Gold stocks keenly sought

Press, 23 September 1980, Page 18

Gold stocks keenly sought

Gold issues resumed their spiral in otherwise sluggish trading on Australian sharemarkets yesterday as reports of continued fighting between Iran and Iraq pushed gold prices over the $7OO- - in Hong Kong.

Poseidon paced the leading gold miners with a 64c rise to a year’s high of 700 c, G.M.K. put on 60c to a year’s peak of $10.50, and Emperor added 55c to a year’s top of 460 c. Peko, which has reported a gold find at Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, proved one of the few big diversified miners to make

headway, with a 60c gain to a year’s best of $11.60. Queensland Mines, which reported a $7.2 million loss for the half year, closed unchanged at 850 c but several other heavyweight miners failed to hold up, in the absence of significant overseas cash. Western mining dropped 2c to 460 c. CRA eased 4c to 636 c, and MIM was steady] to 460 c. Woodside set the' tone in the generally weaker oil sector with a 5c drop to] 310 c. ■ Industrials were little; changed BHP managing only

a 5c gain to $15.85, and CSR improved 2c to 748 c. Special trading saw a line of 500,000 Woodside shares go through at 313 c a share. Among the few industrials to make progress was the optical group, OPSM, which finished 15c higher at 245 c in response to the announcement last week of a 16 per cent profit rise to $7.6 million for the year. ! There was also strong de■mand for the land developer, ] Transcontinental Projects, i which closed firm at 18c ■ after more than 600,000 shares changed hands.