The S&P-ASX 200 dipped 1.16% to end the day at 5587.3.
After slipping through the $900/oz benchmark, gold clawed back to close in New York at $903.60.
Australian gold plays followed the commodity’s downward spiral, with most of the majors dipping.
Newcrest continued its slide today, losing a further A94c, 3%, to end at $30.40, while Lihir fell 3.45%, or 11c, to $3.08.
Papua New Guinea-focused Allied Gold was one of the few to evade the hit taken by fellow gold plays, rallying 4c (5%) to a late afternoon high of 75c, before cooling to 74c.
Allied reported it had discovered a new zone of mineralisation at its flagship Simberi gold project in PNG. Better intersections were 6m at 3.52 grams per tonne gold from 5m and 13m at 2.2gpt gold from 15m.
Gold was last selling at $US904.15 in late afternoon trade.
Today the big two, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, were again trading verbal blows.
Last year, the world’s largest miner BHP approached Australian iron ore giant Rio with a takeover offer, but was sent packing when Rio claimed BHP’s 3.4:1 scrip offer undervalued the iron ore giant.
However, yesterday BHP’s quarter production report saw a 1% quarter-on-quarter increase in iron ore output, while Rio’s quarterly last week reported a 6% iron production slide on the preceding December quarter.
Both gave away some of yesterday’s gains, with BHP slipping A20c, 0.44%, to end the day at $44.90. Rio shed 59c, 0.4%, to finish at $146.60.
Media reports overnight had BHP chief executive Marius Kloppers fuelling the fight with declarations to the Financial Times such as: “On every metric I can envisage they [Rio] have been beaten. They have missed the boat on China, they are missing the boat on energy.”
Kloppers told the Financial Times “It must be terrible [for them] that every quarter, BHP outperforms, and that has been the case for seven years.”
Not about to let Kloppers’ remarks slide, Rio Tinto Iron Ore managing director Sam Walsh told Dow Jones Newswires that while BHP had strong iron figures in its March quarter, Rio had in fact consistently outperformed BHP.
Meanwhile, the majority of base metals including copper, lead, zinc and nickel slid on the London Metal Exchange overnight.
However, it wasn’t all negative territory for base metals on the LME, after tin gained a record high overnight, with the spot price soaring 7.15%, or $US1610 per tonne to $24,125/t.
Low stocks and Indonesia’s supply problems drove the rising tin price.
Emerging tin play Stellar Resources had a good session on the Australian bourse today, aided by record tin prices. The Melbourne-based company ended the day at 16.5c, up 10%, or 1.5c, and tin-focused Metals X rose 1.5c (3.75%) to 41.5c.
Spot copper dipped 1.5% to $US86670/t, closely followed by spot lead which slipped 1.27% to $2790/t. Zinc shed $28.25/t to $2207.5, while spot nickel lost $204/t to $28,530.
On an otherwise so-so day, iron hopeful Warwick Resources stock rose more than 17.5% or 7c to 47c in intra-day trade on wide, shallow, high-grade intersections at its wholly-owned Jimblebar Range project in Western Australia’s Pilbara.
The junior reported a best intersection of 60m at 60.5% iron from 6m.
Warwick concluded the day at 41.5c, up 1.5c or 3.75%.
