BullMarketRun.ca

7:30 am Eastern

Greetings from Kirkland Lake, home of Kirkland Lake Gold’s (KL, TSX) Macassa South Mine Complex, where BMR attended last night’s meeting of the Northern Prospectors’ Association.

Below is Gino Chitaroni (center), the “King of Cobalt” and President of the NPA, flanked by legendary geologists and fellow NPA directors Gary Grabowski (left) and Fred Sharpley (right).

Grabowski, a member of the Advisory Board for iMetal Resources (IMR, TSX-V) which will be carrying out first-ever drilling at its promising Gowganda West Property during the 2nd half of January, held the post of district geologist for the Ontario government’s Ministry of Northern Development and Mines for more than 30 years.

As of 7:30 am EST, Gold is up $6 an ounce at $1,292 as the greenback remains under pressure.  Silver has climbed 13 cents to $15.67 while Nickel leads base metals with a jump of 8 cents a pound to $5.15, its highest price in several weeks.  Nickel appears to have bottomed and that’s great news!

Editor’s Note:  

No 7 @ 7:00 this morning as Jon is headed to Gowganda to provide subscribers with an update this weekend on developments there, featuring of course Canada Cobalt (CCW, TSX-V) and IMR.  We expect a very active 2nd half of the month for both companies on the ground and in terms of news flow.

Daniel will have a fresh Daniel’s Den later this morning.

Cannabix Technologies Inc. (BLO, CSE)

Fascinating chart from John on Cannabix Technologies (BLO, CSE).

BLO advanced for the 7th straight session yesterday and touched key resistance at $1.99 where its rising 300-day moving average (SMA) intersects with a downtrend line from the beginning of 2018 on John’s 2-year weekly chart.   Just above that is Fib. resistance at $2.08.

There’s a strong possibility of an immediate/near-term minor pullback to unwind temporarily overbought conditions on the daily chart, but BLO is nonetheless gearing up for a major breakout above the 12-month downtrend line (a period of consolidation) at some point during Q1.

Canadian Marijuana Index

The Canadian Marijuana Index is enjoying its biggest move since August of last year, pushing 40% off its December low.

Canopy Growth Corp. (WEED, TSX)

We told Pro subscribers last weekend in our Sunday Sizzler that “now appears to be another ideal time to go long on WEED with the stock hovering around its rising 300-day SMA at $38 while Fib. support at $33 coincides with the bottom of a broad upsloping channel.  Slow Stochastics is in oversold territory similar to the spring of 2017.  Watch for a near-term move above the still-declining 50-day SMA, currently $43.”

WEED is clearly in the grips of a fresh uptrend after touching the bottom of its upsloping channel on this 2-year weekly chart.  Next key Fib. resistance is $62.54.  WEED closed up more than $5 a share for the 2nd day in a row yesterday, finishing at $49.82.

Note:  Jon, John and Daniel hold share positions in CCW and IMR.  Jon and Daniel hold share positions in KL while Jon also holds a share position in BLO.

Visit the BMR comments section throughout the day for updates and helpful information!

1. Gold has traded between $1,290 and $1,298 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is off $2 an ounce at $1,291…holdings in SPDR Gold Trust rose 0.3% yesterday to their highest level since late July…Silver has retreated 8 cents to $15.64…Copper and Nickel are flat at $2.68 and $5.05, respectively, while Zinc has slipped 2 pennies to $1.13…exports of Copper concentrate from Indonesia’s Grasberg, the world’s 2nd-largest Copper mine, are expected to drop to 200,000 tonnes this year from around 1.2 million tonnes in 2018…Crude Oil is off 83 cents at $51.53 after a big move yesterday…Morgan Stanley has cut its 2019 Oil price forecasts by more than 10%, pointing to weakening global economic growth expectations and rising supply, primarily from the United States…the bank now expects Brent to average $61 a barrel this year, down from a previous estimate of $69, and U.S. Crude to average $54 against a prior forecast of $60…the main source of new supply is the U.S. where Crude Oil production remained at a record 11.7 million barrels per day in the week ended January 4, according to the Energy Information Administration yesterday…that has resulted in swelling fuel inventories…the Dollar Index has recovered one-fifth of a point to 95.35… 

