Buyers on top in hesitant trade

Directors pulled in their horns over the past week, with buying and selling transactions falling from $3.5 million to $1.9 million.

The reduced activity is in line with this time last year and reflects the imminent results season and perhaps a little hesitancy concerning the economic outlook.

The scorecard registered just $319,200 to $1.6 million in favour of buyers.

And where would the buying tally be without Norman Seckold, who surfaced as a quantity buyer of scrip in Santana Minerals, a precious metals explorer operating in Mexico, where it is exploring a silver project, and a gold-silver project.

Santana was earlier this year spun out of the then-listed Cerro Resources and closed its first day of listing in May with a 6¢ closing sale. It is now fetching 10¢ and it was at that price that Mr Seckold increased his stake from about 11 per cent to slightly less than 20 per cent.

Chairman Seckold was paying 7¢ a share earlier this month.

Elsewhere on the resources front, chairman Graham Riley more than doubled his stake in Entek Energy, an oil and gas explorer with acreage in the Gulf of Mexico.

Fellow director Alexander Forcke also picked up some paper at under 3¢ apiece.

Algae to biofuels technology group Algae.Tec was once again near the top of the "buys" list, with executive chairman Roger Stroud continuing to soak up scrip. He has spent more than $300,000 this month.

The company's cash inflows for the nine months to March totalled about $14,000, and the group is valued by the market at $57 million.

Earlier this month, the company announced a 50-million-litre refinery deal with Biodiesel Industries Australia to refine algal oil that would then be used by mining and other industry in the Hunter region.