5 Top TSX Stocks: Katanga Mining Posts 32.35-percent Gain

The S&P/TSX Composite index (INDEXTSI:OSPTX) gained for a fourth straight session on Friday, closing the week at 14,468.73 points after rising 0.6 percent. However, according to Reuters, the index declined by 0.6 percent overall for July. It’s now closed down for three months in a row.
Katanga Mining (TSX:KAT) was the top gainer, and it was followed by Western Potash (TSX:WPX), Teranga Gold (TSX:TGZ,TSX:TGZ), Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN) and Lithium Americas (TSX:LAC). Here’s a look at what moved the share prices of those companies last week.

Katanga Mining

Katanga operates a large-scale copper–cobalt mine complex in the Democratic Republic of the Congo via two joint ventures. The company’s share price rose an impressive 32.35 percent last week to close at $0.23.
Interestingly, Katanga released no news that might explain the increase; in fact, it has not made any announcements since May, when it reported its Q1 results. It said at the time that its profitability had been “adversely affected” by a number of factors.
Western Potash
Western Potash was the second-biggest gainer on the TSX last week. Its share price rose 19.57 percent to close at $0.28.
Like Katanga, Western Potash released no news last week that would explain the gain in its share price. The development-stage company, which is focused on building a solution mine at its Saskatchewan-based Milestone property, most recently received a strategic C$80-million investment from Beijing Tairui Innovation Capital Management.

Teranga Gold

Last week, Teranga Gold’s share price rose 12.96 percent to close at $0.61. The company put out its financial and operating results for Q2 2015 on July 30, and they show that it produced 49,392 ounces of gold during the period, up 24 percent from Q2 2014. Meanwhile, its net profit came in at $6.7 million compared to a loss of $12.5 million in the year-ago quarter.
Richard Young, Teranga’s president and CEO, said, “[w]ith the steps we have taken to reduce our costs and eliminate our debt, we are in a position of financial strength, generating solid cash flows from operations during the quarter to fund new project capital.”

Ivanhoe Mines

Like many of the companies on this list, Ivanhoe didn’t release any news last week. Even so, the company’s share price rose 12.7 percent to hit $0.71.
It’s possible that buying was sparked by Robert Friedland’s July 28 speech at the Sprott-Stansberry Vancouver Natural Resource Symposium. Friedland gave a keynote presentation, expounding on why he’s bullish on copper, platinum-group metals and zinc, also touching on why the recent Chinese stock market crash may not be as bad as it seems.

Lithium Americas

Finally, Lithium Americas enjoyed a share price gain of 11.76 percent last week, ending at $0.38. The company is set to close its merger with Western Lithium (TSX:WLC) in September, but did not release any news last week.