2. U.S.-China trade talk progress:  In a statement this morning, China’s Commerce Ministry said the just-concluded round of trade talks with the U.S. were extensive and established a foundation for the resolution of each others’ concerns…Gao Feng, a spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry, said progress had been made during the talks on structural issues including forced tech transfers and the protection of intellectual property rights…the U.S. side issued its own statement earlier in the day, noting a long list of outstanding issues, but also recognizing that China had pledged to purchase from the U.S. “a substantial amount” of products and services…

3. Keep an eye on this today:  Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will take questions during a lunchtime appearance at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., the 2nd such public interview of the central bank leader in the past week…during a question-and-answer session last Friday, Powell signaled the Fed could be more flexible in how it sets interest rates due to muted inflation in recent months….investors cheered when Powell said officials were watching anxious financial markets and would adjust their plans if recent volatility caused the economy to slow more than they anticipated this year…today’s program starts around 12:40 pm EST…Fed officials have laid the groundwork to take a break from raising short-term interest rates in the coming months, particularly if the economy appears to be taking a greater hit from weakness abroad and market movements…

4. A sign of the times given Canadian governments’ destructive Oil and gas policies:  TransCanada is planning to drop “Canada” from its name to reflect its growing focus on the United States and Mexico, a move that is raising concerns in Alberta about its long-term commitment to Calgary as a head office…the pipeline company, which now earns more than half of its profits from its U.S. operations, says that it will rename itself TC Energy, given its expanded footprint after a $13-billion (U.S.) acquisition of Columbia Pipeline Group Inc. in the United States and major investments in Mexico…capital will flow to where it’s wanted, and Canada’s federal government is decidedly anti-Oil…

5. The black market in cannabis in Canada is still alive and well, despite Trudeau’s rationale for legalization that it would destroy the black market… StatsCanada says the average price of a legal gram of recreational pot last year was $9.70, nearly 50% higher than the illicit market price of $6.61…the agency says it received 385 price quotes deemed plausible using the StatsCanada crowdsourcing application between October 17, when adult-use pot became legal in Canada, and December 31…it added that roughly half of the respondents told the agency they bought recreational pot from a legal supplier…StatsCanada also says the average amount of non-medical cannabis purchased from an illegal supplier was more than double the quantity bought from legal channels, such as government-run stores or web sites…

6. The Dow has lost 138 points through the first 30 minutes of trading on some earnings concerns, though Wall Street continues to shrug off a partial U.S. government shutdown that’s now in its 20th day (the 2nd longest on record)…U.S. venture capital just had its highest spending year in history…the amount of money firms spent on private companies hit a new all-time record in 2018 – well above the previous watermark from the dotcom boom…last year, venture capital firms spread roughly $131 billion across 8,949 deals, according to data published today by Pitchbook and the National Venture Capital Association…that’s a 57% jump in the dollar amount from 2017…the previous record was $100 billion in 2000…more than 61% of total capital invested last year came from deals sized at $50 million or larger…in addition, 2018 featured the highest amount of VC-backed companies entering the public markets since 2014, thanks to IPOs and buyouts…in Toronto, the TSX is down 53 points in early trading…Alamos Gold (AGI, TSX) has cut 5 m (true width) grading 152.07 g/t Au in surface directional drilling in the Western Extension of its Island Gold mine in northern Ontario…Corvus Gold (KOR, TSX) has drilled 116 m grading 1.83 g/t Au at its deposit in Nevada…step-out holes have outlined potential for an expansion of the Mother Lode Gold system to the north with the mineralized zone thickening and grades increasing…the Venture is off 3 points at 595 as of 7:00 am Pacific…National Access Cannabis (META, TSX-V) announced this morning that it achieved $10.18 million in cumulative sales in just over 80 days of retail operation…the average gross margin was over 32% with consumable cannabis making up 94.2% of total sales…META is currently the largest private cannabis retail operator in the country with 20 retail locations and more than 370 employees…the company intends to apply for up to 75 retail cannabis locations in Ontario (subject to regulatory approval), along with continued growth plans in other areas of the country…

