1. Gold has traded between $1,273 and $1,280 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is off $1 an ounce at $1,275 with strong support in the $1,260’s…technical-related pressure and significant Gold sales by Venezuela have been major factors behind bullion’s price drop this week…yesterday’s slide saw Gold shed all of the gains it had accrued since the start of the year as the yellow metal also dipped below its 100-day moving average (SMA)…Silver is up a penny at $14.98…a broad set of upbeat economic data from China has given base metals a lift today…Copper has climbed 3 pennies to $2.97, Nickel is 5 cents higher at $5.89 while Zinc has added a penny to $1.33…Cobalt remains above $16 a pound at 3-month highs…China’s steel industry notched a new production record in the 1st quarter, spurred by consumption in the infrastructure sector as government stimulus props up demand (bullish for Nickel)…the maker of half the world’s steel churned out 231 million tons between January and March, up almost 10% from a year earlier and the highest for any 1st quarter on record…production in March climbed 10% to 80.3 million tons, according to data from the statistics bureau, as mills ramped up operations amid a profit margin recovery and less stringent curbs on production in the country’s anti-smog crackdown…Cobalt prices remain above $16, near 3-month highs…Crude Oil has gained 9 cents to $64.14 while the Dollar Index has slipped one-tenth of a point to 96.94…
2. Making Alberta Great Again: United Conservative leader Jason Kenney cruised to a landslide victory last night, securing about 55% of the popular vote and 70% of the seats to end 4 years of NDP rule in an election that is certain to have national implications…Kenney’s passionate victory speech was a message to all Canadians, not just Albertans: “We Canadians have been blessed with the world’s 3rd largest Oil reserves, and an abundance of Natural Gas. But we have been targeted by a foreign funded campaign of special interests seeking to landlock Canadian energy. This means that we Canadians have become captive to the United States as the only market for Canada’s largest export product: our energy. As a result, we have been selling our country’s greatest asset at fire sale prices, losing billions of dollars of value, money that could build schools and hospitals across Canada. This giveaway of Canadian energy has caused the flight of tens of billions of dollars of investment from Alberta, and with it the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. And we are subsidizing the U.S. economy in the process, while the investment that has fled Canada is fuelling an unprecedented oil boom south of the border. Meanwhile, the foreign funded special interests campaigning against Canadian energy have done precisely nothing to stop the doubling of Oil production in the United States, or to reduce by one barrel energy coming from OPEC dictatorships, or Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In other words, we’ve been had. And in Ottawa, we have a federal government that has made this bad situation worse, killing two major coastal pipelines, including Energy East that would have helped Quebec and Atlantic Canada displace foreign Oil imports with Canadian energy! That same federal government is imposing new laws that will make it impossible to get pipelines approved in the future. And we have provincial governments that have tried to block our energy. Tonight all of that changes”…
3. China has released a slew of official economic data that beat expectations, including the widely anticipated GDP figure…Beijing said its economy expanded by 6.4% year-on-year in the 1st quarter of 2019, topping the 6.3% that analysts polled by Reuters had expected…China’s economy grew by 6.4% year-on-year in the 4th quarter of last year, and 6.8% in the 1st quarter of 2018…the Asian economic giant also released other economic indicators that point to a rebound: 1) Industrial production jumped 8.5% year-on-year in March, surging past the 5.9% estimated by Reuters to register the fastest growth since July 2014; 2) Retail sales for March grew by 8.7% year-on-year, beating Reuters’ projection of 8.4%; 3) Fixed asset investment in the 1st quarter increased by 6.3% year-on-year, in line with expectations…previous stimulus now appears to be working its way through the system which should lead to continued improvement in real economic data over the coming months, giving the metals market another boost…a trade agreement with the Trump administration would add a lot of fuel to the fire…
4. The Dow is off 37 points through the first 30 minutes of trading…in Toronto, the TSX has gained 17 points while the Venture has added 1 point to 611…Venture weakness the last 2 days can be attributed to technical factors as the Index fell below support in the low 620’s…however, very strong secondary support exists at 600 where the 100-day SMA, coinciding with a Fib. level, is now starting to reverse to the upside…astute investors are buying the dip…Azimut Exploration (AZM, TSX-V) has broken out to its highest levels since 2016, touching 48 cents in early trading…on Monday, the company reported very encouraging preliminary results from a 2,234-line electromagnetic and magnetic heliborne survey covering its promising Pikwa Property in the James Bay region of Quebec, part of its recently expanded strategic alliance with SOQUEM…GoGold Resources (GGD, TSX-V) has drilled 35.5 m of 284.7 g/t Ag and 1.24 g/t Au (5.04 g/t AuEq) at is newly-acquired Los Ricos Project, confirming the results from historical RC drilling…the next phase of drilling, now underway, will be focused on following the high-grade ore shoot down dip from historical drilling…
5. White Gold (WGO, TSX) has commenced its $13 million fully financed 2019 exploration program on its extensive 439 sq. km land package in the Yukon, representing over 40% of the prolific White Gold district…a total of 17,000 m of diamond drilling and 7,500 m of RC drilling is expected this season as part of the company’s systematic data driven exploration plan backed by partners Agnico Eagle (AEM, TSX) and Kinross (K, TSX)…work has commenced on the JP Ross Property focusing on expanding the footprint of the recent Vertigo discovery and other newly identified high priority targets along the 14 km Vertigo trend…detailed soil sampling performed in 2018 has proven effective to highlight known mineralization on the Vertigo discovery and also identified several new targets on the Vertigo trend and across the JP Ross Property associated with regional scale structures, demonstrating the potential for multiple mineralized systems…
