For the tale of the tape, the TSX Exchange tacked on 1.42%, while the TSX Gold Index exploded upwards by 5.1% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, added 1.56% with believe it or not the advancing issuers beating out the decliners by a 445 to 388 margin on volume of 112 million shares traded.

Despite no new developments, it was a good day for Western Uranium (CVE:WUC). The company, which recently spun off its lithium assets into a new company, added C$0.10 to close at C$0.88.

Shares of ATAC Resources (CVE:ATC) continued to attract investors as the results to date at its wholly owned Rau property in the Keno Hill district of central Yukon suggest some size potential. ATAC ended the session up C$0.04 at C$0.44.

A formal review to identify strategic alternatives to unlock shareholder value helped EarthFirst Canada (TSE:EF) gain C$0.225 to C$0.475. The wind energy company’s 144 MW Dokie I project in British Columbia is slated for completion next year.

Sherwood Copper (CVE:SWC) tagged 4.7% copper and 1.2 grams gold per tonne over 8.5 metres in Area 118 of its Minto copper-gold mine in the Yukon. Sherwood ended the session up C$0.03 at C$4.60.

On the downside, shares of Antares Minerals (CVE:ANM) dropped C$0.29 to close at C$2.26 on over 2.6 million shares traded. The junior has been pulling some nice intercepts from its Haquira copper-molybdenum-gold project in Peru.

While Thursday marked a quiet news day, the strength of the broader markets suggest that perhaps the worse of the resource sell-off is now behind us as we head into the later part of August. We will see what Friday trading has in store.

Source: Resource Stock Roundup: Friday, August 22nd, 2008