Venture down slightly in shortened April 18-21 period

Vancouver – The shortened trading period of April 18 to 21 was a mixed one for the S&P TSX Venture Exchange, but two days of losses outweighed two days of gains with the board ending down 9.27 points at 2,281.64 points.

Volume was up considerably with close to as many shares traded over four days as the previous five, averaging out to 208.3 million shares traded daily. The volume was not necessarily positive, however, as the bears surged past the bulls with 66 Venture-listed companies hitting new 52-week lows and 39 hitting new 52-week highs.

Newstrike Capital jumped 65¢ to an all-time high of $2.29 on 9.8 million shares traded after releasing particularly impressive drill results from its Ana Paula project in Mexico’s Guerrero State. Hole 11-37 hit 231 metres averaging 7.51 grams gold per tonne from 3 metres depth, and after 9-metre gap hit a further 80.3 metres carrying 1.29 grams gold with multiple further intersections past 400 metres depth. Hole 11-35 hit 87.2 metres grading 0.95 gram gold from 116 metres and numerous other intercepts down to 833 metres downhole.

Heavily traded Great Western Minerals was once again the most-traded stock on the Venture, with just under 15 million shares traded over four days. The company announced that it is targeting an earlier production schedule at its 70%-owned Steenkampskraal rare earth project in South Africa, with immediate plans to start refurbishment of the historic mine and associated infrastructure. Great Western is evaluating whether a full feasibility study is necessary, and will start development work once its work program is approved by the National Nuclear Regulator of South Africa.

Chile-focused Samex Mining was one of the biggest percentage gainers, up 46¢ or 62.3% to $1.20 on 4.9 million shares traded after releasing early exploration results. At its Cinchado project the company’s three holes missed their intended target, though a geophysical survey identified a number of anomalies. At its Milagro project, Samex again missed the target for hole 10-01, but did hit continuously detectible gold values between 53 and 369 metres, while a 900-metre step-out hole hit detectible levels of gold between 261 and 373 metres and a hole at its Milagro Pampa project hit detectible gold and copper from 150 to 500 metres depth, with all three holes hitting some short high-grade gold intervals.

Canaco Resources was up 44¢ to $4.76 after announcing plans to spin out its wholly-owned subsidiary Tigray Resources, which holds a 70% interest in the Harvest copper-gold-silver volcanogenic massive sulphide project in Ethiopia. The Harvest project spans 277 sq. km in the Tigray region, 600 km northwest of Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. Canaco has drilled 12 holes in the project so far, the best intercepting 52.1 metres grading 4.10% copper, 1.55 grams gold and 25.97 grams silver from 46 metres depth.

Sinchao Metals, meanwhile, dropped precipitously after announcing that it did not actually hold a significant portion of the titles to its Sinchao project in Peru. The lost claims contain roughly 40% of the existing inferred resource of 237 million tonnes grading 0.47% copper, 0.49 gram gold and 12.1 grams silver with a 0.27% copper cut-off. The company’s share price dropped 13¢ to end at 12¢ on 4.5 million shares traded.