Below are the latest comments from Canaccord Financial on the on NOT/FWR/CLF bidding war:

Canaccord Financial - Morning Coffee - Dec 4th 2009

Freewest Resources Canada* (FWR : TSX-V : $0.88), Net Change: 0.03, % Change: 3.53%, Volume: 6,018,730

Noront Resources* (NOT : TSX-V : $2.44), Net Change: 0.17, % Change: 7.49%, Volume: 2,390,902

Cliffs Natural Resources (CLF : NYSE : US$44.15), Net Change: -1.80, % Change: -3.92%, Volume: 5,212,917

The Donald would be proud. Cliffs Natural Resources announced Thursday that it has again trumped Noront's competing bidfor Freewest Resources. Noront and Cliffs continue to leap-frog each other in an effort to gain control of Freewest's chromitedeposit. Cliffs' revised all-stock offer values each Freewest share at $0.90, and the company at about $211 million. Freewestshareholders are having a great time as the stock has risen about 170% since early October, when Noront kicked off what hassince become a bidding war. On Thursday, Freewest said its board has agreed to support Cliffs' most recent offer. On Mondayof this week, Noront raised its offer for Freewest to $0.86 a share in stock and warrants, calling it at the time its final offer. Inresponse to Cliffs' new offer, Joanne Jobin, Noront's Vice-President of Corporate Communications, said the company did notplan to raise its bid, but noted she had not yet consulted with the board of directors to finalize that position. "We could keepraising our bid and Cliffs could outbid us until the cows come home, to be frank," Jobin told Reuters, adding, "We cannot diluteour position any more for our shareholders, so that's where we're at."