7. Election fraud in the Congo – any surprise?…supporters of surprise Congo presidential winner Felix Tshisekedi celebrated in the capital today, while rival opposition candidate Martin Fayulu denounced the result as fraud after the long-delayed election marred by irregularities…“Today I am happy,” Tshisekedi told supporters. “Happy for the people of Congo.  Everyone is celebrating that there is peace. No one could imagine the scenario where an opposition candidate could be victorious!”…Fayulu alleged the results had been rigged, saying outgoing President Joseph Kabila made a backroom deal with Tshisekedi…Kabila appears to have negotiated with Tshisekedi to block anti-corruption crusader Fayulu, diplomats and observers said…now Congo and the world face the uncomfortable choice of accepting what could be the country’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power or raising a protest that could lead to more violence in the long-turbulent nation…many are waiting for a statement from the Congo’s powerful Catholic church which has said its 40,000 observers in all polling stations found a clear winner…according to multiple sources, the church’s figures showed that Fayulu won a landslide majority…all major observation missions, including those of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community, apparently showed similar results…

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Visit the BMR comments section throughout the day for updates and helpful information!

1. Gold has traded between $1,279 and $1,293 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is up $4 an ounce at $1,290…Silver is 3 cents higher at $15.64…Palladium touched a record high of $1,342 after a Chinese official said the government was contemplating additional policies to increase domestic buying of automobiles…base metal prices are firming…Copper and Nickel are up modestly at $2.69 and $5.04, respectively, while Zinc is unchanged at $1.15…Crude Oil has pushed back above $50 a barrel, up $1.40 at $51.18…this extends WTI’s recent gains to nearly 20% as a weaker dollar, U.S.-China trade talk progress and OPEC cuts combine to take commodity markets higher…the Dollar Index has fallen half a point to 95.42…the world’s largest money manager expects the Bank of Canada to hit the brakes on policy tightening this year…BlackRock says the central bank will probably hold rates steady until at least 2020 as Canadian growth cools and lower Oil prices work their way through the economy, weighing on the inflation outlook…short-end traders largely agree – overnight index swaps are barely pricing in any tightening over the next 12 months…

2. Gold holdings of global exchange-traded funds and similar products rose 3% in 2018, finishing the year strong with the 3rd straight month of net inflows in December, according to the World Gold Council (WGC)…holdings rose by 69 tonnes to 2,440 tonnes in 2018, which equated to $3.4 billion inflows…the main drivers last year were the European funds…on an absolute basis, North American funds – which tend to be more price and momentum driven – led outflows, driven by the weak performance of Gold in the 3rd quarter…these flows reversed in the 4th quarter to make up most of the previous losses…“This is the first time since 2012 that the value of total Gold-backed ETF holdings has finished the year above $100 billion (U.S.),” the WGC said…

3. Apple (AAPL, NASDAQ) CEO Tim Cook was notably reassuring when asked about the prospects of U.S.-China trade talks in an interview yesterday with CNBC’s Jim Cramer…Cook cast the trade-related economic weakness in China as “temporary”, saying it was in both countries’ “best interests” to reach an agreement…“It is a very complex trade agreement and it needs to be updated, but as I’ve said before, I’m very optimistic that this will happen,” he told Cramer…“That clearly will be good not only for us, frankly, but I think more about the world in general.  The world needs a strong U.S. and China economy for the world economy to be strong”…

4. The rule of law doesn’t matter to British Columbia’s Oil-hating anti-pipeline extremists…rallies took place in the southern part of the province yesterday (David Suzuki, of course, was among the participants) in support of those arrested late Monday at a Northern B.C. anti-pipeline protest camp…more than a dozen people violated the conditions of an interim court injunction that required the removal of a blockade on a forest service road that is preventing access to a pipeline project, so it makes sense to throw these people in jail…Coastal GasLink’s 670-km pipeline is designed to transport Natural Gas from the Montney gas-producing region near Dawson Creek to the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat…the Coastal GasLink project received its Environmental Assessment Certificate in 2014 after submitting an extensive 7,200-page application to the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) and participating in a thorough public comment period culminating in a robust 2-year environmental and technical review to obtain the permits…necessary regulatory permits from the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission (OGC) followed shortly afterward, providing the company with all the necessary regulatory permits to proceed with construction…the pipeline route travels through Wet’suwet’en First Nation territory, and all the nation’s elected leaders signed a benefits agreement…none of this matters to the Oil haters, though, who are like terrorists – you can’t negotiate with them…Canada needs to get tough with individuals who are trying to block approved projects…

