Trading Summary (May 30, 2002)

The Toronto Stock Exchange continued lower on Thursday marked by a late day dive that saw the S&P/TSX Composite Index finish 31.35 points lower at 7,580.56 points. Just two of the TSX’s thirteen subindices managed to end in the black, namely the financial and telecom sectors. The golds slipped 6.39 points or 2.8% to 219.77 despite a US$1.10-per-oz. gain by the yellow metal to US$326.20 per oz. in New York. The base metal & mining index had 0.34 of a point shaved off to come in at 145.61.

The gold stocks remained well represented on the TSX’s moist traded list, but were awash in red. Echo Bay Mines led the pack lower dropping 4 to $1.95 with nearly 6.6 million shares traded. Kinross Gold was right behind slipping a quarter to $3.97 on a handful fewer shares. Others on the slide were TVI Pacific, off 1.5 to $13.5, Bema Gold, down 30 or 12% to $2.25, McWatters Mining, half a penny lower at 17.5, TVX Gold, poorer by 16 at $1.68.

The remaining gold majors were no different Placer Dome fell 8 to $21.07 and Barrick Gold dropped 53 to $33.77.

Inco grabbed 24 to make $34.29 on just fewer than 2 million shares. On Thursday, Reuters reported that a government source said that the federal government would announce next week a long-awaited aid package of $100-150 million. The money is aimed at helping the nickel giant develop hydrometallurgical smelting technology to get the long-stalled Voisey’s Bay project underway. Even if a deal is reach, the project is seen by analysts as 3-4 years from mining activities.

Teck Cominco’s B series rose 9 to $13.75 on just more than 2 million shares.

Most of the others on the index were seeing red. Noranda dropped 15 to $18.85, Falconbridge fell 39 to $19.01, Aur Resources lost 8 to $4.55, and Cameco shed $1.05 to $41.25.

Canada’s junior exchange failed to sustain yesterday’s gains as investors took a breather from buying gold-related issues. The S&P-TSX Venture Index dropped 5.07 points, or 0.4% and closed at 1,227.31.

ECU Silver Mining continued to dominant the most actively traded chart, climbing 1 to close at 8 on just over 1.77 million shares. The company recently inked a deal for the use of a flotation and cyanidation mill with a 200 tonnes per day milling capacity, situated some 110-km south of its La Esperanza silver-gold project in Mexico.

Goldminco added 4 to close at 20 on 1.4 million shares. The junior recently acquired an interest in the Balabag and Masapelid gold projects in the Philippines.

American Bonanza Gold Mining lost 4 to close at 18, on over 1.6 million shares. The junior holds the low-grade Copperstone gold project in Arizona.

Madison Enterprises gave back half of yesterday’s gains, losing 3 to close at 26 on 223,050 shares. Investors bid up the stock on news that exploration on the Mt. Kare gold property in Papua New Guinea is underway and negotiations are proceeding for a new project in Nevada.