base metal issues slid 131 points or 2.8%.

Kinross gold remained atop the gold mining issues with a 25 gain to $2.65. Also making the TSE’s top ten traded list were: TVX Gold, 4 higher at $1.13; Barrick Gold, plus 7 at $30.11; and McWatters Mining, which gained 1.5 to $12.5. All of the issues saw more than 3.5 million shares cross the floor.

Placer Dome just missed out on making the list grabbing 35 to make $19.45. On Wednesday, Placer posted first-quarter earnings of US$43 million, or US$0.13 per share, a significant improvement over the profit of US$16 million, US$0.05 cents per share, tallied in the year-earlier period.

The nation’s base metal mines were a quieter bunch. Inco, Noranda and Teck Cominco saw more than 1 million shares traded. Inco fell $1.72 to $31.05, Noranda slid 81 to $18.74, and Teck Cominco’s B series fell 6 to $13.90.

Noranda reported lower-than-expected first-quarter earnings of $1 million, or a loss of 2per share after preferred share dividends, down from earnings of $24 million, or 8 a share for the year-ago period. Teck-Cominco recently posted first-quarter earnings of $2 million, well of last year’s earnings of $55 million.

After a morning on the plus side, Breakwater Resources finished unchanged at 22.5 on about 973,000 shares. The zinc miner enjoyed better-than-expected production in the first three months of the year and says it may beat previous production expectations for the full year.

Canada’s junior exchange managed to post modest gains with volume continuing to rise. The Standard & Poor’s-CDNX Composite Index gained 1.49 points, or 0.1% and closed at 1,165.57.

Seahawk Minerals topped the most actively traded chart, losing 1 to close at 4 on over 1.1 million shares. The cash-strapped junior has been trying to advance the Piteiras emerald project in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Tiberon Minerals lost 6 to end the session at $2.05 on 626,200 shares. The company announced the sale of 2 million special warrants at a price of $2 each. The proceeds will be used to complete a prefeasibility study on its Nui Phao tungsten property in Vietnam.

Starfield Resources lost 7 to close at 99 on 508,988 shares. The company has the drill rigs turning on the Ferguson Lake copper-nickel-platinum-palladium project in Nunavut. Drill results are expected shortly.

Rockwell Ventures continued to attract attention ahead of drill results Haut Plateau nickel-copper-cobalt project in Quebec. Shares in the Hunter Dickinson led company added 2 to close at 16 on a volume of 397,500. Assay results are expected any day now.