Trading Summary (November 26, 2002)

The Toronto Stock Exchange ended well in the red on Tuesday, dropping 100.39 points or more than 1.5% to 6,477.77 on weaker U.S. consumer confidence. Also hitting the market was Canadian National Railway’s announcement that it plans to cut its workforce by 1,146 or around 5%. The company also said it would take fourth-quarter, after-tax charges of $252 million also related to asbestos and other personal injury claims.

The gold index just failed to weather the storm, dropping 0.09 of a point to hit to 165.71. Barrick Gold made waves, dropping 15 to $23 with about 5.2 million shares changing hands. At an investor conference on Tuesday, Barrick said that it expects production to fall slight, but that it still expects to crank out almost 5.7 million at around US$178 apiece in 2002. It expects cash costs to remain flat.

Placer Dome seemed to get sucked into the vortex, slipping a dime to $14.65. Kinross Gold, the country’s remaining major gold producer grabbed 3 to make $2.69.

In the lower ranks, Novagold Resources put in a 24 gain to hit $4.54. The company reports a new interim resource estimate at its Donlin Creek gold deposit has boosted inferred resources by nearly 40% or 4 million oz. to about 14.8 million oz., based on a cutoff grade of 2 grams gold per tonne. The increase comes thanks to this year’s drilling, predominantly on the Akivik, 400 and Aurora targets. Placer has until mid-February to make an option decision at Donlin.

The Diversified Metals & Mining Index slipped 1.2 points to 125.19. Alcan saw the most action, dropping 49 to $48.56 with a handful more than 670,000 shares on the go. Most of the others performed about as well. Finishing on the plus side were: Sherritt International, up 3 pennies to $4.20; takeover target Fording, plus a penny to $31.79; Boliden, up a nickel to $2.35; and Ivanhoe, which regained a penny to $2.99. The company recently reported, “the highest sustained copper grades yet” from its Oyu Tolgoi gold-copper project in southern Mongolia. The issue climbed another

Canada’s junior exchange lost more ground as even some recent market darlings got sold off. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index lost 2.17 points or 0.22%, and closed at 942.59.

In what appears to be the flushing out of a recent non-brokered private placement of up to 4 million units at a price of $0.20 per unit, shares in Radius Explorations plunged 7 to close at 23 on 5.3 million shares. Two 2-million share trade blocks make up most of the volume. The Simon Ridgway-led junior holds a large land position in Guatemala.

The latest drill results from the Mesamax discovery zone sent investors running for the exits. Canadian Royalties lost 56 to close at $2.08 on over 1.4 million share. The best results from the new batch of samples came from hole 25, which was collared 35 metres east of the discovery hole and yielded 3.23% nickel, 3.93% copper, 0.11% cobalt, plus 1.01 grams gold, 0.75 gram platinum and 1.64 grams palladium over 21.2 metres

Pine Point Mines gained a penny to close at 13 on 536,000 shares. The junior has been trying to put the old Pine Point lead-zinc mine in the Northwest Territories back into production. Cominco mined 68.8 million tonnes of ore from 1963 to 1987, producing 2.3 million tonnes of lead concentrate and 7.3 million tonnes of zinc concentrate.

Drill results from the Virgin fault target on the Lewis property in Nevada propelled Madison Enterprises 2 higher to 13 on 400,500 shares. Results from the 9 hole program include up to 3.24 oz gold per ton over 15 ft.