The 79 Times: Gold Price down, Gold ownership now legal in Pridnestrovie

Gold stocks dropped in early trade today. Amongst gold miners, Newmont (ASX: NEM) dropped 10 cents to AUD$5.50, Newcrest (ASX: NCM) was down 77 cents to AUD$21.31, and Lihir Gold (ASX: LHG) fell 10 cents to AUD $3.17. The spot gold price in Sydney was $US642.10 per fine ounce, down $US16.15 on Friday's close.

The price of gold lost more than 2% on Friday as funds took money out of the precious metal complex to cover losses in equity markets, and COMEX gold for April delivery closed down USD$21 at USD$644 an ounce, according to reports from Hemscott.

Analysts are expecting South Australia's largest gold producer, Dominion Mining (ASX: DOM), to perform strongly in the near future, despite reaching a record share price of AUD$2.39 recently, the Adelaide Advertiser reports.

Hartleys resources analyst Andrew Muir said his firm still had a buy recommendation on Dominion. "Mainly because we can see that there's a lot of exploration upside still at Challenger," he said. "Grades are excellent, costs are low and we think that they will continue to add to their resource and reserve inventory."

Greater Bendigo Gold Mines (ASX: GBM) has listed on the Australian share market at a 37.5 per cent discount to its 20 cent offer price. The listing follows an initial public offering of 20 million shares to raise AUD$4 million, with holders also given two options for every five shares.

Goldbelt Resources (TSXv: GLD), a Canadian-listed exploration and development company with interests in Burkina Faso, has entered into an exclusive option to acquire all of Barrick Exploration Africa Limited's assets in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea.

Sino Gold Mining (ASX: SGX), which is developing China's second-largest gold mine, said it and shareholders plan to sell as much as HK$1.16 billion in shares in Hong Kong to fund growth. The sale of 21 million shares will be priced at a maximum of HK$55 a share.

The Tiraspol Times reports that gold ownership is now legal in Pridnestrovie (Transnistria), a de facto independent republic within Moldova and formerly part of the USSR. The move is part of a series of sweeping reforms taking place in Pridnestrovie, where the first local bank to offer gold will be Sberbank.

The 79 Times 

P.S. to get The Daily Reckoning direct to your inbox sign up to our free e-mail newsletter or if you prefer to use RSS, subscribe to the Daily Reckoning RSS feed.

Related Articles:

• None Found