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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

New York spot gold closed down $6.60 to $1,283.70 Tuesday, dropping to a nine-week low as the U.S. dollar gained following some pleasing American housing reports. Here in Canada, the TSX Venture Exchange rose 7.67 points to 1,004.88 and the TSX Gold Index added 2.82 points to 182.23.

Canada's gold miners ended mostly up. Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) rose 34 cents to $19.37, Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. (AEM) rose 23 cents to $30.28, Yamana Gold Inc. (YRI) added one cent to $8.55 and Osisko Mining Corp. (OSK) remained unchanged at $7.73.

Nolan Watson and David Awram's metals streamer, Sandstorm Gold Ltd. (SSL), slipped 21 cents to $5.78 on 1.80 million shares. The company has offered $49-million ($1.42 a share) for its sister company, Sandstorm Metals and Energy Ltd. (SND: $1.35), after which it plans to refocus on gold. It will keep two Sandstorm Metals royalty streams -- one from Canadian Zinc Corp.'s (CZICF: $0.37 (U.S.)) Prairie Creek lead-zinc-silver mine in the Northwest Territories and the other from Entree Gold Inc.'s (ETG: $0.365) Hugo North and Heruga gold-copper deposits in Mongolia. It hopes the sell the rest for about $14-million in cash. Sandstorm spun out Sandstorm Metals in 2010 to take advantage of the rise in all metal prices. The stock climbed as high as $1.20 in early 2011, but has been dropping since. The company rolled back 1:10 last May, and then dropped again in July, to $1.05 from $3.30, after a colossal setback. Colossus Gold Ltd. failed to bring its Serra Pelada gold-palladium mine in Brazil to production, after a dewatering problem that has since bankrupted the company. Sandstorm Metals has written down its $15-million Serra Pelada palladium stream by $13-million. (Sandstorm Gold also suffered, having to write down a Serra Pelada gold stream by $52-million to $22-million.) In all, Sandstorm Metals recorded $32-million in writedowns for 2013. The combination should also bring down total general and administration spending, which is currently about $1.2-million a year at each company, much of that Sandstorm attributes to maintaining a listing.

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