Trading Summary (August 20, 2002)

A late-day sell-off erased some decent gains by Toronto stocks on Tuesday. The golds finished among the Toronto Stock Exchange’s eight advancing subindices edging up 0.54 of a point to 164.83. The metals & mining subindex led the way, along with the techs, climbing 2.09 points or 1.74% to 122.09. By day’s end, the S&P/TSX Composite Index was off 2.81 points at 6,655.29 points, after reaching as high as 6,687.91 points earlier in the day.

Canada’s big-three gold producers were among the exchange’s most traded issues. Kinross dropped a penny to $2.66 on about 5.4 million shares, Placer Dome slid 18 to $13.29 on 3.8 million shares and Barrick Gold finished 32 lighter at $23.35 with just short of 2.1 million shares on the go. In contrast, the yellow metal rose US$3 to US$309.20 per oz. in New York.

Gold miners on the rise included TVX Gold, plus 9 to $17.24, Meridian Mining, up $1.40 to $27.17, Cambior, which gained 3 pennies to make $1.47, and NovaGold Resources, 9 better at $3.49.

Inco gained 72 to $28.40 on just fewer than 1.56 million shares to lead the base metal sector. Teck Cominco’s B shares finished next in line adding 50 to make $11.50 on just more than a million shares. Most of the others put in modest gains.

LionOre Mining International found 2 pennies to reach $3.90. On Tuesday, LionOre said its US$75.9-million acquisition of Anglo American’s 43.35% interest in Tati Nickel Mining Co. is on track to wrap up before the end of Sept. Talks with the Government of Botswana aimed at securing required approvals for the deal are advancing. The company has C$100.4 million worth of financing secured and is finalizing arrangements with a U.K.-based bank to provide a debt facility of US$20 million.

Some diamond miners making noise were Mountain Province Diamonds, 7 or 9% higher at 85, Twin Mining, a nickel or 12% higher at 47, Diamond Fields International, plus 18 or 50% to $54, and Tsodilo Resources, advancing a dime or 67% to 25.

The TSX Venture Exchange composite index lost 2.95 points, or 0.29%, and closed the day at 1001.88 with 24.3 million shares traded.

Hawkeye Gold was the day’s leading resource trader with 533,458 shares crossing the floor. Despite the volume the junior’s issue remained flat at 3. Hawkeye owns a full 50% interest in the Yankee property on Victoria Island with its partner, Diamonds North Resources, holding the remainder. Hawkeye has commenced discussions with Diamonds North to explore the possibility of extending their partnership beyond the present limits of the Yankee property.

ECU Silver Mining tacked on 2 and closed at 6 with 414,500 shares traded. The company recently inked a deal with Trustyard Capital for a private placement of $300,000. ECU Silver owns the Velardena silver mine in central Mexico which has a resource of 2.4 million tonnes grading 269 grams silver and 2.80 grams gold per tonne.

Foran Mining remained flat at a nickel with 200,000 shares traded. Earlier this month Foran Mining inked a deal with Vista Gold to acquire exclusive rights to Vista’s proprietary vast soil geochemical data base over north eastern Manitoba and north western Ontario. Foran’s purchase agreement with Vista for the diamond exploration data, covers an area of 62,500 sq. km. The deal grants Vista a 1% royalty on any discovery by Foran over the lands where the Vista sampling survey was carried out.