By Peter Koven
Financial Post
The carnage in the junior mining world is every bit as bad as advertised, but there are a few glimmers of hope.
That is the main message from a review of the sector released Monday by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC (PwC). The study, conducted annually, chronicles the dramatic ups and downs of the top 100 companies on the TSX Venture Exchange.
Given the lack of financing available to most of these firms, it goes without saying that the past 18 months have been a slow-motion nightmare. According to PwC, the total market cap of 2012’s Top 100 plunged 43% compared with 2011 (as of June 30 in each case). Only 13 of them had market values above $200-million this year, compared with 36 a year ago.