Rising prices for base metals and gold have translated into a bullish year for the TSX Venture Exchange.

The Toronto Stock Exchange said Thursday the total trading value on the penny exchange has jumped almost 206% to almost $6 billion for the year to date to June 30 vs the same period a year ago. For the six months ended June 30, total trading value stood at $5.99 billion up from $1.96 billion for the same period in 2003.

Total volume for the same six-month period was up 77.9% to 8.8 billion shares, while the value of new equity financing stood at $2.3 billion vs $790.1 million a year ago, up 192%.

For the month of June alone, total trading value increased to $609 million during the month, up 8.3% from May and up 68% from June 2003.

New equity financings at $429.5 million in June were up nearly 44% from May and more than 233% from the $128.8 million in June 2003.

As of June 30, 1,940 companies were listed on the venture exchange with a total market capitalization of $20.7 billion. That compares with $11.9 billion for 2,323 issuers in 2003.

The exchange closed at 1570.35 on June 30, down 2.5% from a month earlier and off 10.3% from Dec. 31.

Mining companies, which have benefited from the higher metals prices, represent many of the issues traded on the junior market. The average transaction took place at about 59¢ a share in June, exchange figures show.

The exchange operates the senior TSX market and the junior venture exchange.