5. New Gold (NGD, TSX), hitting new multi-month highs, has reported best-ever quarterly production of 77,202 ounces at its Rainy River mine in Northwest Ontario, a 39% increase over the prior quarter…the stronger operational performance achieved in September continued into the 4th quarter with the last 4 months of the year contributing 45% of the 227,284 ounces produced for 2018, achieving revised annual guidance…during 2019 the company will launch a comprehensive review that includes alternative underground mining scenarios at Rainy River with the overall objective of reducing capital costs and improving the return on investment for the underground portion of the life of mine…further details will be provided in the 2019 guidance news release scheduled for the 2nd half of January…meanwhile, New Gold’s New Afton mine in British Columbia delivered another solid quarter with Gold production of 18,778 ounces, contributing to annual production of 77,329 ounces, which exceeded the high end of annual guidance…New Afton churned out 20.8 million pounds of Copper for the quarter and 85.1 million pounds for the year, also at the high end of annual guidance…new CEO Renaud Adams commented, “It is encouraging to see the improvement in overall performance achieved at Rainy River in the final 4 months of the year. This marks a pivotal turning point for Rainy River as we reposition the asset for long-term success.  The stronger production delivered during these months allowed the operation to comfortably meet revised annual production guidance.  We begin 2019 on a positive note and we expect to build on the successes achieved at Rainy River in 2019 with a disciplined strategy of driving operational and cost-efficiencies throughout the operation.  It is with a renewed commitment that we have relaunched a development strategy for the New Afton C zone which will significantly extend the mine life of this core asset and unlock its long-term value potential. We look forward to delivering positive results from both our core assets to create sustainable shareholder value”…

6. The Dow is up 187 points through the first 30 minutes of trading on continuing optimism regarding U.S.-China trade talks…the TSX has jumped 87 points with Gold producers helping out including Kirkland Lake Gold (KL, TSX) which yesterday reported record levels of quarterly and annual Gold production for Q4 and the full year…production in the 4th quarter totalled 230,993 ounces, 28% higher than the previous record of 180,155 ounces achieved in the 3rd quarter of 2018…Kirkland Lake’s total production in 2018 came to 723,477 ounces, a 21% increase from 2017, and the company’s cash position at year-end stood at an impressive $332 million…the Venture has added 4 points to 592 after its 8-session winning streak was snapped yesterday…

7. The final and deepest hole of GT Gold’s (GTT, TSX-V) 2018 Saddle North porphyry drill program, hole TTD109, has returned the strongest intercept to date – 0.62 g/t Au, 0.36% Cu and 1.17 g/t Ag over 1,150 m including 1.28 g/t Au, 0.57% Cu and 2.30 g/t Ag over 342.5 m…results confirm the presence of a high-grade stockwork and sheeted vein-rich “core zone” encompassing grades exceeding 1.0% CuEq and 1.5 g/t AuEq on Section 5740, which reaches from near-surface (hole TTD108) to greater than 1,300 m down-dip, where it remains open, with associated true widths that approximate 100 m near-surface in hole TTD108, expanding with depth to greater than 300 m in holes TTD093, and 300 m farther down-dip in TTD109…results from the previous 10 holes at Saddle North demonstrate that this high-grade core zone extends along strike for at least 500 m to and lies within a much broader, strongly mineralized envelope which has a drilled strike length in excess of 650 metres, a true width of approximately 700 metres, and a down-dip extent of more than 1,300 m…Charlie Greig, GTT’s VP-Exploration, commented:  “As with previous holes from Saddle North, our final hole of the 2018 Saddle North drill program delivers an exceptional porphyry-style Gold-Copper intercept and it’s a great way to begin 2019.  Hole 109 confirms we have a large, high-grade system with grades increasing to depth. With broad intercepts of mineralization returning grades in excess of 1.0% or 1.5% CuEq in holes 93 and 109, we are excited by the prospects for what may lie even deeper in this system.  In just our first eleven holes at Saddle North we have outlined a truly significant Copper-Gold mineralized system consisting of a large, northwest-southeast trending zone encompassing an extensive high-grade core dipping and/or plunging steeply west-southwest.  As hole 108 has already shown, the higher-grade mineralization comes very close to surface, and a high-grade core, hundreds of metres thick, has now been demonstrated in our deeper holes”…GTT should be trading higher but management’s market strategy has been clumsy…

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Visit the BMR comments section throughout the day for updates and helpful information!

