The hemorrhaging continued during Thursday trading on the Canadian Markets as falling commodity prices had investors running for the exits yet again. For the tale of the tape, the TSX Exchange lost 0.58%, while the TSX Gold Index plunged 9.5% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, fell 5.39% with the declining issuers swamping the advancers by a 668 to 247 margin on volume of 153 million shares traded.

Junior explorers that have liquidity faced the brunt of the selloff with Full Metal Minerals dropping C$0.075 to close at C$0.315, Hathor Exploration lost C$0.23 to close at C$1.50 and VMS Ventures dropped C$0.01 to close at C$0.28. Full Metals is in the midst of the bulk sample at its Lucky Shot project in Alaska, Hathor has a nice looking uranium discovery at its MidWest NorthEast project in Saskatchewan and VMS has a high-grade base metal discovery on its Reed lake project in Manitoba.

The big board gold miners took it on the chin with Barrick Gold falling C$4 to close at C$29.20, Goldcorp dropped C$3.41 to close at C$24.37, Kinross Gold ended the day down C$2.37 at C$12.90, Agnico Eagle plunged C$5.28 to close at C$41.92 and Yamana Gold gave back C$0.48 to close at 5.64.

The junior board looks set to test the 2002 lows of 890 and a break below this one would mark uncharted waters for the Venture Exchange. The historic low goes back to the VSE Index days in 1998 and 1999 when the bourse treaded water in the 400 point range. We will see what Friday trading has in store.