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Gold/Mining/Energy : KERM'S KORNER -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Herb Duncan who wrote (8211)	12/31/1997 10:26:00 AM
From: Crocodile	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15196

MARKET ACTIVITY/TRADING NOTES FOR DAY ENDING DECEMBER 30, 1997 (1) Market Activity The Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite index rose 41.25 points, or 0.6%, to 6691.21. About 58.1 million shares changed hands, compared with 59.5 million on Monday. ÿ Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM/TSE) rose 85› to $45.05 and Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS/TSE) rose $1.15 to $66.75. Seagram Co. Ltd. (VO/TSE) jumped $1.30 to $45.90. ÿ "There's a lot of money floating around, but it's frightened money," said Sal Masionis, a trader at Brant Securities Ltd. "Investors are looking for the liquidity to get out if there's a correction." ÿ Bank and industrial-related stocks offer the most liquidity because of the large number of shares outstanding available for investors to trade. The financial services group, which accounts for 22% of the TSE 300, rose as concern of interest rates rising this week dissipated. ÿ Bank of Montreal (BMO/TSE) jumped 80› to $63.50 and Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD/TSE) climbed 25› to $53.90. Power Financial Corp. (PWF/TSE) rose 75› to $50.25. Mackenzie Financial Corp. (MKF/TSE) rose 50› to $18.50. ÿ Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Ltd. (POT/TSE) rose 55› to $118.35 and Linamar Corp. (LNR/TSE) jumped $3.55 to $81. ÿ Gold stocks recovered even though the price of bullion slid US79› to US$290.90 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold stocks account for 5.3% of the TSE 300 index. Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX/TSE) rose 45› to $27.30, Placer Dome Inc. (PDG/TSE) advanced 75› to $18.25 and TVX Gold Inc. (TVX/TSE) climbed 15› to $4.65. ÿ Oil stocks rose on expectations the American Petroleum Institute will report that U.S. refiners processed less crude oil last week. Dreco Energy Services Ltd. (Dey/TSE), a supplier of equipment to oil producers, jumped $2 to $46. Berkley Petroleum Corp. (BKP/TSE) rose 15› to $14.45. ÿ Other major Canadian markets closed higher. The Montreal Exchange portfolio rose 13.58 points, or 0.4%, to 3411.9. The Vancouver Stock Exchange index rose 5.65 points, or 0.9%, to 610.31. ÿ The major overseas markets closed mixed. ÿ London: Britain's leading share index ended mildly up. The FT-SE 100 index closed at 5132.3, up 19.9 points or 0.4%. ÿ Frankfurt: German shares drifted lower on the final trading day of 1997, amid modest profit-taking. The Dax index closed at 4249.69, up 52.32 points or 1.3%. ÿ Tokyo: Japanese stocks swept higher in thin pre-holiday trade. The 225-share Nikkei average closed at 15,258.74, up 483.52 points or 3.3%. ÿ Hong Kong: Hong Kong stocks closed sharply higher, lifted by bottom fishing in the property sector, a late rally in red chips and the prospect of Wall Street ending 1997 on a positive note. The Hang Seng index closed at 10,755.21, up 252.22 points or 2.4%. ÿ Sydney: The Australian share market ended higher, inspired by a U.S. rally and healthier looking Asian markets. The all ordinaries index closed at 2601.4, up 25.1 points or 1%. ************************************************************* FINANCIAL POST - HOT STOCKS COLUMN HURRICANE HYDROCARBONS LTD. (HHLa/TSE), up 30› to $10.75, on volume of 654,064 shares. Somewhere beneath the rolling hills of Kazakhstan there is oil, and the folks at Hurricane Hydrocarbons know how to get it out profitably. The stock has climbed almost $2 in the past two weeks after analysts Barry Sahgal and Brian Miloski, of Ladenburg Thalmann & Co., issued a "buy" recommendation. DENBURY RESOURCES INC. (DNR/TSE), up 95› to $27, on volume of 352,700 shares. Dallas-based Denbury today moves from the Toronto Stock Exchange 200 index to the TSE 300, replacing Jordan Petroleum Ltd. Denbury is involved in the acquisition, development and production of oil and gas in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. MDSI - MOBILE DATA SOLUTIONS INC. (MMD/TSE), up $3.95 to $26.95, on volume of 2,900 shares. Based in Richmond, B.C., MDSI sells application software and services to clients in the general area of field service, maintenance and repair for the wireless data markets. AMERICAN ECO CORP. (ECX/TSE), up $1.75 to $15, on volume of 5,250 shares. The Toronto-based construction and engineering services firm was awarded a $5.5-million contract to build pipe for Suncor Energy's oil sands project in Fort McMurray, Alta. ST. LAURENT PAPERBOARD INC. (SPI/TSE), up 75› to $18.25, on volume of 121,600 shares. Montreal-based St. Laurent specializes in the manufacture of value-added paperboard products at plants in Quebec and Ontario. AIM SAFETY CO. LTD. (AIM/TSE), up $1.70 to $16.50, on volume of 37,850 shares. The company is in the business of developing, manufacturing and marketing gas-detection devices. In November it acquired B.C.-based Link Technologies. WESTERN COPPER HOLDINGS INC. (WTC/TSE), up 55› to $5.55, on volume of 711,424 shares. The Vancouver-based company named Dale Cornman as chairman and chief executive and Thomas Patton as president and chief operating officer. *********************************************************** OTHER COMPANIES IN THE NEWS ÿ ULTRA PETROLEUM (UP:VSE) closed up 5› yesterday at $6.05.ÿA Canadian junior energy company is embroiled in a heated - and aromatic - battle with a Texas retirement town over its handling of an oil well with a high content of hydrogen sulphide. The Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the state's oil and gas industry, is expected to decide early next month whether to fine Vancouver-based Ultra Petroleum Corp. for failing to comply with state regulations in its handling of the flammable, poisonous gas that smells like rotten eggs. The commission held safety hearings after the small community of Tool - about 100 kilometres southeast of Dallas - filed a protest. COGNOS (CSN/TSE) Ottawa software company Cognos Inc. has been hit with a class action lawsuit claiming insiders at the company kept Cognos's stock high last summer by issuing misleading statements while selling shares of their own at a profit.ÿCognos's stock fell $1 after a press release about the lawsuit was issued yesterday, before closing at $31 in Toronto, down 50›, and (cognf/nasdaq) at US$21 5/8 in New York, down 3/16. The class action complaint, brought for all Cognos investors who bought shares between June 3 and Sept. 25, 1997, was filed two weeks ago in U.S. District Court in New York. ************************************************************* cont'd part 2

