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Canadian Market Roundup - Week of 8/8/08

 The holiday shortened week was a quiet one as the dog days of summer take hold and the selling of resource related stocks resumed this past week on the Canadian markets. For the tail of the tape, the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, ended the week with a 6.6% loss, while the TSX Gold Index fell back 9.2%.

The big news of the week did not include any Canadian listed stocks as mining giant Xstrata made a $10 billion cash offer for Lonmin, the world’s third largest platinum producer. Xstrata tabled a $33 per share bid, that Lonmin share says is opportunistic despite its 42% premium over Tuesday’s closing price.

Yamana Gold tabled second quarter earnings of $102.7 million or $0.15 per share on production of 257,498 gold equivalent ounces at a cash cost of $140 per ounce. Yamana ended the day week down C$1.66 at C$11.09.

Atac Resources appears to have tagged at its wholly owned Rau property in the central Yukon. The discovery hole returned 1.24 grams gold per tonne over 68.69 metres. The company describes the mineralization as stratabound in limestone/dolomites with assays pending for nine nearby drill holes that cut similar thicknesses of the same type of mineralization. Atac ended the week up C$0.13 at C$0.38.

Axmin down C$0.015 to close at C$0.20 after the junior reported a 46.7 metre intercept running 3.9 grams gold per tonne at its Komahun project in Sierra Leone.

Hathor Exploration hit a new 52-week high during mid week trading thanks to its 90% owned Roughrider uranium zone in the prolific Athabasca basin of Saskatchewan. Base metal mineralization associated with uranium mineralization yielded individual samples with 2.47% cobalt, 9.50% copper, 2.81% molybdenum, 19.2% nickel, 12.1% lead, 5.39% zinc and 6.63 grams gold per tonne. The gains however, did not hold as Hathor ended the week down C$0.15 at C$3.24.

New market darling Goldsource Mines reported that hole 5 on its Border Property near Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan hit 36.8 metres of coal. The hole was drilled 4.5 kilometres northwest of the discovery hole. Not good enough for this high flyer as Goldsource ended the week down C$1.11 at C$7.55.

Antares Minerals tagged 341.8 metres running 0.75% copper at its Haquira copper-molybdenum-gold project in Peru. Antares ended the week down C$0.05 at C$2.94.

Meanwhile in Romania, Carpathian Gold hit 2.01 gold equivalent over 255.7 metres at its Ciresata Porphyry target on the Rovina Exploration License in central Romania. Carpathian ended the week up a penny at C$0.26.

On the down side, shares of Probe Mines fell C$0.305 at C$0.295 as the junior reported that only three of the first eight holes drilled on its McFauld's West property in Ontario’s James Bay Lowlands cut ultramafic intrusive rock. None of which appear to have hit any significant sulphides.

In the face of high operating costs, Yukon-Nevada Gold has decided to suspend its underground operations at its Jerritt Canyon mine in Nevada and focus on operating the profitable 4,000 ton per day mill that has been refurbished over the past six months. Yukon-Nevada ended the week down C$0.415 at C$0.54.

NovaGold Resources and certain of its officers have been named as defendants in a purported securities class action lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaint alleges that the company failed to disclose materially adverse facts its operations and prospects in various public statements. The law suit comes on the heals of NovaGold halting of development of its huge 50% owned Galore Creek project in British Columbia due to big capital cost increases. NovaGold week the week down C$1.49 at C$7.03.

The little ray of hope that emerged last week has now clouded over and the rainy days are here again for the more speculative stocks. We will see what next week has in store.

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