Trading Summary (November 19, 2002)

The Toronto Stock Exchange’s financial sector was alone in the black on Tuesday, but just barely, gaining 0.04 of a point to hit 101.97 points paced by higher earnings by the Royal Bank. The golds slipped 4.72 points to 174.33 as the yellow metal ended US60 per oz. lower at US$318.20 per oz. in New York. The Diversified Metals & Mining index lost 1.41 points to 123.98. By day’s end, the S&P/TSX Composite Index was 61.33 points lower at 6,423.65.

Investors reacted negatively to Kinross Gold‘s plan to raise $152.5 million via an offering of 50 million units at $3.05 apiece. One unit will comprise one share plus half a purchase warrant, with one full warrant good for one share at $5. Kinross fell 21 to $2.72 with more than 12.1 million shares on the go.

In sympathy Kinross’ proposed three-way merger partner Echo Bay Mines slipped 13 to $1.38 on a trading volume of nearly 2.1 million. The third member of the triad, TVX Gold lost $1.06 to $17.50 with fewer than 1 million shares traded.

On Tuesday, the three agreed to extend the termination date for their merger to the end of January. The deal also includes an automatic one-month extension if the deal still isn’t done on Jan. 31 because a final Superior Court of Ontario approval is not in hand. The deal has been hung up on an ongoing review by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Most of the other gold issues put in more modest losses. Placer Dome lost 9 to $15.29 and Barrick Gold fell 56 to $24.50.

Fording was the most traded of the diversified miners, sliding 20 to $31.60 on more than 1.3 million shares. Inco was next closest dropping 54 to $31.11 on about 439,000 shares.

Sherritt International, which has teamed up with the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan in a hostile bid for Fording, was one of a handful to make gains. The issue rose 6 to $4.30.

LionOre Mining International joined Sherritt climbing a nickel to $4.25. On Tuesday, LionOre announced the pouring of the first 11.7-kg gold dor bar from the Thunderbox gold project in Australia. The company also announced that it has cut a new zone of nickel mineralization north of Thunderbox, near the Waterloo nickel-PGM deposit.

Canada’s junior exchange lost ground for the second day this week. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index lost 7.84 points or 0.83%, and closed at 953.64.

New market darling Canadian Royalties reported that three samples in hole 18 on its Expo Ungava property in northern Quebec were capped at 10 grams palladium per tonne because the values received were beyond the limits of detection. Subsequent assaying of the consecutive samples returned an average of 443.71 grams palladium over 3 metres. Given the new values, the mineralized intercept in hole 18 now grades, 3.32% nickel, 4.01% copper, 0.13% cobalt, 0.26 grams gold, 1.52 grams platinum and 30.3 grams palladium. A single over-limit assay from hole 19 (5.5 metres grading 1.79% nickel, 4.46% copper, 0.07% cobalt, 0.28 grams gold, 0.72 grams platinum and 6.24 grams palladium) yielded 115.85 grams palladium. The new value boosts the platinum value of the intercept to 12.4 grams. The new results vaulted to the stock to $3.08, before settling down, closing up 24 to $2.84 on a volume of over 1.4 million.

Canadian Golden Dragon Resources lost 1 to close at 6 on 423,000 shares. Falconbridge recently started work on Canadian Golden Dragon’s 20% held Nighthawk property in the Timmins area of Ontario. Falconbridge is aiming to drill the project this month as part of an earlier deal to earn a 50% interest by spending $2.975 million over 6-years.

Masauparia Gold jumped 3 to close at 10 on 180,000 shares. The junior has been exploring the Greywacke gold project north of La Ronge Saskatchewan.