6. Cannabix Technologies (BLO, CSE) announced this morning that recent characterization work with its FAIMS THC detection device with human subjects has shown the ability to consistently discriminate unwanted ions from complex human breath background matrices, allowing for THC (delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol) detection…specifically, recent testing with updated FAIMS cell geometries has shown the ability to consistently suppress several compounds that are commonly found in breath such as nicotine, garlic, onion, meats, ethanol, and volatile flavorants including methyl salicylate and menthol (commonly found in gum), allowing for discrimination and mobility of THC in exhaled breath…company engineers have also developed a new atmospheric pressure chemical ionization source that provides significantly improved ion control in terms of intensity, stability, and focusing…Cannabix scientists have been focusing their efforts to complete characterization of FAIMS with various possible breath and environmental contaminants and are nearing completion of this phase of development…the company then plans to initiate third-party testing and piloting of the device…Cannabix has received interest in piloting from both U.S. and Canadian law enforcement groups as well as other organizations that drug test their employees…BLO is up 8 cents at $1.48 through the first 30 minutes of trading…
7. Canopy Growth (WEED, TSX; CGC, NYSE) co-CEO Bruce Linton said yesterday that the company has increased the pace of its packaging and shipping processes and anticipates sales growth to accelerate by the final quarter of the calendar year as the number of legal retailers grows and edibles hit the market…“The final two quarters of our year, I expect to be very strong”…his bullish comments came just a day after shares of Aphria (APH, TSX) slipped by as much as 15% after its quarterly revenue and earnings fell short of estimates…Linton anticipates Canopy will generate more than $1 billion in revenue globally during its financial year, which started on April 1…however, he’s not expecting Canopy to reach profitability at that level of revenue, as it is investing in clinical trials and other initiatives to position itself for the long term…meanwhile, Canopy Growth and Canopy Rivers (RIV, TSX-V) announced 2 acquisitions yesterday…Canopy Rivers said it acquired an 18.4% interest in High Beauty while Canopy Growth announced an all-cash acquisition of Cafina…
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Ya it’s to bad to see ggi getting slapped like this, undervalued, my only question is where is the next support level, or is it to early to tell, bargain level?
Comment by Laddy — April 17, 2019 @ 8:39 am
Nice speech by Kenney. Everything he said is true. As someone living in Alberta I would like to think that Kenney can make the price of oil go up and can get the pipelines built. But he will realize that his influence is quite limited. I really don’t think things will change much.
Comment by Danny — April 17, 2019 @ 4:17 pm
Well Danny things can’t get any worse for Alberta I don’t think. I loved Kenny’s speech also and am hopeful he can make some changes. The lower corporate taxes hopefully will help bring back oil and gas companies that have moved to the US over the past few years. I live in Fort McMurray and we really need things to change. It is very slow and quiet around here the last few years… Many home foreclosures and business’s as well. I understand that is the nature of the business we are in but most of this is self inflicted by Trudeau and the liberals and Notley and the NDP government. The US oil industry is booming and yet Canada is struggling. Step one UCP majority in Alberta. Now hopefully we can get Trudeau out of there in October???
Comment by dwightdecker — April 17, 2019 @ 8:29 pm
I hear you dwight. I think the government in BC is the biggest impediment. Andrew Scheer has been a big disappointment federally, almost invisible. Cheers
Comment by Danny — April 17, 2019 @ 8:44 pm
Canopy and Acreage Holdings halted pre-market, looks like Canopy acquiring Acreage…
Comment by Jon - BMR — April 18, 2019 @ 6:09 am
I would be very careful with USGD. They’re paying an insane amount to Future Money Trends and others to promote their company….almost as though they are looking for a jump in share price to offload some shares.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-pacific-mining-announces-joint-080000589.html
Comment by keen1991 — April 18, 2019 @ 6:16 am
I would actually view that as a positive, keen1991 – a company that’s aggressively pushing its story – and it’s certainly not an insane amount of money by industry standards…a valid concern IMHO would be the necessity for USGD to quickly acquire/announce a second project that they completely control (which I believe they’re smart enough to realize)…it’s great to have a JV with a producer, but those kind of deals tend to dampen speculative interest, at least temporarily…USGD has a lot going for it including an aggressive management team that knows what it’s doing…
Comment by Jon - BMR — April 18, 2019 @ 6:41 am
Jon,I was looking at it relative to the market cap of USGD.It has a market cap of $12m and it is paying out the equivalent of 10% of it’s market cap.That can’t be good long term for the company. But let’s wait and see,there are enough other plays for me to give this a miss.
Comment by keen1991 — April 18, 2019 @ 7:23 am
They don’t think of themselves as a $12 million market cap deal, keen1991, and that’s a good thing…they view themselves as very undervalued and have a lot of growth plans…the fact OceanaGold would step in with a $10 million (U.S.) option deal to acquire 75% of Tuscarora speaks volumes about the quality of the USGD group…I’d like to see them move quickly on a 2nd project and I’m confident they will…
Comment by Jon - BMR — April 18, 2019 @ 7:35 am