1. Gold has traded between $1,278 and $1,286 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion has retreated $4 an ounce to $1,284…holdings of SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest Gold-backed ETF, saw some outflows on Friday…holdings, however, are still at their highest since last August…ETF demand has been one of the primary drivers of the move higher for Gold over the past month or so and is still continuing to increase…this has been mainly apparent in U.S. and UK based funds amid uncertainty on growth and Brexit risks…Silver has added a penny to $15.63…Copper, Nickel and Zinc are relatively unchanged at $2.66, $5.04 and $1.16…Crude Oil has climbed another 95 cents to $49.47 while the Dollar Index has rebounded one-third of a point to 95.98…

2. U.S. and Chinese officials met for a 2nd day of talks in Beijing today, with comments from both sides suggesting cautious optimism that a deal on trade can be struck ahead of the March 1 deadline established by Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping last month at the G20 summit in Argentina…China’s impetus to cut a deal with its biggest export market, however, may be more compelling now that its economy is firmly mired in a slowdown and its currency is at risk of drifting even lower against the U.S. dollar…in fact, China’s foreign exchange reserves, which it hoards as part of its enormous trade surplus with economies around the world, fell for the first time in 4 years last year – by $67.24 billion – as the cost of defending the yuan increase…U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC yesterday that both global powers could reach a settlement “they can live with, and that addresses all the key issues”…the broader power struggle between the U.S. and China will persist for years but neither government really has the latitude to pursue policies that could threaten to trigger a global recession…the Argentine handshake, therefore, could morph into a near-term truce which should give commodities a major lift…

3. Small-business owners’ confidence in the U.S. economy beat expectations in December but nonetheless fell for the 4th consecutive month according to the National Federation of Independent Business…the small-business lobby said its optimism index slipped to 104.4 in December from November’s 104.8 reading…economists had expected a December reading of 103, according to a Wall Street Journal survey…the index had set a high of 108.8 in August, breaking a July 1983 record…the NFIB survey is a monthly snapshot of small businesses in the U.S., which account for about half of private-sector jobs…economists look to the report for a read on domestic demand and to extrapolate hiring and wage trends in the broader economy…“Over the past few months, owners’ expectations for the future have tempered, while reporting continued solid economic activity,” the NFIB said in its report, based on responses from 621 small-business owners…“The Index remains at historically high levels but can’t be expected to improve every month”…

4. Chile’s Copper production could jump by nearly 30% over the next decade according to Cochilco, Chile’s state Copper agency…Cochilco said in a report yesterday that output from Chile, the world’s top producer of the red metal, could reach a record 7.25 million tonnes as early as 2025…production by existing, aging mines will decrease by 19%, to 4.46 million tonnes per year, but that decline is expected to be offset by several new projections and expansions as Chilean miners confront declining ore grades at sometimes century-old mines…“The growth in production is only possible if the new investments materialize,” the state Copper agency stated…several major new projects and expansions are planned in the coming years…state-run miner and world top Copper producer Codelco recently launched a $40 billion, 10-year investment plan to boost productivity at its Chilean mines…meanwhile, Canadian miner Teck (TECK.B, TSX) is also moving forward with an expansion plan, known as QB2, which won regulatory approval last August…the overhaul is expected to extend the ageing deposit’s life by 25 years and substantially boost production to 300,000 tonnes of Copper annually from 23,400 tonnes in 2017…

