Venture sees gains in first trading period of 2012

Vancouver – The first trading period of 2012 saw the S&P TSX Venture Composite Index climb 41.07 points between January 3 and 6 to end at 1,525.73 points. Volume was noticeably down at an average of 75 million shares traded daily.

Despite the overall lower volume, Brixton Metals still saw 17.5 million shares traded after announcing an impressive intercept from the Thorn project in northwest British Columbia.  Brixton hit 95 metres grading 904 grams silver per tonne on a silver equivalent basis starting at 6 metres depth. The intercept grade breaks down to 1.71 grams gold per tonne, 628.30 grams silver, 0.12% copper, 3.31% lead and 2.39% zinc. The company’s share price more than doubled at one point to 34¢ before closing up 4¢ at 20¢. Brixton is currently earning in 51% of the project from Kiska Metals, which climbed 4¢ to 36¢.

Rio Alto Mining was up 46¢ to $3.65 with 6.7 million shares traded after releasing 2011 production numbers and an updated resource for its La Arena project in Peru. The oxide resource, using a 0.1-gram-gold cutoff, stands at 100.7 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.46 gram gold per tonne for roughly 1.5 million contained oz. gold. The sulphide resource, using a 0.18% copper equivalent cut-off, came in at 313 million indicated tonnes grading 0.29% copper and 0.24 gram gold per tonne for 2 billion lbs. copper and 2.4 million oz. gold, plus 320 million inferred tonnes grading 0.3% copper and 0.2 gram gold for a further 2.1 billion lbs. copper and 2.1 million oz. gold. As part of development work last year, Rio Alto produced 51,400 oz. gold from La Arena.

Prophecy Platinum was the biggest value gainer of the period, climbing 60¢ to $2.65 after announcing it planned an early start to drilling in 2012. The company plans to start underground drilling at its Wellgreen project in Yukon by the third week of January, with roughly 9,000 metres planned. Along with the early underground drilling, Prophecy has contracted a minimum of 10,000 metres of surface drilling starting in the spring, with two to four drills operating in the area, making for the biggest drill program in the project’s decades-long history.

Rare earth explorers Quest Rare Minerals and Tasman Metals were the second and third highest value gainers, respectively climbing 57¢ to $2.79 and 56¢ to $2.14. Neither company released news in the period, but Toronto-listed Rare Element Resources proved rare earth stocks still have potential life after climbing roughly 77% in the period to $5.83 on a positive resource update. All three companies recently hit 52-week lows, with Tasman bottoming out at $1.38 in late December, Quest hitting $1.75 in early October, and Rare Element hitting $3.16 only days before releasing the update.

Penny-stock Canasia Industries had the second-highest trading volume at 8.5 million shares as it climbed from 2¢ to 5¢. The company arranged a loan facility of up to $200,000 at 6% per year that also has Canasia issuing the lender 20% of the loan value in shares. Canasia also signed an option agreement on a 222-sq.-km property that is prospective for aluminous clay and rare earths in the Gaspe Bay region of Quebec. The company has 130.3 million shares outstanding.