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1. Gold has traded between $1,282 and $1,289, a fresh 6-month high, on this first trading day of 2019…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is flat at $1,282…the yellow metal enjoyed its best December in a decade, though it fell on an annual basis for the 1st time since 2015…Silver is off 7 cents at $15.40…base metals are under mild pressure on renewed concerns about growth in China…Copper, Nickel and Zinc are at $2.66, $4.74 and $1.12, respectively…Chile’s Copper production touched 540,720 tonnes in November, its highest level in 13 years, as ore grades and efficient processing favoured output in the world’s top producer of the red metal, the government reported Monday…Cobalt is unchanged at $25.17…Crude Oil, after a horrendous 4th quarter, has fallen another 82 cents a barrel to $44.59…nearly all of Oil’s declines in 2018 came in the final 3 months of the year with WTI prices plunging 38% from October through December, the largest quarterly percentage decline since the Oil bust in Q4 2014…factors driving prices down included the waivers provided to some countries against Iranian sanctions, trade tensions between the U.S. and China, lack of clarity regarding adherence to OPEC quota reductions, the fears of declining global demand, and record U.S. production…the U.S. Dollar Index has rallied nearly three-quarters of a point to 96.73 but the outlook the outlook for the greenback is more subdued for 2019 with growing expectations that a 3-year rate-hiking cycle in the U.S. has come to a close…no major economic reports are on the calendar for today but will be later in the week after traders come back from the New Year’s holiday…the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing survey is scheduled for release tomorrow and the Labor Department’s U.S jobs report will come out on Friday…

2. Results of a private survey on China’s manufacturing for the month of December contributed to this morning’s weakness in the broader equity markets as it showed factory activity in the world’s 2nd-largest economy contracted for the 1st time in 19 months amid trade tensions with the United States…the Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), a private survey, fell to 49.7 in December from 50.2 in November…analysts in a Reuters‘ poll predicted the PMI would come in at 50.1 in December…the private survey focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises, while the official PMI gauge from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (released Monday, 49.4) focuses on large companies and state-owned enterprises…some analysts believe the situation on the ground in China may actually be worse than any numbers out of that country suggest…

3. The stock market has been fearful of the Federal Reserve’s rate hiking agenda, but in the futures market, there’s not a single hike in the federal funds rate priced in for 2019…for 2020, the market is figuring there’s a higher chance for a rate cut than a rate hike…the Fed’s December forecasts showed 2 rate hikes expected for 2019…but what really spooked the market was Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s comment that the Fed would continue to allow securities to roll off its balance sheet as they mature, thereby shrinking the balance sheet and removing liquidity from the market at the same time as the European Central Bank also ends its asset purchases…markets will be paying close attention to Powell’s comments on the U.S. economic outlook and hints about monetary policy in 2019 when he participates in a joint discussion on Friday with former Fed heads Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke…

4. Not only is the resource sector in general, and the Oil and gas industry in particular, under attack from the climate change/gender obsessed vocal far left in Canada, but so too are the men who work in this vital sector…the ideology of these Oil and resource haters is sick…consider, for example, the comments of West Coast Environmental Law, an activist organization based in Vancouver and the architect of a recent campaign in which municipalities write letters to large Oil and gas companies “demanding accountability” for their “contribution to climate change”…the West Coast Environmental Law web site states the following:  “Natural resource development can lead to significant impacts on women and girls in surrounding communities, from sexual assault, teen pregnancy and sex trafficking, to increases in housing costs and straining of public services.  Meanwhile, women tend to have less access to the benefits of industrial activities, like jobs.  The often severely gendered impacts of development have been revealed in environmental assessments and documented by groups like Amnesty International and Firelight Group.  In other words, this knowledge is not new.  To suggest that the federal government should not identify ways to avoid harms that befall women and girls, or enhance the benefits they may enjoy, is not just shocking.  It is reprehensible.  It is time for the Oil and gas industry to face the music and realize that to be a responsible player in the Canadian economy, it must play by the rules and do its part to understand and avoid or mitigate the negative impacts of its activities, while enhancing the benefits that flow to communities.  Environmental assessment is a key tool for doing so, and the Impact Assessment Act proposed in Bill C-69 is the best model we are likely to see for a long time”…West Coast Environmental Law is yet another twisted group funded by the far left that’s pushing for the approval of the Trudeau government’s Bill C–69, already passed by the Liberal majority in Parliament and currently under review by the Senate…Bill C-39 will make it even more difficult for major resource projects in this country to get built, and is intended to ensure that another Oil pipeline never gets constructed in Canada…Canadians need to wake up to this disastrous piece of legislation, and the flawed thinking and assumptions underpinning it, that Trudeau hopes will become law in 2019…

