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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lucretius who wrote (37358)	7/19/1999 5:43:00 PM
From: Goldbug Guru	Respond to of 116770

Sunday July 18, 1:02 pm Eastern Time Bay Street Beat: Forest stocks show solid growth By Sarah Edmonds TORONTO, July 18 (Reuters) - The buzz for the past few weeks has been almost exclusively about interest rates but stock investors last week dragged themselves away from dry bond yields andfound nectar in Canada's sought-after forests. Forestry shares handily outperformed the broader Toronto stock market on renewed speculation about the next possible coupling following the courtship of MacMillan Bloedel Ltd. (Toronto:MB.TO - news) and the takeover battle shaping up for Montreal-based Groupe Forex Inc. (Montreal:FOXa.M - news) ''In Canada we have seen some very good momentum, especially in forestry shares, the pulp and paper shares,'' said Robert Normand, chief economist and strategist at Levesque Beaubien. ''In the U.S., the housing market is booming. Prices are rising very rapidly for (forest products). There is a lot of appeal to that sector. It's still not very expensive. There is right now still a lot of good momentum to that sector.'' In the past week, the paper and forest products group advanced 214.51 points, or 4.3 percent, against a gain in the Toronto Stock Exchange bellwether TSE 300 Composite Index for the week of 87.41 points, or 1.2 percent. As the prices of lumber and forest products have picked up, so to has the pace of mergers and acquisitions in the industry. Weyerhaeuser Co.'s (NYSE:WY - news) surprise agreement to engulf Vancouver-based MacMillan Bloedel has fueled intense speculation over the next firm to fall to a U.S. buyer. ''Clearly it's open season, it's hunt season right now for companies, particularly foreign companies, American companies with their C$1.48 (dollar) being able to buy Canadian companies at a big discount ... They are already trading at low prices given that the industry has been so bashed around,'' Irwin Michael, fund manager at ABC Funds, said. There may be more energy left for the group, Michael said, particularly if forestry and paper company earnings slated to spill out over the next few weeks turn out to be exceptionally strong. Cyclicals generally, with the exception of battered gold, are looking more favorable. And the overall mood of the Canadian market remains buoyant, underpinned by last week's release of tame inflation data out of the United States and Canada.