September 11th NEX

In yesterday's NEX trading, the Barrel's Bottom Composite index closed at 87.49, up 2.80 points or 3.31% from the previous day's close of 84.69. This rise is one of the highest, percentage-wise, that the Barrel's Bottom Composite has experienced since its re-inception at the beginning of July: the last hour of trading saw the index jump up more than a point. Largely responsible for this leap was the stock of Maximum Ventures Inc. [NEX: MVI.H] more than doubling during the day. After not trading at all until about 1:53 PM, MVI.H shot up to close at 75 cents/share, up 41 cents/share from the previous day's close. As might be expected, there was a news release from Maximum that explains this upsurge: "Maximum litigant Western's Saddle licence is valid." The chair of the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority of Mongolia reassured foreign owners of suspended property-exploration licenses that they would be reinstated in a different category, provided that the companies who owned them re-apply and follow through on specified exploration committments rather than merely moving in on areas already (in some cases partially) explored by government workers. (In other words, the licenses - analogous to claims on properties in North America - cannot be sat on, or used to revitalize government-explored areas without spending further dollars on exploration in such properties.) The allaying of this uncertainty in the Mongolian mining sector for non-Mongolian companies propelled MVI.H upwards, as Maximum is suing Western Prospector Group Ltd. "and others for, among other things, ownership of all or a portion of the Saddle Hills uranium deposit located in Mongolia." That statement from the Mongolian chair removed a major part of the risk of Maximum winning a Pyrrhic victory through winning the lawsuit, as Western had announced as of Aug. 20th that its license for that Mongolian property, "covering part of the Gurvanbulag uranium deposit at the Saddle Hills project in Mongolia," had been cancelled. The release in question was disseminated by Canjex Publishing as of 2:41 PM ET, and by Marketwire as of 2:46 PM ET. As noted above, MVI.H started trading at about 1:53 PM. The last trade made before the release of the news was for 7500 shares at 50 cents/share, up 16 cents from the previous close as of last Friday. The release of the announcement propelled the stock up another 25 cents/share by the time trading had closed. MVI.H had reached its 52-week low of 20.5 cents/share as of Aug. 22nd; it's still far below its 52-week high of $1.40/share, reached on January 17th.

Maximum wasn't the only NEX stock that surged up yesterday. Other gainers of note were Rocher Deboule Minerals Corp. [NEX: RD.H], which closed at 52 cents/share for a gain of 9 cents/share. Network Exploration Ltd. class 'A' [NEX: NET.H] also posted a solid day's gain, of 4 cents/share, to close at 21 cents/share. These three stocks, but most particularly MVI.H, explain the paradoxical combination of a huge gain in the BBC Index with declines outnumbering advances by a two-to-one margin. 6 stocks posted declines of more than 10% yesterday.

Here are the values for the Barrel's Bottom Composite for the NEX, hour by hour:

• 10 AM: 84.33
• 11 AM: 85.33
• 12 PM: 85.36
• 1 PM: 85.36 [only minisculely lower than 12 PM's value.]
• 2 PM: 86.02
• 3 PM: 86.07
• 4 PM/Close: 87.49

Thirty-eight NEX stocks traded yesterday. Of these, 7 advanced, 14 declined and 17 remained unchanged. There were 159 trades. The top trader in terms of raw volume was the above-mentioned Rocher Deboule, which rocketed back yesterday from Monday's plunge. The other Barrel's Bottom report and the TSX Venture closing summary for yesterday show Rocher also taking the top spot in terms of value of shares traded, as it did on Monday. It placed #6 on the top-ten list of volume traded divided by total shares outstanding, found below.

One NEX company was mentioned in yesterday's TSX Venture Exchange Daily Bulletins: International X-Chequer Resources Inc. [NEX: IXR.H], which secured a private placement of 3,415,466 units at 30 cents/unit. Each unit consists of one share and a warrant to purchase a share at an exercise price of 40 cents/share for a period of one year. In addition, X-Chequer has purchased an option to buy some claims in the Maroon Mountain area, Skeena Mining Division, in the Province of British Columbia: Maroon Claim #1 and Claims 1 to 4. Also mentioned in the X-Chequer bulletin is the company's qualification for a listing on Tier 2 of the Venture Exchange, starting today. As of the opening of trading, IXR.H is gone from the NEX. Its final day of trading on the NEX Board saw it close at 72 cents, unchanged from last Monday's close. The two trades in it were both odd-lot sized, so they didn't affect the official closing price. Those two trades, of 50 and 41 shares each, were both made at 57 cents/share.