5. Overheating power lines is a growing problem for electric utility companies in British Columbia and elsewhere around the globe…that’s a large potential niche market for Torino Power Solutions (TPS, CSE) which announced this morning another important breakthrough for the company – a purchase order from B.C. Hydro for the installation of a TPS Power Line Monitoring sensor system at an undisclosed location in Northern British Columbia…if B.C. Hydro likes how this works, and we can’t imagine they won’t, then many more orders could follow, and not just from Canada’s 5th largest electric utility…TPS already has an MOU in place with SICAME, a French-based world leader in the manufacturing of components, equipment and services for transmission and distribution electrical networks…getting the attention of the likes of B.C. Hydro and SICAME is further validation of Torino’s unique product and represents a significant company-building opportunity for TPS…in short, Torino’s patented microwave cavity sensor technology delivers real-time temperature measurements of overhead power lines that allow for increased transmission capacity, improved grid resiliency, lower energy costs and bottleneck elimination.  Torino sensors, a high margin product, can be deployed quickly and begin transmitting real-time data to the utility almost immediately…Rav Mlait, CEO of Torino commented, “The Torino PLM system is unique because of its completely passive sensors (no electronics or batteries) that provide utilities with the most durable, easy to install and low-maintenance sensor system in the market.   We are truly excited to begin this new installation of our technology with a major utility in Canada.  We are also pleased that B.C. Hydro selected a local company”…TPS is up 3 pennies on the news at 11 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific…technically, the stock has broken out above its 50-day moving average (SMA) which is also reversing to the upside in a classic bullish pattern…

6. The Dow is up 237 points through the first 30 minutes of trading on optimism regarding U.S.-China trade talks…the TSX has jumped 110 points as of 7:00 am Pacific while the Venture, aiming for its 9th straight winning session, has added 1 point to 592…White Gold (WGO, TSX-V) is up slightly on drill results (RC) from its Betty Property in the Yukon, including 50.3 m @ 1.08 g/t Au, with numerous drill holes across several target areas encountering near-surface Gold mineralization…mineralization was encountered along the eastern extension of the Coffee Creek fault which hosts the adjacent Coffee deposit owned by Goldcorp (G, TSX), currently being developed as an open-pit and heap leach Gold mine with commercial production anticipated to begin in 2021…results reported this morning by White Gold represent a new discovery on a previously undrilled target thanks to the company’s systematic and data-driven regional exploration program backed by partners Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM, TSX) and Kinross Gold (K, TSX)…

7. AnalytixInsight (ALY, TSX-V) has responded well to news that Intesa Sanpaolo, a co-owner of ALY’s financial technology affiliate Marketwall, plans to accelerate its digital transformation as Italy’s first digital bank, and plans to invest 2.8 billion euros over the next 3 years to increase the bank’s digitized business to 70%…Marketwall, a developer of FinTech solutions, is a technology provider within Intesa Sanpaolo’s digitization initiative and developed the “Intesa Sanpaolo Investo” stock-trading app which was recently launched to Intesa Sanpaolo customers…Marketwall is 49% owned by AnalytixInsight, and 33% owned by Intesa Sanpaolo…Intesa Sanpaolo is a leading bank in Europe with 11.9 million customers, a network of approximately 4,400 branches throughout Italy, and has emerged as Italy’s first digital bank…it was ranked as one of the 3 best digital banks in Europe according to the report “2017 European Online Banking Functionality Benchmark” by Forrester Research…Intesa Sanpaolo now reports 8 million multi-channel customers, of which 3 million are now using the Intesa Sanpaolo Mobile banking app with 56 million logins per month on the app alone, and 53 million mobile transactions with the app since the start of 2018…

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Why Are These People Smiling? – Their Stock Has Tanked 80%!

Turbocharged Nickel

Commodity Check!

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The Most Important Venture Development Since The New Bull Market Began

Visit the BMR comments section throughout the day for updates and helpful information!

1. Gold has traded between $1,288 and $1,296 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is up $7 an ounce at $1,291…China has increased its official Gold reserves for the first time since October 2016…the communist country’s Gold reserves rose to 59.560 million fine troy ounces at the end of December…they had been steady at 59.240 million fine troy ounces from October 2016 to November 2018, according to data from the People’s Bank of China….global Gold ETF inflows have totalled 18.6 tonnes since the start of the year, according to Bloomberg…Silver has added 2 pennies to $15.69…Copper is flat at $2.67…Nickel is 4 cents higher at $5.01 while Zinc has gained a penny to $1.15…Crude Oil is up sharply again, adding 88 cents a barrel to $48.84 while the weakening U.S. Dollar Index has slid more than one-third of a point to 95.71…the U.S. services sector expanded at a slower-than-expected pace in December, according to data released this morning…the ISM non-manufacturing index clocked in at 57.6 last month…the manufacturing index for December was released last week and came in at its lowest level since November 2016…however, solid expansion in the manufacturing and services sectors continues…

