China said it would raise penalties on violations of intellectual property rights on the weekend which would address one of the sticking points in talks with the US, Bloomberg reported.
Junior GSP Resource Corp (TSXV: GSPR) put in a strong performance on Friday, jumping 20% to remain near a 52-week high reached earlier in the week and making a gain of 75% so far this year.
The company, which listed on the TSX Venture Exchange a year ago, said last week it had intersected mineralisation in its first two holes at the Asp 14 showing at its Olivine Mountain copper-nickel project in British Columbia, with assays pending.
On the other side of the world, Australia-based, low-cost iron ore miner Fortescue Metals Group (ASX: FMG) touched a 52-week high this morning and was up 2% at the time of writing.
Its share price has risen about 152% year-to-date.
The gold price has eased further and was trading above US$1,461 an ounce on the spot market, having remained below the $1,500/oz mark since November 5.
There were positive gains by base metal mining majors on Friday.
Both Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) and Glencore (LSE: GLEN) closed about 3% higher on Friday.
However Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX) was down about 0.8% in Toronto and Newmont Goldcorp (NYSE: NEM) lost 0.3% in New York.