Other than the Maximum release, there were no releases picked up by Marketwire from NEX companies yesterday. Two were the subjects of other releases distributed by Canjex, though. The first, from Network Exploration Ltd. [NEX: NET.H], announced exchange approval of a private placement of 4,297,000 units at a price of 20 cents/unit. Each unit contains one common share and one warrant, good for the purchase of a common share, for 25 cents with a life of one year. This approval is part of the process of Network moving to Tier 2 of the Venture, which is expected to take place next week. NET.H closed at 21 cents/share, up 4 cents since Monday's close. The second release, from Citadel Gold Mines Inc. [NEX.CGM.H], announced the appointment of Randy Korell to its board of directors. CGM.H didn't trade yesterday; its most recent close, as of Sept. 6th, was at 8 cents/share.

Three NEX stocks traded more than ten times yesterday; two of them were mentioned in the BBCI section above. The most numerous was Rocher Deboule, with 21 trades yesterday. The first trade was an odd-lot-sized one of 400 shares at 47 cents/share; all twenty others were above 50 cents/share. By about 10:30 AM ET, RD.H had leapt up to 55 cents/share, and reached the high for the day three minutes later. From that level, it sunk to 50 cents/share, reached at about 11:12 AM ET, and then climbed back up (with the exception of another odd-lot trade as of 12:27 PM ET.) The earlier exuberance did not return, though, despite the trade rate picking up in the last hour and a half of trading. As mentioned above, RD.H closed at 52 cents/share.

The second-most numerous trader, Maximum Ventures, had a much more unambiguous rise. Starting from 45 cents/share as of 1:53 PM ET, it kept climbing and almost never looked back. Only one of the 18 trades in it yesterday went for a lower price than the previous one; all the others were either the at the same or a higher price than the previous trade. As mentioned above, MVI.H closed at 75 cents/share. Perhaps surprisingly, Maximum didn't place on the top-ten daily-turnover list, found below.

Third in the most-numerous-trades category was another riser that was mentioned above: Network Exploration. NET.H traded 12 times yesterday; the last of those trades was for 10,000 shares at 21 cents/share. This trade was part of a three-trade block of 40,500 shares, almost half the day's volume. The component trades all took place at the same time and all had Jennings as the buy-side financial instutution.

The top percentage gainer in yesterday's trading was, unsurprisingly, Maximum Ventures. MVI.H gained 120.6% on the day.

The top percentage decliner for yesterday was Exchequer Resource Corp [NEX: EXQ.H], which closed at 14 cents/share for a loss of 7 cents/share or 33.33%. There were only two trades in EXQ.H yesterday, one for an odd-lot size; it hadn't traded for almost a month previous to yesterday. Its close, however, did set a new 52-week low for the stock.

And finally, that above-mentioned list of yesterday's top ten traders, as measured by % of total outstanding shares, or daily turnover:

1. Rose Marie Resources Ltd. [NEX: RSR.H] - 1.96% of total shares outstanding;
2. Alpha Group Industries Inc. [NEX: ALP.H] - 1.75% of TSO;
3. Magnate Ventures Inc. [NEX: MGV.H] - 1.04%;
4. MP Western Properties Inc. [NEX: MPW.H] - 0.877%;
5. Arcland Resources Inc. [NEX: ADR.H] - 0.857%;
6. Rocher Deboule Minerals Corp. [NEX: RD.H] - 0.640%;
7. Network Exploration Ltd. class 'A' [NEX: NET.H] - 0.602%;
8. Emergence Resort Canada Inc. [NEX: ERS.H] - 0.473%;
9. Avigo Resources Corp. [NEX: TMX.H] - 0.456%;
10. BHR Buffalo Head Resources Ltd. [NEX: BHR.H] - 0.445%.

NOTE: I am not affiliated with the TSX, nor is this blog. The Barrel's Bottom Composite index is not endorsed by the TSX.

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