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Gold has traded between $1,210 and $1,245 so far today on a major reversal thanks to a major miss in this morning’s U.S. jobs report…as of 8:00 am Pacific, bullion is up $29 an ounce at $1,240…Silver is 35 cents higher at $16.31…Copper is up 3 pennies at $2.13…Crude Oil is down nearly 50 cents at $48.78 while the U.S. Dollar Index has plunged nearly 1.5 points to 94.14…

Gold demand in Asia, home to the world’s biggest consumers of physical Gold, was muted this week as a slight uptick in India and Japan was offset by reductions in other trading centers where buyers awaited possible further price declines but won’t get them after this morning’s U.S. jobs report…Gold stubbornly held support at $1,200 an ounce this week while the Venture – a reliable leading indicator for Gold and other metals – kept advancing despite bullion’s worst month since November along with significant declines in Silver and Copper…the Venture was right once again…

Mayday!  Mayday!  U.S. Jobs Growth Plummets In May

U.S. job creation tumbled last month with the economy adding just 38,000 positions, further eroding the credibility of certain Federal reserve officials who engaged in very hawkish rhetoric over the past couple of weeks…Fed actions and words haven’t matched for an extended period – not just recently – as the central bank keeps trying to do what no major central bank in the world has been able to accomplish (maintain a rate hike cycle) since the 2008 financial crisis…of course the Fed is partially handcuffed by an economy that’s underperforming due to jobs-killing and wealth-destroying tax and regulatory policies out of Washington…

The Labor Department also reported Friday that the headline unemployment actually fell to 4.7%…but that rate does not include those who did not actively look for employment during the month or the under-employed who were working part-time for economic reasons…a more encompassing rate that includes those groups held steady at 9.7%…

Below is a chart that clearly demonstrates the declining trend in U.S. jobs growth since late 2015…part of the reason for this is also due to the negative lag affect of a high U.S. dollar after the greenback started surging in mid-2014 – thanks to the Fed which fueled rampant speculation into the currency…

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected this morning’s jobs report to show employers added 160,000 jobs in May, the same as April, with the unemployment rate slipping to 4.9%…the Fed’s next policy meeting is June 14-15, a week ahead of the UK “Brexit” vote, and yet speculation was ramping up – fueled by Fed rhetoric – that the central bank would initiate its 1st rate hike of the year at either its upcoming meeting or the one in late July (no meeting in August)…with the Obama economy sputtering, and elections coming up in November, one has to wonder if the Fed will be able to raise rates at all this year…who knows, their next rate move might actually be down…

Gold Update

Gold got blindsided late last month on sudden speculation that the Fed would actually implement a June rate hike…no chance of that now, of course, and perhaps traders who got burned on buying up the U.S. dollar and dumping Gold based on what certain Fed officials were saying will put more faith in bullion than Fed words in the future…

As this chart shows, Gold has built tremendous support between $1,200 and $1,220 with a worst-case scenario being a drop to the rising 200-day SMA in the $1,160’s…it’s quite possible we may not see Gold dip again this year below $1,200…on the upside, the next key resistance the metal needs to overcome is the 50-day SMA ($1,247) which started to decline on bullion’s recent drop to a 3.5-month low…

Longer-term charts show a primary trend that is extremely bullish…

In today’s Morning Musings…

1.   Explosive CRB chart for 2nd half 2016…

2.  Opportunities galore in northwest B.C.’s Golden Triangle… 

3.  Umbral Energy (UMB, CSE) chart confirms the company’s astute move into Lithium in Utah…

Plus more…click here to take advantage of our Spring Sizzler Subscription Special in effect for a limited time only, or login with your username and password to view the rest of today’s Morning Musings… 

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Gold has traded between $1,209 and $1,218 so far today…as of 8:15 am Pacific, bullion is down $3 an ounce at $1,210…Silver is flat at $15.93…Copper is off 2 pennies at $2.09…Crude Oil has retreated 36 cents to $48.65 while the U.S. Dollar Index is up one-tenth of a point to 95.50…

Holdings in SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest Gold-backed exchange-traded fund, rose 0.24% to 870.74 tonnes yesterday – the highest since November 2013…

Sales data compiled by the U.S. Mint shows Gold sales in May were up more than 206% from the same month a year ago…looking at the Mint’s historical data, May is typically the start of slow season for the market…however, 2016 bucked the trend as this was the strongest May since 2011…

Short-term speculative investors, spooked by the unreliable Fed, were responsible in May for Gold’s worst month since last November, but many longer-term physical buyers have taken advantage of the recent weakness to add to existing positions…this underscores the strength in Gold around the $1,200 level and why the downside is limited…

“Wacky Ozone Regs” Stifling U.S. Economy

Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, said today that the Obama administration’s heavy focus on combating climate change is “radical behavior” that’s holding back the economy (the same can be said of course regarding the situation in Canada with the Trudeau-Wynne-Notley axis of climate change fanaticism)…a longtime GOP supporter, Welch told CNBC that the priority on preventing climate change spills over into “all kinds of policies throughout the different agencies…you get an economy that won’t move…you get ozone regs that are wacky.”

