Venture Exchange down again

Vancouver – Showing little sign of bucking its trajectory, the S&P TSX Venture Exchange Index closed down for another week with a 36.98 point fall, ending at 1,897.94 points in the June 13 – 17 period. The declines look to have kept some traders away, with volumes averaging just fewer than 90 million shares traded daily.

Atac Resources managed a strong showing in the period after releasing its first 2011 drill results, which came from the Ocelot target of its Rackla gold project in the Yukon. The company reports it has hit a significant silver-lead-zinc discovery, with intercepts including 41.7 metres grading 145.43 grams silver per tonne, 3.36% lead and 11.65% zinc from 110 metres depth, and 63.4 metres averaging 73.81 grams silver, 2.44% lead and 8.18% zinc from 57 metres downhole. Atac’s share price climbed $1.16 to end at $7.25 in the period with 6.2 million shares traded.

Lumina Copper was among the highest gainers in the period, climbing 50¢ to $6 even after executing a royalty spinoff. The arrangement has Lumina splitting its royalty segment into a separate entity called Lumina Royalty, with a valuation of roughly $25.7 million. Lumina Royalty holds royalties on five projects in Chile and Argentina that produce some combination of copper, molybdenum and gold. Lumina Copper’s main asset remains the Taca Taca copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry deposit in Argentina, which hosts 841 million inferred tonnes grading a 0.64% copper equivalent.

Mazorro Resources had one of the highest percentage gains of the period, climbing 65% or 15¢ to 38¢ on 3.6 million shares traded. The company released drill results from the Lapaska property in Quebec, which it is earning a 70% stake in from Adventure Gold. Located 20 km east of Val d’Or, initial surface drilling on the property returned 103.4 metres grading 1 gram gold per tonne from 45 metres depth and 156.9 metres averaging 1.2 grams gold from 25 metres downhole. Mazorro notes that the results included high-grade intercepts of 3.8 metres grading 10.3 grams gold and 7.1 metes averaging 4.7 grams gold, as well as ‘gold halos’ of 564 metres grading 0.3 gram gold and 245.5 metres grading 0.8 gram gold.

Gold-stream company Sandstorm Gold was one of the busiest stocks of the period, with 10.4 million shares traded as it climbed 10¢ to $1.16. The company recently announced positive drill results from its gold-stream partner Luna Gold, while during the period it released its latest management circular. Sandstorm expects attributable production for 2011 to be between 13,000 and 18,000 oz. gold, while by 2014 it expects that to increase to over 50,000 oz. gold.

Trevali Mining was up 15¢ to $1.50 as it updated progress at its Halfmile zinc-lead-silver-copper deposit in New Brunswick, with production expected in the third quarter. The company reports that construction is progressing on time, with road construction, site clearing, equipment securing and drilling underway. Trevali’s share price also likely got a boost from news that Breakwater Resources, considered the only pure zinc player left on the TSX, was bought by Nyrstar NV in a $663-million takeover.