Trading Summary (April 29, 2002)

The golds finally took a breather on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Monday falling 15.34 points to close at 6,665.02 as the yellow metal lost US80 to US$310.60 per oz. in New York. The base metal miners kept pace dropping 20.61 points to hit 4,456.35. By day’s end just three of the TSE’s 14 subindices were writing with black ink the banks, paper & forest and pipeline sectors. Overall, the TSE 300 composite index shed 47.12 points to end at 7,582.5.

McWatters Mining remained in investors’ view screens falling half a penny to 12.5 on a trading volume of 7.3 million shares, enough to ranks as the TSE’s second busiest issue. Other gold miners still in the spotlight were: TVX Gold, unchanged at $1.32 on about 4.3 million shares; Barrick Gold plus a dime to $31.95 on 3.6 million shares; Bema Gold a nickel lower to $1.37; and rounding out the TSE’s top ten list, Kinross Gold, which fell 7 to $2.80.

Ivanhoe Mines grabbed three pennies to make $3.43. The company said on Monday that it has begun milling stockpiled ore at its Eunsan mine in South Korea. Initially the company expects to produce 9,000 oz. gold and 400,000 oz. silver. Later ore from the underground portion of the operation will boost production to 50,000 oz. gold and 118,000 oz. silver annually for two years.

Zinc miner Breakwater Resources was the most active base metal miner with just more than a million shares on the go. The stock gained half a penny to 23.5. The company recently said it is on pace to eclipse its original 2002 production forecast of just less than 220,000 tonnes.

Sherritt International lost 12 to $4.91 with about 403,000 shares crossing the floor. On Monday, Sherritt posted weaker first-quarter earnings despite an increase in revenues from its new coal division and higher oil and gas prices. During the first three months of 2002, Sherritt’ earnings tallied to $22.4 million (or 13 a share), virtually unchanged from last year’s net income of $22.3 million (16 per share).

LionOre Mining International rose 12 to $4.05 on higher-than-normal volume. On Monday, the company reported more encouraging drill results from its Waterloo nickel discovery in Western Australia.

Canada’s junior exchange started the trading week off by drifting lower. The S&P-CDNX Composite Index lost 4.15 points, or 0.4% to close at 1162.99.

Pacific Minerals topped the most actively traded chart among junior explorers, losing 2 to close at 95 on 1.15 million shares. The company is currently drilling the JBS platinum-palladium-nickel-copper property in China and recently inked a deal over the 217 gold project, also in China. Pacific can earn a 96.5% interest by paying US$750,000 over three years.

Nevada Pacific Gold continued to move higher, gaining 9, to close at 63 on 323,270 shares. The junior is getting permits for the next round of drilling on the South Carlin gold project in Elko County, Nevada.

American Bonanza Gold Mining lost 1 to close at 11 on nearly 432,300 shares. Stock in the junior has been actively traded since Toronto listed Royal Gold cancelled a US$1.7 million deal to get a 3% net smelter royalty from the company’s wholly owned Copperstone gold project in Arizona.

Kensington Resources lost 7 to $1.76 on 589,083 shares. Diamond recovery results for 10 holes drilled at the Fort la Corne diamond project in Saskatchewan are expected any day now.

Rockwell Ventures added 1 to 17 on 344,500 shares. The Hunter Dickinson led company released encouraging results from the Haut Plateau nickel-copper-cobalt property in Quebec.