TSX Venture Exchange

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index was virtually unchanged in the period, ending up a little over a point at 1,292.93. Volume also saw little change in-line with recent weeks, at a daily average of 69 million shares traded.

Aurcana was the most active stock with 12.5 million shares traded after announcing open-pit mining at its Shafter project and high-grade silver intercepts at the mine. The news comes not long after the company reported record profits of US$2 million last quarter following production at its La Negra silver-copper-lead-zinc mine in Mexico as it advances Shafter in Texas. The Shafter news included a 9-metre intercept grading 801.26 grams silver per tonne and helped propel Aurcana to a 52-week high of $1.10 before ending at $1.02. The company has 449.8 million shares outstanding.

At the opposite end of the volume spectrum, Fortress Minerals climbed $1.19 to $5.20 to be the highest value gainer on a scant 10,180 shares traded. The company released no news, and had no trades on two of the days in the period. With 14.8 million shares outstanding Fortress has seen numerous days in recent weeks with no trades, and has kept in the $3.95-to-$4.10 range for the past three months. Fortress sold its Russian gold assets in 2010 and has no exploration properties — a deficiency the TSX has given Fortress until October to fix. The company has $23 million from the asset sale and a $15-million financing in early 2011.

Hana Mining climbed 16¢ to 86¢ as its share price recovers from a poorly received preliminary economic assessment for its Ghanzi copper-silver project in Botswana. When Hana released the PEA its share price plunged $1.29 to 42¢ in a day, with higher-than-expected costs weighing on the study. Since dropping, insiders have been snapping up shares. Most notably, Cupric Canyon Capital has bought up almost 7 million more shares between 47¢ and 85¢ to bring its holdings to 17.1 million, or 17.2% of outstanding shares, and Vladimir Iorich bought 3 million shares at 49¢ through Pala Investments to bring his holdings to 19.4 million shares, or 19.5% of outstanding shares. Activity on the management side included Hana CEO Marek Kreczmer buying 70,000 shares between 42¢ and 45¢ and director David Kong nabbing 188,000 shares between 60¢ and 71¢.

Cadillac Mining spiked as much as 14¢ before ending up 11¢ at 27¢ on no news. The company last saw significant gains in February after announcing some long intersects in two holes at its Goldstrike project in Utah. At the time the company climbed from around 8¢ to 50¢ before falling to around 20¢. The company recently closed a $421,000 financing, which will go towards a 5,000-metre drill program at Goldstrike.

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