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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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Those stats will still be largely unbalanced as a huge number of illicit marihuana sales will be unreported even via crowdsourcing.
Comment by Charles — January 10, 2019 @ 8:41 am