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1. Gold has traded between $1,304 and $1,316 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion has retreated $11 an ounce to $1,307…as we pointed out yesterday, Gold has fallen below an uptrend line on its short-term chart going back to December…a strong support zone exists between $1,300 and $1,280 with the rising 200-day moving average (SMA) at $1,287…Silver is down 21 cents at $16.18…Copper is off 3 pennies at $3.10…Nickel has slipped 18 cents to $6.09 while Zinc is 3 cents lower at $1.56…Cobalt continues to hover just below a decade high at $36.74…Crude Oil has backed off 84 cents to $60.80…banks have raised their forecasts for Oil prices for the 5th month in a row, according to a poll of 15 investment banks surveyed by the Wall Street Journal…WTI should average $58 a barrel in 2018, they say…the U.S. dollar has risen to its highest since mid-January, with the euro also under pressure from benign euro zone inflation data that dented expectations that the ECB would curb its stimulus program anytime soon…the Dollar Index is up one-fifth of a point at 90.82…U.S. government debt yields have fallen modestly this morning on inflation numbers and ahead of a second day of testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell…weekly jobless claims in the U.S. are now at their lowest level since 1969 while the ISM manufacturing index has exceeded estimates with a reading of 60.8 for February…

2. Despite strong economic growth, U.S. inflation remains muted, according to fresh data this morning from the U.S. Commerce Department…the latest inflation report showed Personal Consumption Expenditures increased 0.4% in January, in line with expectations and up from December’s 0.1% reading…however, on the year the PCE Index remains stable at 1.7%, unchanged from December…Core PCE, which strips out volatile food and energy prices and is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure, rose 0.3% last month as expected, up from a 0.2% increase in December…however, core inflation remains lackluster on an annual basis, up 1.5% last month – the 4th consecutive month at that level and below the Fed’s 2% target rate…

3. Canadian firms are sounding off against Ottawa’s dismal failure to introduce policies in Tuesday’s budget to narrow the “competitiveness gap” with the United States, saying Canada is increasingly at risk of losing investment dollars to its southern neighbor.  “There is nothing happening to make Canada more competitive – nothing that we’ve seen in this budget,” said Kevin Neveu, President and CEO of Calgary-based Precision Drilling (PD, TSX)…even a former federal Liberal finance minister is sounding the alarm…John Manley, now the President and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, says growth-focused policy changes in Ottawa’s budget were “disappointingly thin”…Manley said the budget “ignores Canada’s serious tax competitiveness challenges, sending an unfortunate signal to entrepreneurs and companies that are looking to invest and grow.”  The Mining Association of Canada is also chiming in, upset at the absence of any policies to address the sharp reduction in U.S. corporate tax rates…the budget “does little to enhance Canada’s competitiveness at a time when the country’s relative share of exploration spending and new mine investment has been declining, and as our major trading partner, the United States, has significantly reduced corporate and personal income taxes”… the Canadian dollar has been driven down to a 10-week low of just under 78 cents…

4. More damning evidence of how incompetent politicians and special interest groups in Canada (domestic and foreign) are inflicting major damage on this country’s Oil and gas industry:  Statistics Canada says capital spending to extract Oil and gas in Canada will plunge an estimated 12% this year to about $33.2 billion (it’ll probably end up worse than that), with the biggest declines in the Oilsands sector where spending will fall by a fifth…one has to ask, why is investment in Oil and gas declining in this country while at the same time it’s increasing significantly in the United States?…higher taxes, an onerous regulatory environment in Canada and of course this country’s inability to get pipelines built, or even expand an existing one, are the reasons Oil and gas investors are now turning away from Canada in droves…a false religion has gripped this country and it’s called “climate change extremism”, the left’s flawed but powerful globalist agenda to “save the planet” (fortunately for the U.S., Trump rejects this)…it’s bizarre to see how Canadians are almost apologizing for the fact that God has blessed this country with the world’s 3rd-largest proven Oil reserves…we’re now struggling to get Oil to market but we’ve become the best in the world at getting pot to market…

5. The Dow, trying to snap a 2-session losing skid that has shaved nearly 700 points off the index, is down another 70 points through the first 30 minutes of trading…share buybacks announced by large U.S. companies have exceeded $200 billion in the past 3 months, more than double the prior year, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data for S&P 500 companies…among the biggest are Cisco Systems at $25 billion, Wells Fargo at about $21 billion, PepsiCo at $15 billion, AbbVie and Amgen at $10 billion apiece, and Alphabet at $8.6 billion…S&P 500 firms are on track to post their 6th consecutive quarter of earnings growth…if companies spend $500 billion – about a fifth of what they are estimated to hold in earnings overseas – on buybacks, per-share earnings in the S&P 500 this year could go up an additional $3 a share or 2 percentage points, according to an analysis by Goldman Sachs…in Toronto, the TSX has slipped 46 points as of 7:00 am Pacific while the Venture has retreated 6 points to 823 after its best session yesterday in 3 weeks…HIVE Blockchain Technologies (HIVE, TSX-V) is up 7 cents at $1.88 after reporting 3rd quarter revenue of $3.3 million from mining of digital currencies at its Iceland facilities…net income was $150,000 for the period…the company also says it accumulated and held $5.8 million worth of newly minted Ethereum, Ethereum Classic and ZCash as at December 31, 2017…Cronos Group (MJN, TSX-V; CRON, NASDAQ) has traded nearly 13 million shares in its first 2 days on the NASDAQ…bright spots on the resource side yesterday to close out the month of February were Blue Moon Zinc (MOON, TSX-V), which pushed to a new 7-year high of 13 cents on 1.9 million shares, and Cornerstone Metals (CCC, TSX-V) which delivered strong initial Vanadium drill results from its property in Nevada…Aben Resources (ABN, TSX-V) is mobilizing for maiden drilling at its Chico Gold Project in Saskatchewan…the drill program, expected to begin March 9, will initially comprise 1,200 m in 4 to 5 drill holes “with a provision to increase to 2,000 m should the proposed holes encounter significant mineralization as anticipated,” the company says…

6. ML Gold Corp. (MLG, TSX-V) resumes trading at 7:15 am Pacific after yesterday’s late day halt followed by initial drill results from the company’s Stars Project in central British Columbia…drill hole #4 cut a 204-m intersection of 0.50% CuEq (0.45% Copper) including 1.02% CuEq over 40.2 m from surface, not spectacular but certainly very promising given limited previous work at this property…significantly, all the holes completed so far, including #4, have mostly drilled into just the intrusives, not the volcanics where higher grades can be expected…new geophysics has identified a possible porphyry center – a just-completed detailed airborne magnetic survey reveals a cluster of covered and untested circular magnetic anomalies between the two zones drilled in the current program and centered within a larger ovoid magnetic “ring” feature (or “magnetic halo”) approximately 5 km in diameter (long axis)…the company is now preparing for a more aggressive second phase of drilling, stepping out around hole 4 and testing new targets generated from rock chemistry vectors and airborne geophysics…

7. Even if Gold is unable to make new multi-year highs, the market is still in a good space and the mining sector has room to grow, said Sean Roosen, CEO of Osisko Gold Royalties (OR, TSX) in an interview with Kitco.   “I think the Gold market at $1,330-$1,350 is a pretty good price to set the stage for new projects to come online,” Roosen stated…while Gold has struggled to make gains against the U.S. dollar, Roosen noted that his company’s portfolio is weighted heavily in Canadian dollar terms, which is holding up well…with Gold trading at about $1,675 an ounce in Canadian dollar terms, the market is only 11% off its all-time high of $1,886 (CDN) an ounce…

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