Trading Summary (November 20, 2002)

Toronto’s gold stocks continued lower on Wednesday, falling another 2.65 points to 1712.68 as the yellow metal dropped US$1 to US$317.20 per oz. in New York. The base metal miners regained 1.18 points to make 125.16. Overall, the S&P/TSX Composite Index climbed 69.94 points to end at 6,493.14.

Zinc miner Breakwater Resources plummeted 4.5 or nearly 35% of value to finish at 8.5, with more than 2.1 million shares on the go enough to rank as the TSX’s most traded issue. On Wednesday, the company warned that it probably won’t make some scheduled debt payments in early January. The company also posted a third-quarter loss of $16.9 million or 9 per share.

Mid-tier gold producer, Meridian Mining was next in line, falling $2.48 or nearly 10% to $23.30 on just more than 2 million shares. Meridian recently dropped Montreal-based junior Gold Hawk Resources‘ Machacala gold-silver project in Peru. Meridian was in the midst of a US$800,000 work program, including 5,000 metres of infill and reverse-circulation drilling and 2,000 metres of reconnaissance diamond drilling.

The country’s big three gold producers were little changed. Kinross Gold finished unchanged at $2.73; Barrick Gold edged 24 higher to $24.74; and Placer Dome made 14 to reach $15.44. Placer intends to ramp up production at its recently written down Getchell mine in Nevada eyeing annual production of 350,000 oz. of gold beginning in 2004. Mini-scale underground mining has already begun.

After Breakwater, Teck Cominco was the most traded base metal miner, sliding 20 to $10.75 on a handful more than a million shares. Others on the slide were Sherritt International, off 14 to $4.16 and takeover target Fording, which shed a nickel to hit $31.55.

Canada’s junior exchange lost ground for the third day this week. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index lost 2.46 points or 0.26%, and closed at 942.33.

Canadian Royalties continued to trade heavily as investors await the results of another 30 drill holes into the Mesamax area of the Expo Ungava property in northern Quebec. Hole 18 on the property sent shares in the junior soaring. The hole returned 3.32% nickel, 4.01% copper, 0.13% cobalt, 0.26 grams gold, 1.52 grams platinum and 30.3 grams palladium over 49.3 metres. Shares in the company fell 12 to close at $2.72 on a volume of 359,952.

Masauparia Gold jumped 2 to close at 12 on 270,400 shares. The junior has been exploring the Greywacke gold project north of La Ronge Saskatchewan.

Inlet Resources added 2 to 9 on 299,000 shares. The junior has acquired over 250,000 acres of prospective diamond properties in the Wemindji area of northern Quebec.