Centamin shares rise on gold prices, director dealing

Centamin shares surged Friday as gold prices improved and a director acquired a further stake in the Egypt-focused miner.

The price of gold received a boost following the strong selling pressure seen earlier in the week. The yellow metal had been trading near steady levels just ahead of the release of surprisingly weak US payroll figures Friday afternoon.

June Comex gold last traded up $11.50 at $1,563.90 an ounce. Spot gold was last quoted up $9.60 at $1,563.75.

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The market learned that Mark Bankes, Non Executive Director, on Friday bought 30,000 shares in Centamin at a price of 42.92p, bringing his total holding to 120,000.

Shares were also shooting up after hitting a nine-month low Thursday, which had seen the shares enter so-called 'oversold' territory.

The above also came on the heels of a downgrade yesterday from analysts at Canaccord Genuity, who lowered their rating from 'buy' to 'sell'.

"Although financial results released last week were relatively strong the key decision on the validity of the Sukari mining license is fairly distant," the broker said.

"The Egyptian judicial system continues to be affected by political instability and we now expect the final court ruling to take around 12 months to be released. This puts a lid on the upside and creates room for potential negative news flow and media speculation during 2013," Canaccord added.

Last week Centamin announced a 30% rise in full-year gold production which helped push pre-tax profit up to $198.6m from $194m previously.