Uranium stocks picked up from where they left off in 2006, with the ever-expanding band of yellowcake hopefuls up almost across the board.
While not releasing an announcement of any major substance between them, the uranium brigade stacked on the gains stemming from the positive sentiment generated by comments last week from Prime Minister John Howard. Howard has called on the state Labor governments to end their opposition to new uranium mines.
Among those uranium plays leading the way were Aura Energy, which gained 24c (54.5%) to 68c, recent listing Epsilon Energy (up 12c or 38.7% to 43c) and minnow Southern Cross Exploration (up 2.4c or 33.8% to 9.5c). Southern Cross holds a 5% stake in the Bigrlyi uranium find, which is owned by Energy Metals (up 50c or 13.9% to $4.10).
But the most spectacular run belonged to what appears to have become the speculative stock du jour, Goldsearch.
Readers who follow MiningNews.net and Final Call will remember that Goldstream was pushed into a trading halt early last week after posting a single day surge of 150%.
In its response to a subsequent Australian Stock Exchange price query, Goldstream revealed it had intersected broad zones of low-grade uranium during drilling at its Mary Kathleen project in Queensland. Its shares were subsequently marked down from 11.5c apiece to 8.5c.
However, the speculators were back with a vengeance today, as the company stacked on another 8.9c (92.7%) to close at 18.5c. Assays from the drilling program won't be back until late this month at the earliest, so punters will have to wait a couple of weeks to confirm if their suspicions are true.
Away from yellowcake, two emerging producers found themselves starting the new year in healthy fashion.
Avoca Resources and Allegiance Mining, both of whom expect to near production during the course of this year, put on solid gains.
For emerging nickel play Allegiance, which expects to start production at its Avebury deposit in Tasmania in the third quarter, the 8c (15.8%) gain to 58.5c took the company to its highest level in almost 10 years.
Avoca, meanwhile, having been named the brokers' pick of Western Australian stocks to watch in 2007 by the West Australian newspaper over the New Year break, gained 14.5c or 11.7% to $1.385, taking the company's market cap back beyond $200 million.
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ZNO Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