To: Herb Duncan who wrote (8211)	12/31/1997 10:38:00 AM
From: Crocodile	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 15196

MARKET ACTIVITY/TRADING NOTES FOR DAY ENDING TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1997 (2) INSIDE THE MARKET Santa Claus rally may be short lived By PATRICK BLOOMFIELD Santa Claus is now dropping off his goodies in North American stock markets. He may even stay around for a while. But, if you care to hear what might happen next: * The grinch will steal North American stock markets all over again; * Bonds will continue to give a better bang for the buck than stocks; * Investors will need to adjust to a whole new investment climate. ÿ Forget the squeaks of concern over the purportedly inflationary pace of the U.S. economy. The name of the game in the year ahead, and probably for some years longer, will be disinflation - the final slaying of the inflationary dragon that has long governed our behavior. ÿ You could even use that nine-letter word called deflation, being declining, rather than rising, prices for many of the manufactured goods we buy, influenced by an inflow of cheap merchandise from Asia. That means the manufacturers who make those same goods on this subcontinent will have to chop their profit margins some more and investors will have to lower the profit expectations they have already built into current stock prices - a process usually achieved either by lowering stock prices or keeping them where they are until profits catch up again. That is the bad news for stockholders. ÿ The good news from the annual look-ahead special issue from the people who put out the Montreal-based Bank Credit Analyst group of financia publications, is that a long, long bear market is unlikely. In time, stock markets could well achieve new peaks. ÿ I am well aware that I have quoted BCA editor-in-chief Anthony Boeckh and his colleagues more frequently in the year past than any other group of commentators. I have done so with the excellent justification that they have been right more often than wrong. They were among the early birds to talk about the "long wave" in our economies, which they define as technology-led upturn in productivity and sound macro-economic policies. Hence their conviction that, given an absence of future policy blunders, the long upwave in stock prices should still have some way to go. ÿ More to the point, they grasped the significance of the Asian turmoil from the beginning, advising what has since proved a profitable shift from stocks to bonds. ÿAnd, for many months now, they have been stressing that Wall Street stock-prices already discounted the potential benefits of that above-mentioned long wave. ÿRight now they foresee a period of increasingly tough competitive pricing "as a flood of cheap Asian goods hits world markets," leading to "mediocre" stock-market returns over the year ahead, especially relative to bonds. If they are right, why the current cool talk that the worst of the financial turmoil is past? ÿThe answer is that those who give such comforting words are interpreting the crisis as a temporary loss of investor confidence - without significant economic fallout. Once the International Monetary Fund has restored confidence, all will be hunky-dory again. ÿ Boeckh and Co. differ in that, from the beginning, they regarded the Asian turmoil as confirmation of their concern that a glut of excess manufacturing capacity has been building in that part of the world. ÿThey talk of spillover effects on major national economies, especially Japan. While cheaper Asian imports will boost consumer spending power in those economies, that effect will be dominated by weaker export growth. In sum, they can envisage global economic growth slowing next year, from around 4% to, maybe, 2.5%. ÿTo put that forecast decline in perspective, the 1990-91 global slowdown (the starting point of the tough times of the early 1990s) was from around 4% to 2%. That, of course, would be bad news for employment levels and good news for bond holders. ÿ More than that, it could trigger an uncoupling of bond and stock markets that was already foreshadowed in the stock-price declines of August and September. ÿAs for those of us sliding our way through northern snowstorms, the BCA view is that the Asian shock is likely to chop at least half-a-percentage point from our Canadian gross domestic product growth, both directly and through lower commodity prices. (The U.S. market, which absorbs 80% of our exports, will also slow.) Boeckh and his colleagues are talking of the likelihood of 3% growth in 1998.ÿEven at that level we could be the only major economy to grow above trend. *************************************************************** END