Key Canadian Index Posts Record Drop

Canada’s Toronto stock market, the country’s largest, posted its biggest intra-day drop in almost a decade Thursday as shares in former market darling Bre-X Minerals Ltd. took a beating.

The Toronto Stock Exchange’s key 300 composite index plummeted 191.21 points to 5,931.63, its biggest loss since October 20, 1987, the day after so-called Black Monday, when it lost 220.90 points.

Trading in shares of gold prospector Bre-X was halted Wednesday, when the company said its Busang, Indonesia, gold find, once touted as the world’s largest, may not be as rich as projected. Trading resumed late Thursday on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market, where the stock plunged $9.41 to close at $1.97.

Bre-X Chief Executive David Walsh declared that he was confident of the company’s reserve estimates for its discovery, but investors seemed unconvinced. By day’s end, they had wiped $2.26 million from the company’s market value.

Fidelity Investments, believed to be the largest U.S. investor in Bre-X, said about 15 of its mutual funds, including its $25-billion Contrafund, were hurt by the decline in Bre-X shares.