September 7th NEX

In Friday's NEX trading, the Barrel's Bottom Composite index closed at 85.18, down 0.45 points or 0.526% from the previous day's close of 85.63. The down day that was, was signalled by 10 AM ET. Of the seven NEX issues that had traded before that time, none were up since Thursdays's close: three were down and four were unchanged. The slump continued all morning, effectively ending at about noon. From that point, the BBC Index churned until the end of trading to close at 85.18.

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

• 10 AM: 85.51
• 11 AM: 85.23
• 12 PM: 85.20
• 1 PM: 85.08
• 2 PM: 85.15
• 3 PM: 85.21
• 4 PM/Close: 85.18

Twenty-six NEX stocks traded Friday. Of these, 4 advanced, 10 declined and 12 remained unchanged. There were 129 trades. The top trader in terms of raw volume was Magnate Ventures Inc. [NEX: MGV.H]: 210,000 shares of Magnate traded on Friday. Trading was brisk in MGV.H.; unlike the #1s for the other trading days of the week, no huge trade in Magnate caused it to get in the top spot. The TSX Venture closing summary for Friday show Magnate also in the #1 spot for issues in terms of value traded. The #2 place in both categories was taken by Rose Marie Resources Ltd. [NEX: RSR.H], which was much closer to #1 than was the case for the runners-up in earlier trading days during the week. Magnate placed at #1 on the Top Ten list of share volume as a percentage of total (free-trading) shares outstanding, found at the bottom of this entry.

There was one NEX company mentioned in the TSX Venture Exchange Daily Bulletins for last Friday, which got its mention because it's leaving the NEX. Garnet Point Resources Corp. [NEX: GRC.H] has qualified for a Venture Tier 2 listing, so it's going to trade on the Venture starting Monday. According to two releases from Canjex Publishing (courtesy of Stockwatch,) Garnet Point is busy with a new project. It has secured financing in a private placement comprising 2,234,600 non-flow-through shares sold at 25 cents/share, and 2,769,167 flow-through shares sold at 30 cents/share, along with 2,501,883 warrants to purchase more shares, at 35 cents/share for non-flow-throughs, and 45 cents/share for flow-throughs with a two-year life. According to the press release announcing the placement, 17 hidden placees got the shares and warrants. It also notes that (among other incentive payments) the financial institution involved in the deal, PI Financial, got 130,933 non-flow-through shares and 409,166 purchase warrants at a strike price of 35 cents/share with an 18-month lifespan along with a $53,940 cash payment. The second announcement concerns Garnet Point's acquisition of an option to purchase up to 100% of Rossing properties claims in British Columbia. This option cost Garnet $120,000 (of which $60,000 has to be paid within a year,) and 1.2 million shares (of which 600,000 have to be transferred in the first year) to the three vendors of the claims over a three-year period. This earlier press release, issued August 13th, specifies that Garnet is looking for uranium, molybdenite and fluorite on the Rossing properties (and mentions two of the three vendors by name.) GRC.H didn't trade Friday; its last close was at 22.5 cents/share as of last Thursday, a price considerably below the strike prices of the warrants.

Two other NEX companies were the subjects of other Canjex releases Friday. The first, from Becker Gold Mines Ltd. [NEX: BGD.H], announced an upcoming 2-for-1 consolidation (or reverse split) as authorized by the annual meeting on June 28th. It also announced that one of the directors, John Berezowecki, was not re-elected to the board. Gary Freeman has taken his place. The second, from 222 Pizza Express Corp. [NEX: PIZ.H], announced the filing of the Management Discussion and Analysis of 222 Pizza's results for the second quarter of 2007. [It's in a PDF file.] Essentially, the M D & A says that the company has had no revenue this quarter, a small amount of continuing expenditures, and $684,192 in current liabilities which are largely the result of due or overdue debt. The company's assets are valued at $6,967. $322,282 is owed to related parties. $57,779 is owed to Simon Tan, who expects to be repaid if any new financing comes through. 222 Pizza lost $19,170 this quarter, or 1 cent/share; as indicated above, it earned no revenue. The M D & A also says that no business activity had been initiated, so no revenue is expected. At the end, it discloses that OSC fees owed, a necessity for PIZ.H shares to trade on the NEX, were paid for by borrowing from the same related party that is owed the $322 thousand - specifically in the case of that loan, from a family business owned by President and director Sarbjeet Mandair. The other related party debts are owed to Mr. Mandair himself, his family, or businesses in which he has a disclosable interest. The M D & A specifies in addition that the creditors haven't sent the bill collectors to 222 Pizza's door in the last quarter.