U.S. Jobs Growth Continues To Rely On Services Sector

U.S. job growth gains in the private sector in May came entirely from the service side which added 175,000 positions, according to this morning’s ADP report which was in line with expectations…goods-producing companies actually lost 1,000 jobs while manufacturing subtracted 3,000 jobs…the ADP report is not widely seen as a reliable indicator for the government’s jobs report with May’s non-farm payrolls to be released tomorrow, but last month ADP reported just 156,000 jobs…2 days later, April non-farm payrolls came in at just 160,000, 40,000 shy of expectations…the consensus estimate for tomorrow’s important jobs report has been 162,000…

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has once again downgraded its outlook for the U.S. economy which they now expect to expand by only 1.8% in 2016, down from its February forecast of 2.0%…the latest projections are well below growth of 2.4% that was seen in 2014 and 2015, respectively…the OECD acknowledges the strong U.S. dollar has hurt manufacturing and exports, but it views those affects as “transitory” and likely to diminish later in the year…

Oil Update

Mounting tensions among the 13 members of OPEC, and the differing economic needs of each country, have stymied any deal on output at meetings today in Vienna…not surprisingly, OPEC has refrained from changing its Oil output policy while also naming Nigeria’s Mohammed Barkindo its new secretary-general…

Reuters also reported that Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said he wouldn’t rule out increasing his country’s Crude capacity…as long as Iran, the Saudis’ arch-rival, continues to pump Oil faster than rabbits can make bunnies (thanks to an accommodating Obama), it’s safe to assume that the Saudis will do whatever they have to in order to maintain market share especially when supply disruptions in some parts of the world have kept Crude prices firm…

Crude Seasonality Chart

Historically, going back 2 decades, June is Crude’s 4th-best month of the year (2.4% average gain) which is strongest between February and August…prices increase in June and July 63% and 70% of the time, respectively, so any modest pullbacks over the near-term are likely going to be viewed by savvy traders as a buying opportunity…

In today’s Morning Musings…

1. Chad’s Bad Day in court is Doubleview Capital’s (DBV, TSX-V) gain…

2. “Just stay tuned”, says Eskay Mining (ESK, TSX-V) CEO as Golden Triangle’s Heart of Gold Camp heats up on multiple fronts…

3.  Umbral Energy (UMB, CSE) hits highest levels since late 2014 on Clayton Valley look-a-like in Utah…

Plus more…click here to take advantage of our Spring Sizzler Subscription Special in effect for a limited time only, or login with your username and password to view the rest of today’s Morning Musings… 

SAVE 25% with a risk-free subscription (as little as $1 per day) as you gain full access to this and other exclusive BMR content…

Gold has traded between $1,206 and $1,221 so far today…as of 9:30 am Pacific, bullion is down $8 an ounce at $1,207…Silver is off a nickel at $15.90…Copper is down 3 cents at $2.11…Crude Oil, after a strong May, shed over $1 a barrel in early trading this morning but has recouped those losses and is now almost even on the day at $48.95 while the U.S. Dollar Index is off one-quarter of a point to 95.56…

Despite falling for 9 straight sessions and losing $75 or 5.8% for the month, Gold prices held support at $1,200 in May while of course also remaining above the rising 200-day moving average (SMA) in the mid-$1,160’s…significantly, the Venture actually gained 3 points in May to 678 – unusual given the pullbacks in Gold, Silver and Copper…by shrugging off losses in those markets, the Venture as a leading indicator is telling us that the primary trend in precious metals remains bullish and that the rally in the U.S. dollar is not sustainable…

Any desire by the Fed to raise interest rates this month will be complicated by the news that public opinion in the UK may have shifted toward an exit from the EU in the referendum slated for June 23…2 Guardian/ICM polls, published yesterday, suggest as the referendum campaign picks up pace, voters are split 52% to 48% in favor of a “Brexit”, whether surveyed online or by phone…previous polls have tended to show voters surveyed online to be more in favor of Britain leaving the EU…but in the latest ICM research, carried out for the Guardian, both methodologies yielded the same result – a majority in favor of leaving…the Fed meets 1 week ahead of the vote…

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is increasingly pessimistic about the global economy and is warning that the “low-growth trap” will continue if governments don’t change tack on spending and trade…overall, the OECD is forecasting global growth of 3% this year and 3.3% next year…both are down one-third of a percentage point from the organization’s November outlook…

In its Global Economic Outlook, the OECD reiterated its view that a so-called vote for Brexit in the country’s upcoming referendum “would depress growth in Europe and elsewhere substantially”…it also says Europe’s refugee surge – and the lack of a unified response – also threatens global financial stability…

China’s official purchasing managers index (PMI) came in at 50.1 for May, steady on April’s level and above a Reuters poll forecast for 50.0…however, the non-manufacturing component fell in May, showing slowing growth in services activity…in addition, the Caixin China manufacturing PMI, which focuses on smaller companies, fell in May to 49.2, which was below expectations…

In today’s Morning Musings…

1. New month begins – what the seasonality charts say for June for both the Venture and Gold…

2. Lithium surprise in Utah? – overlooked area with sound geology could be a big score for Umbral Energy (UMB, CSE)…

3. Kinross (K, TSX) invests more into Colorado Resources (CXO, TSX-V) as CXO closes financing and prepares to drill at KSP…

4. Updated charts for ASC, CLZ and KSK…

Plus more…click here to take advantage of our Spring Sizzler Subscription Special in effect for a limited time only, or login with your username and password to view the rest of today’s Morning Musings… 

SAVE 25% with a risk-free subscription (as little as $1 per day) as you gain full access to this and other exclusive BMR content…