STOCK MARKETS — VSE composite index gains some ground

The Vancouver Stock Exchange composite index had a better week than the previous one for the period ending Nov. 6, closing at 1,135.1, up 22.29 points from the last report period. The resource index rose 80.4 points to finish at 2,335.15.

NDT Ventures was the most active resource issue over the week, with 1.7 million shares traded — double the previous week’s volume. The company, which has nickel-copper-cobalt prospects in the Voisey’s Bay area of Labrador, announced the re-pricing to 70 cents per share of 1.1 million common shares available to directors and employees under incentive stock options. The issue rose to a high of $1.10 before settling back to 92 cents for a gain of 17 cents.

Another active issue was Arizona Star Resource, which traded 1.4 million shares. The stock reached a high of $8.30 before declining to $7.90 for a loss of 15 cents over the report period.

Last week, Arizona Star traded a whopping 5.3 million shares and lost $1.75 after it released the latest batch of deep drilling results from the Cerro Casale gold-copper porphyry property in northern Chile. The company owns a 51% interest in that project.

Expatriate Resources was up 95 cents, to close the report period at $2.45 on a volume of 181,800 shares. The issue gained 70 cents on Nov. 5 when Expatriate reported results from its wholly owned Ice property in the southeastern Yukon. Hole 34 intersected 20.56 metres grading 5.20% copper and 0.06% cobalt, plus 25.1 grams silver and 0.6 gram gold per tonne. The company said the results indicate the presence of volcanogenic massive sulphide mineralization. A week earlier, Expatriate reported that hole 13 had returned 10.31 metres grading 2.22% copper. Winter weather has ended drilling for this season, and results are still pending for the remaining 20 holes.

Colossal Resources was the biggest net gainer among resource companies, up $2.05 to end the report period at $8.60 on a volume of 81,800 shares. In late October, Colossal announced it had acquired a pilot hydrometallurgical processing plant to produce high-grade cobalt products. Colossal is installing and upgrading the plant on a leased site in Johannesburg, South Africa. The plant will be capable of treating granulated cobalt-rich alloy from the company’s recently commissioned KMPP slag processing plant near Kabwe, Zambia.

Mango Resources was another gainer, reaching a high of $2.50 before finishing the week at $2.05 on volume of 166,400, for a gain of 30 cents, or 17.5%, over the report period. The company reported preliminary sampling results from its joint-ventured Banyumas property in Indonesia, where local miners are panning the streams for placer gold. Chip samples returned values as high as 62.2 grams gold, channel samples as high as 21.7 grams gold and soil samples of 15.2 grams gold.

The project, in Central Java, is a joint venture with Hyder Gold and Harlan Betki. More exploration is planned.

Summex Mines rose $1.05 to close at $3.25 on a volume of 104,000 shares. The rise was so striking that on Oct. 31 Summex issued a press release, at the VSE’s request, stating it did not know what accounted for the increase. On Nov. 5, however, the company fired another volley in its ongoing legal battle with Farallon Resources over ownership of the Campo Morado and Alina concessions in southern Mexico. Summex accused one of its former directors and Farallon, which now holds the concessions, of “conspiring to commit fraud” in an effort to deprive Summex of its rightful ownership. Summex lost 30 cents in that day’s trading, while Farallon was off 55 cents to close at $14 — up 35 cents over the report period on a volume of 199,600 shares.

Meanwhile, European Garnet, which is busy extracting gold and garnet from its property in Italy’s Po River valley, went from 17 cents to a high of 26 cents at the end of Friday’s trading before falling back to 20 cents by the end of the report period, on a volume of 661,500 shares.