2. Tesla’s (TSLA, NASDAQ) new manufacturing plant in China is officially under construction…CEO Elon Musk broke ground on the electric carmaker’s huge factory in Shanghai today, kickstarting a plan to eventually make half a million vehicles in China every year…the company is aiming to complete the initial construction work this summer and start producing its cheapest car, the Model 3, by the end of the year, Musk said in a series of tweets before the event…the Gigafactory in Shanghai’s Lingang Industrial Zone is the biggest foreign investment in manufacturing the city has ever seen, the Shanghai government said in a statement today…the government also reiterated Tesla’s initial target to make 250,000 cars a year, eventually ramping up to 500,000…that’s about 5 times the number of vehicles the company currently produces in the United States…

5. Restoring law and order:  Members of a Northern B.C. First Nation say police intervention is imminent at checkpoints they set up blocking access to a liquefied natural gas pipeline project…Jennifer Wickham, a member of the Gidimt’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, told the Vancouver Sun said RCMP officers have gathered in Smithers and Houston, the closest towns to the checkpoints…“It’s a pretty spiritual time for the folks that are up there right now, and they’re sort of bracing themselves for what could come”…the Wet’suwet’en First Nation is blocking access is TransCanada’s $4.7 billion Coastal GasLink Pipeline, a 670-km route that is meant to deliver liquefied natural gas from Dawson Creek to a planned LNG Canada facility near Kitimat…TransCanada has all the necessary government approvals plus benefit agreements with all 20 elected First Nation bands along the route…however, members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, which is made up of 5 clans, have long protested construction of pipelines through the nation’s claimed traditional territory…

6. The Dow is off 93 points through the first 30 minutes of trading after a more than 700-point surge Friday…mutual funds invested in equity and bonds lost a record $152 billion in December, while U.S. equity ETF’s just had their first back-to-back weekly outflows since July 2018, shedding $7.1 billion in the last 2 weeks according to TrimTabs Investment Research…the TSX is off 18 points as of 7:00 am Pacific…New Gold (NGD, TSX) hit $1.31 in early trading, its highest level since September…the Venture, gunning for its 8th straight winning session, has added another 4 points to 592…PyroGenesis Canada (PYR, TSX-V) is up slightly after announcing that it has been awarded a contract for a 900-kilowatt plasma torch system for more than $1 million…this contract was won in a competitive bid put out by Rise Energy Technology Center AB of Sweden…

7. Election results in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been postponed again and officials said they did not know when they would be ready (they still have to figure out the best way to rig the votes)…the country’s electoral commission (Ceni) said yesterday that tally sheets were trickling in slowly and so it would not be possible to release the results as scheduled…Corneille Nangaa, the head of Ceni, said, “We ask the nation to remain patient for the time it will take to consolidate all our data”…opposition members and observers have said that releasing the results late could be part of a scheme by the Congolese government to rig the election…although President Joseph Kabila could not stand again, having already exceeded his constitutionally mandated 2 terms, his handpicked successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, is widely seen as a puppet, there to hold the reins until 2023 when Kabila may run again…on Friday, President Trump said 80 U.S. military personnel had been deployed to Gabon “in response to the possibility that violent demonstrations may occur in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in reaction to the 30 December 2018 elections there”…in a letter to congressional leaders, Trump said the personnel were there to protect American citizens and the embassy, but also “in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests”, adding that they would be there until the DRC’s security situation looked stable enough that they were not needed – and that more could be deployed if necessary…on Thursday the U.S. threatened sanctions against those who tried to undermine democracy or threatened peace and stability…the Catholic church, a powerful body in the DRC, warned on Saturday of a possible uprising if Ceni did not release provisional results that “conformed to the truth of the polls”…the church had previously claimed that there was a clear winner of the election and called on the electoral commission to release the “true” results, signalling – though not saying outright – that Shady had lost…

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