Radioactive Bull

On Toronto's Stock Exchange, center of the wildest speculation since Wall Street's 1929 spree, the big play had been in oil--until oil stocks tumbled three months ago. Last week a bigger play was on. This time the magic word was uranium, and the new speculative frenzy was once again luring American capital scared out by the drop in oil shares.

What set off the new spree were almost simultaneous reports last month of a big uranium strike on Lake Athabasca, in Northern Saskatchewan, and a base metals discovery in New Brunswick. The uranium strike was made by veteran Promoter Gilbert Labine, who developed Canada's first uranium mine, the Eldorado, only to have it taken over by the government. The first news of Labine's find sent the stock of his Gunnar Gold Mines Ltd., owner of the claims, from 23-c- a share to $4 (TIME, Feb. 9). Since then it has tripled again, to a high of $13.50.

News of another uranium strike and the hope of more brought dozens of "penny" mining stocks into the play. For example, Gunnar Gold's neighbor, Chimo Gold Mines Ltd., climbed from 82-c- to $3, and New Larder U-Mines from 12 3/4-c- to $2.82. Uranium, more popular with speculators than base metals, helped ring up the biggest trading day--12,380,000 shares--in Toronto's history last fortnight, and last week set another turnover record when 627 issues out of 1,020 listed were traded. Said the Exchange's Statistician Scott Rattray: "Uranium is going to be a major industry in Canada."

But the uranium play was as risky as oil. Canada's market is technically watched over by a securities commission, but there are few barriers to pools and manipulations of the old 1929 variety. In fact, there is suspicion that some of Wall Street's 1929 professionals are running Toronto pools. A fortnight ago, when Inspiration Mining reported the latest uranium find near North Bay, Ont., its stock shot from 48-c- to $5--about a 950% rise. Last week the stock, a bit less inspired, tumbled back to $2.45, leaving many a latecomer with a big loss.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.