Taseko Mines Says It's `Unaware' Why Shares Plunged Most in Three Months
Taseko Mines Ltd., awaiting Canadian government approval for a copper project in British Columbia, said it didn’t know why its shares dropped the most in three months today.
Taseko, based in Vancouver, fell 73 cents, or 11 percent, to C$6.21 at 4:20 p.m. in Toronto Stock Exchange composite trading, the biggest one-day decline since July 5. The shares earlier plunged as much as 34 percent, the largest intraday drop since 1990.
Taseko is “unaware of any information that would cause the price of the company’s stock to change materially,” the company said today in a statement.
A mistaken trade may have triggered automatic selling of the shares, leading to the price drop, said Adam Graf, a New York-based analyst at Dahlman Rose & Co. who rates the shares “buy.”
“One fat finger can send a bunch of other guys into auto- sells,” Graf said today in a telephone interview. “It doesn’t mean they’re watching and re-buying at a lower level.”
The company is awaiting federal approval to develop its Prosperity deposit, 125 kilometers (78 miles) southwest of Williams Lake. The project would harm fish habitat, navigation and land use by Indian groups, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency panel said in recommendations to the government posted on its website in July.
Canadian Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea hasn’t issued a decision or set a deadline for a ruling on Prosperity, Nancy Bishay, Shea’s spokeswoman, said today in a telephone interview.
To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Marcinek in New York lmarcinek3@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net.
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