Trading Summary (June 21, 2002)

Toronto stocks ended the week on a sour note with the S&P/TSX Composite Index falling 85.92 points. Just two of the exchange’s subindices finished in the black, and just barley at that. The golds dropped 0.14 of point to 207.95, despite a US$1.70-per-oz. gain by the yellow metal to US$324.40 per oz. in New York. The base metal issues suffered a 2.78-point or nearly 2% fall to 141.49 points.

TVX Gold headed the TSE most traded list gaining 13 to $2.35 with more than 12 million shares on the go. Kinross Gold wasn’t far behind gaining 9 to make $3.60 on a volume of about 7.6 million shares. Echo Bay, the other party to the companies’ three-way merger deal gained 15 to $1.95 on 3.2 million shares.

Also making the top ten traded list was Bema Gold, which advanced 23 to $2.54 with nearly 7.5 million shares traded.

Canada’s two remaining major gold producers put in mixed results. Barrick Gold moved 28 higher to $31.40, while Placer Dome lost 45 to $19.30.

Noranda lost 39 to settle at $19.31 after declaring force majeure at its Horne copper smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec. Workers there went on strike on June 18.

Rival Inco also finished on the down side with a 70 fall to $32.70. On Friday, Reuters reported that Newfoundland’s legislature has approved a 30-year deal with Inco to develop the Voisey’s Bay nickel project in Labrador.

In diamond news, Aber Diamond grabbed $1.04 or 4% to hit $27.10. On Friday, Aber posted a net loss for the quarter ended April 30 totalling $700,000 (or a penny per share), compared with year-ago net earnings of $85.3 million ($1.56 per share). The prior year’s results include a $147.7 million gain from the sale of the company’s share in the Snap Lake property.

The S&P TSX Venture Exchange composite index lost 0.68 points, or 0.06%, over the trading day, and closed at 1193.55 on a volume of 34.5 million shares.

IBI Corp. lost a penny and closed at 5 with 883,000 shares traded. The company and Stansbury Holdings have terminated their joint venture agreement which focused on the importation of IBI’s vermiculite ore from its mine in Uganda, its exfoliation and distribution into the California horticulture and agriculture sectors.

American Bonanza remained flat at 20 on 800,000 shares. The company completed a public offering of 15.4 million units at $0.13 per unit – for a gross proceeds of $2 million. The proceeds from the financing will go towards the exploration and further development of the company’s Copperstone project in Arizona. The project has an estimated total resource of 2.1 million tons at an average uncut grade of 0.58 oz. gold per ton. In addition the company will drill test extensions of known high-grade mineralization on its wholly-owned Pamlico project in Nevada.

Grayd Resource lost 2 and closed at 15 with 800,000 traded. The company has kicked off exploration work on the Glenwood Property, located in the Botwood Basin area south of Gander, Central Newfoundland. Phase I exploration will evaluate the gold potential along the 42 km trend of prospective geology that is covered the 608 claim property.