There Was No Fooling On April 1 – The Market Is Up. Can It Continue?
Canadian Stock Exchanges –E. A. Schiller

As spring was springing the market took on an upbeat mode with metal prices firming nicely.  On April Fools ’ Day precious metals seemed destined to seek higher levels with gold at $1,127.00, silver at $17.95., platinum at $1,673.00 and palladium at $495.00.  Copper fared the best exceeding $3.50 a pound and in doing so allowed Teck Resources Limited (TCK Cl ‘B’ SV-TSX) to be the leader in terms of price at $45.40 and soon to be a copper producer Copper Mountain Mining Corporation (CUM-TSX) at Princeton, British Columbia.  In early 2009 Teck was under 4 dollars and Copper Mountain was 45 cents.  Teck with copper and lead/zinc mines is a major producer of metallurgical coal from operations at Fernie, in south eastern BC.  Met coal prices are now crowding $200 a tonne thanks to steel demands from China and Japan. Nickel looked good at $11.35 a pound and uranium continued to sneak upward in late March to $42.00 a pound. 
The Prospectors and Developers in Toronto was another rousing success with well over 20,000 attendees.  Several show stoppers were evident but the one that caught my eye was Northern Tiger Resources Inc (NTR-TSX-V).  They displayed a hunk of gold in quartz from their 3 Ace property that was outstanding.  The sample would assay in the several hundred ounces per tonne range.  The property is adjacent to the Nahanni Range Road 200 km north of Watson Lake in south eastern Yukon, near the Yukon-Northwest Territory border.  The gold-bearing vein is up to two meters in width and traceable on surface over about 500 meters by way of gold-in-soil anomalies and other  gold-quartz outcrops.  Northern Tiger stock trades in the 11-12 cent range up from 7 cents earlier this year.  Pending the signing of definitive option agreement and regulatory approval, summer exploration program is planned.
Moving to the east, Alto Ventures Ltd (ATV-TSX-V) reported encouraging drill results from their East Coldstream property west of Thunder Bay, Ontario.  Hole C-10-15 intersected 4.88 g/t Au over 27.3 meters including 13.55 g/t over 3.0 meters and hole C-10-14 intersected 10 g/t Au over 3.65 meters including 11.80 g/t Au over 1.20 meters.  The property has historically reported resources of 5.1 million tonnes grading 1.4 g/t Au.  The project is partnered with Foundation Resources Ltd. (FDN-TSX-V) that trades around 50 cents.  In addition Alto has advanced gold exploration projects at Oxford Lake, Manitoba, Beardmore-Geralton, Ontario and Destiny, Quebec.
As the price of oil rose in late March to over eighty four dollars a barrel it triggered favorability to oil stocks especially Fort McMurray oil sands companies.  Canadian Oil Sands Trust (COS-TSX) and Keyera Facilities Fund Trust Unit (KEY-TSX) strengthened to $32.00 and $27.00 respectively up nicely a couple of dollars in the week.  The new kid on the block Athabasca Oil Sands Corp. successfully raised $1.35 billion in an IPO that will see the company become the next builder of a new oil sands operation and soon to become a TSX trader.  The issue was easily sold at $18.00 a share.  60% of the Athabasca IPO was taken down by Petro China, and recently Sinopec (China Petroleum & Chemical Corp) took a 50% interest in Total’s Northern Lights project.  Other Chinese participation in oil sands projects has been reported and it appears others could come forth.  If you are looking at an entrance to the oil sands,  Alberta Oil Sands Ltd (AOS-TSX-V) at 43 cents is gearing up to advance its Clearwater Project.  The project comprises 147 sections and is estimated to have 5 billion barrels in place.  An application to proceed with a SAGD operation has been submitted to the Alberta government earlier this year.
While we are the subject of energy one has to look into uranium and check out what opportunities exists.  Uranium prices are inching up weekly, admittedly in small amounts but demonstrating the expected demand for the fuel in the future.  On April 2, uranium was quoted at $42.00 a pound and appears to be forming a base pointing upwards in price.  Take your pick of the many Saskatchewan uranium explorers.  Standing out in front of the line is Hathor Exploration Limited (HAT-TSX-V) with partner Terra Ventures Inc (TAS-TSX-V) and their Roughrider project.  Recent drilling has encountered some pretty impressive intersections of high grade uranium.  HAT trades at about $2.00 and TAS at 44 cents.  Other uranium explorers in the prolific Athabascan Basin of northern Saskatchewan are Denison Mines Corp., (DML-TSX-V), UEX Exploration (UEX-TSX-V), Pitchstone Exploration Ltd (PXP-TSX-V) and Forum Uranium Corp (FDC-TSX-V).  Given the results achieved by all the above companies and with aggressive exploration programs under way by all of them a basket of these stocks could reap a profitable harvest.