5. Erik Prince, the founder of private security firm Blackwater, plans to raise as much as $500 million to capitalize on the rush into metals required for batteries used in electric cars, according to a Financial Times report…“For all the talk of virtual world, the innovation, you can’t build those vehicles without minerals that come from generally weird, hard-to-access places,” said Prince, an adviser to President Trump and brother of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos…Prince says his new fund will focus on unexplored deposits which could be brought into production and then acquired by larger mining companies, and will look to offload its investments within 4 to 5 years…Prince gained notoriety as the founder of Blackwater – the world’s most famous private military contractor which has been targeted with lawsuits alleging civilian deaths in Iraq…Prince sold the company in 2010, which has changed names and is now known as Academi…since parting ways, Prince has run Frontier Services Group, providing logistics and security services to companies operating in risky or unstable countries…for example, they provide anti-piracy support to Somalia and security to Oil firms doing business in South Sudan…the company has also ventured into natural resources, however, after discovering a Copper and Cobalt deposit in the Congo, and investing in a bauxite mine in Guinea…”When I see the R&D budgets of all the major automakers ploughing huge money into hybrid or electric vehicles, I believe the demand curve for the unique minerals that make up an electric car and battery technology will be enormously high over the coming years,” said Prince…a former Navy Seal who now lives in Abu Dhabi, Prince’s strong Chinese connections have helped with his mining investments…in 2018 his mine in Guinea secured an agreement to supply China’s state-owned Aluminium producer Chalco with bauxite…

6. The Dow has retreated 271 points after 30 minutes of trading to begin 2019 after rallying a total of 1,535 points over the final 4 trading sessions in December, though it was still the worst December for U.S. markets since the Great Depression…Tesla disappointed investors this morning, delivering 90,700 vehicles during the 4th quarter which fell short of Wall Street forecasts despite its efforts to ramp up production…in Toronto, the TSX has slid 104 points in early trading…a slowdown in capital raising by the resource sector made 2018 a tepid year for Canadian IPOs, with 15 companies raising $1.74 billion…that compares with 23 IPOs raising $4.76 billion in 2017…the energy and mining sectors were largely responsible for the declines…energy was hit especially hard, however, as a result of delays facing the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and the widening gap between U.S. and Western Canadian benchmark Oil…the Venture fell 35.7% during 2018, its worst annual performance since 2008 when the Index plunged 72%…2009, however, marked the beginning of a powerful 2-and-a-half year bull market…the Venture is up 3 points at 560 as of 7:00 am Pacific, and technical indicators point to a continued rebound in January…

7. Internet connections and SMS services across the Congo remain down for a 3rd straight day today as the country nervously awaits results from last weekend’s chaotic elections, another fraud against the people by current President Joseph Kabila…both the opposition and ruling coalition say they are on track to win after a turbulent Election Day on Sunday in which many Congolese were unable to vote because of an Ebola outbreak, conflict and logistical problems…Barnabé Kikaya bin Karubi, a senior adviser to President Kabila, said Internet and SMS services were cut to preserve public order after “fictitious results” began circulating on social media…“That could lead us straight toward chaos,” Karubi said, adding the connections would remain cut until the publication of complete results on January 6…the signal to Radio France Internationale (R.F.I.), one of the most popular news sources in Congo, was also down, and the government withdrew the accreditation of R.F.I.’s main correspondent in the country late Monday for having aired unofficial results from the opposition…the various moves reflected high tensions in Congo, where the long-delayed election was meant to choose a successor to Kabila who is set to step down after 18 years in power – and 2 years after the official end of his mandate…the opposition said the election was marred by fraud and accused Kabila of planning to rule from the sidelines through his preferred candidate, former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary…

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