Check out Daniel’s Den later today and visit the BMR comments section throughout the day for updates and helpful information.i
1. Gold has traded between $1,293 and $1,300 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is up $1 an ounce at $1,300…Silver, which has been out-performing Gold recently, is up another 11 cents at $16.88…Copper is off a penny at $3.48 while Nickel, Zinc and Cobalt are all steady at $6.96, $1.46 and $38.10, respectively…Crude Oil (WTI) has retreated 59 cents to $65.15…sentiment is caught in a tug of war between the drop in supply from Iran and Venezuela and the prospect of rising output from OPEC/non-OPEC producers coupled with rampant U.S. shale production…meanwhile, fresh data from Baker Hughes Friday showed that U.S. drilling activity is at its highest in 3 years, though it’s a much different story in Canada…the U.S. Dollar Index is relatively flat at 93.47…it’s an important week across all markets with 3 central bank meetings (the Fed gets together tomorrow and Wednesday with a rate hike expected), President Trump’s historic summit with North Korea’s Rocket Man is tomorrow, while a slew of economic data this week from the U.S. is highlighted by CPI tomorrow, producer prices Wednesday, retail sales Thursday and industrial production Friday…to end the week, Friday is quadruple witching, the quarterly expiration of stock index futures and options…
2. G-7 Summit dust-up: Equity markets this morning have brushed off a messy G-7 weekend summit…the Trump-hating Canadian left-leaning mainstream media went apocalyptic at the President’s tweets attacking Prime Minister Trudeau immediately following the G-7 meetings, but of course they didn’t question why the Prime Minister felt it was necessary to use most of his time in a 44-minute post-summit press conference taking repeated jabs at Trump and the Americans over trade (while not even once giving the President any public support with regard to North Korea)…that’s what drew the ire of the Trump administration…if the G-7 meetings went so well, as Trudeau claimed, what was the point in being so combative against Trump in a closing press conference besides trying to score some cheap immediate domestic political points, just like his father used to do against Ronald Reagan?…“I’ll tell you this, to my friends in Canada, that was one of the worst political miscalculations of a Canadian leader in modern Canadian history,” White House trade advisor Peter Navarro commented. “All Justin Trudeau had to do was take the win. President Trump did the courtesy to Justin Trudeau to travel up to Quebec for that summit. He had other things, bigger things on his plate in Singapore. And what did Trudeau did…as soon as the plane took off from Canadian airspace, Trudeau stuck our President in the back. That will not stand”…Trudeau’s other miscalculations have already led to a major weakening of the Canadian economy relative to the U.S., an under-performance in Canadian equity markets vs. the U.S., and lost investment…capital is leaving Canada like “rats abandoning a ship,” Kevin O’Leary stated last week ($100 billion over the last 3 years according to official figures)…“This has a lot to do with not just being competitive on a tax basis; [but] not being competitive on a carbon tax basis, not being competitive on a corporate tax basis, and then on top of all this you’ve got tariffs coming in”…
3. Regulations to implement Congo’s new mining code have been signed into law with no changes, despite objections from mining firms that have been threatening legal action…the Congo is Africa’s top Copper producer and supplies approximately 60% of the world’s Cobalt…enacting the code is likely to trigger a legal battle between the Congo and major mining companies, including Glencore and Randgold…the miners say the tax hikes and the removal of exemptions for pre-existing operations are a breach of their agreements with the government…the new code axes 10-year protections for existing projects against changes to the fiscal regime, imposes a windfall profits tax and raises royalties…
4. Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe Mines (IVN, TSX) has inked a long-term strategic and investment agreement with state-owned CITIC Metal Group of China that immediately yields gross proceeds of $723 million (CDN) to Ivanhoe through the issuance of 196.6 million common shares at $3.68 per share…the stock is up on the news, 18 cents higher at $3.41 as of 7:00 am Pacific…with a 19.9% interest, CITIC Metal becomes Ivanhoe’s largest single shareholder…Friedland stated, “CITIC Metal will be playing a significant role in Ivanhoe’s emergence as one of the world’s leading producers of Copper, Zinc and Platinum group metals. Today, with CITIC Metal’s commitment to this investment, Ivanhoe is one step closer to becoming Canada’s next important, diversified mining company”…Sun Yufeng, President of CITIC Metal, added that CITIC and Ivanhoe have shared a long-standing relationship dating back more than 15 years. “Mr. Friedland is a respected friend of CITIC and through this strategic investment we are delighted to become a partner in Ivanhoe’s projects with Mr. Friedland and his accomplished team of mine finders and developers”…
5. The Dow is flat through the first 30 minutes of trading to begin the new week…in Toronto, the TSX has climbed 70 points while the Venture has slipped 2 points to 773…48North Cannabis Corp. (NRTH, TSX-V) commenced trading this morning as the Venture’s latest marijuana deal…“48North is a future-focused company on track to serve the female health and wellness cannabis market with innovative next generation products and brands,” stated Alison Gordon, CEO. “As Canada’s first female CEO of a now publicly-traded licensed producer of cannabis, 48North will provide an intrinsic and authoritative view to a valuable demographic that is currently underserved in this industry”...NRTH is trading at $1.17 as of 7:00 am Pacific…
6. Wesdome Gold (WDO, TSX), which has been one of the hottest Gold stocks since the beginning of May, released encouraging underground drifting results this morning (50.5 g/t Au over an average width of 8.6 m and over a strike length of 20.1 m) from continued development of the 300E zone at its Eagle River mine near Wawa, Ontario…the zone was initially discovered in 2015 and is located 300 to 400 m north of the main 8 zone structure…the 300E area consists of tabular to pipe-like quartz-vein systems with strong folding leading to localized widths and grades that are wider as well as higher in grade…to date, diamond drilling has traced the structure from a depth of 750 m to 1,000 m and it remains open up and down plunge…WDO is up 8 cents at $2.51 as of 7:00 am Pacific…
7. Global spending on renewable energy is outpacing investment in electricity from coal, natural Gas and nuclear power plants, driven by falling costs of producing wind and solar power…more than half of the power-generating capacity added around the world in recent years has been in renewable sources such as wind and solar, according to the International Energy Agency…in 2016, the latest year for which data is available, about $297 billion was spent on renewables – more than twice the $143 billion spent on new nuclear, coal, gas and fuel-Oil power plants, according to the IEA…the Paris-based organization projects renewables will make up 56% of net generating capacity added through 2025…the sustained investment is reshaping how the world’s homes and industries are powered..in the U.S., more than two decades of government tax credits, some of which will soon go away, have propelled renewables…about 17% of the country’s electricity last year came from renewable sources, including wind, solar and hydroelectric dams, according to federal data…the government said that just under half of large-scale power generation added was renewable last year…
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