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by Will Purcell

The critical and specialty minerals stocks box score on Monday was a weak 68-120-122 as the TSX Venture Exchange fell nine points to 947. Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. (NOU) was a busy trader, as it lost seven cents to $2.10 on 1.05 million shares today. The company said in mid-May that it had officially launched construction of its Matawinie graphite mine, in the Laurentian area north of Montreal, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Canada's prime minister, a Quebec cabinet minister, and various and sundry politicians representing the locals.

A most manly consolidation is in the works: Alan Ferry and Scott Monteith's Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. (AVL), which was unchanged at 6.5 cents on 2.63 million shares today, is making up for lost time. The company launched in 1994 with 1.5 million shares on its books, but has never rolled back its stock and now sits with well over 800 million shares outstanding. Mr. Ferry, chairman, and Mr. Monteith, president and chief executive officer, plan to change that with a consolidation rate between 1:130 and 1:180. At, say, 1-for-150, Avalon would be back to barely five million shares.

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