Fraud and financial markets : the 1997 collapse of the junior mining stocks

The Vancouver Composite Index fell by over 25% in less than six weeks during spring 1997 as the junior mining sector collapsed. We argue that this market collapse was triggered by the failure of Bre-X Minerals when that company s Indonesian claims, previously believed to contain the world s largest gold deposit, were shown to be pure fraud. Our event study, based on market returns for the Vancouver Composite Index and for a portfolio of 59 gold stocks, shows the effects of the Bre-X scandal to be both sizeable and significant. There is also some evidence that smaller exploration companies were hardest hit.