Three NEX stocks traded more than ten times on Friday. The most numerous trader was Isee3d Inc. [NEX: ICT.H], with 31 trades on Friday. All but one of those trades were less than five-figures in terms of volume, and 13 of them were less than a board lot (500 shares) in size. As a result, ICT.H only traded 38,500 shares on Friday. Its price shot up to 37 cents/share by 3:37 PM ET, which was the same price at which the last board lot traded. Two subsequent odd-lot trades were at considerably lower prices: 133 and 83 shares at 27 cents/share. The last board-lot price counts as the closing price, though, so Isee3d closed at 37 cents/share, up 6 cents from Thursday's close. Isee3d took the #6 spot on the top-ten daily-turnover list, found below.

The second-most numerous trader was the above-mentioned Magnate Ventures, with 15 trades. After opening at 28 cents/share as of about 11:20 AM ET, MGV.H quickly sunk to 25 cents/share, where it stayed until the eleventh trade at about 1:46 PM ET. That trade bumped the price up to 26 cents/share, but the stock quickly sunk back to that same 25 cents/share, its closing price. MGV.H was down 5 cents/share from its previous close. (Given that Magnate has gotten on the top of the volume lists last Wednesday thanks to a monster trade at 30 cents/share, Friday's drop doesn't look very encouraging. Magnate's 52-week low is 24 cents/share; its 52-week high, reached on February 19th, is 71 cents/share.)

Third and last in the more-than-10-trades category, with 12 on Friday, was Rose Marie Resources Ltd. [NEX: RSR.H], the holder of the #2 spot in terms of raw volume and value for Friday. After opening at 14.5 cents/share, a cent below RSR.H's closing price on Thursday, Rose Marie slowly declined to 13.5 cents/share, reached at about 1:37 PM ET. There were two more trades above that price in the last hour of trading, but any nascent recovery in RSR.H didn't hold up. The last two trades of the day were at 13.5 cents/share, its closing price. RSR.H was down 2 cents/share from Thursday's close. RSR.H also was the runner-up on the top-ten daily-turnover list, found below.

The top percentage gainer in last Friday's trading was the above-mentioned Isee3d, which gained 6 cents/share, or 19.36% on the day.

The top percentage decliner for Friday was Tri-River Ventures Inc. [NEX: TVR.H], which closed at 21 cents/share for a loss of 6 cents/share or 22.22%. TVR.H traded four times yesterday, and two of those trades were for 10,000 shares each; the others had four-figure volumes. The stock opened at 22 cents/share and slid down to 21 cents/share on the fourth and final trade of the day after two others were made at 21.5 cents/share. All four trades had "Anonymous" as the sell-side institution, and they were made within eight minutes of each other, suggesting that the entire daily volume of 30,000 shares was a single gotten-rid-of block. Tri-River took the #7 spot on the top-ten daily-turnover list.

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

1. Magnate Ventures Inc. [NEX: MGV.H] - 9.71% of total shares outstanding;
2. Rose Marie Resources Ltd. [NEX: RSR.H] - 5.06% of TSO;
3. MP Western Properties Inc. [NEX: MPW.H] - 1.30%;
4. Arcland Resources Inc. [NEX: ADR.H] - 0.781%;
5. Avigo Resources Corp. [NEX: TMX.H] - 0.768%;
6. Isee3d Inc. [NEX: ICT.H] - 0.553%;
7. Tri-River Ventures Inc. [NEX: TVR.H] - 0.505%;
8. Network Exploration Ltd. class 'A' [NEX: NET.H] - 0.345%;
9. Focus Ventures Ltd. [NEX: FCV.H] - 0.293%.
10. Abitibi Mining Corp. [NEX: ABB.H] - 0.213%;

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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