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Gold is firmer this morning after finding support at $1,700 yesterday…as of 8:15 am Pacific, the yellow metal is up $13 an ounce at $1,715…Silver has jumped 41 cents to $32.14…Copper is unchanged at $3.56…Crude Oil is even at $85.73 (John has a WTIC chart below) while the U.S. Dollar Index is up slightly at 79.99…

Gold prices eased slightly below $1,700 intra-day yesterday for the first time in seven weeks…however, as John’s chart showed, bullion is underpinned by three strong areas of support beginning around $1,700…bullion is on track to break a 4-month winning streak, down about 4% in October…

Gold’s Monthly Historical Performance

Most investors are aware that the month of September is typically strong for Gold, and Gold equities – as it was this year – but over the last decade, October has been the third-worst month while November has been by far the best month of all…in fact, we’re about to enter Gold’s strongest four-month period which is November through February as you can see in the Bloomberg chart below…dating back to 2000, Gold has gained an average of more than 8% from November 1 through the end of February – aided significantly during this period by physical demand from Asia…

Through yesterday, Gold was off 4% here in October which puts it on track to break a 4-month winning streak…if historical patterns are any indication, though, expect Gold to resume those monthly advances beginning in November…

Crude Oil Chart Update

Some analysts have stated Crude Oil has broken down, but we don’t see evidence of that given the fact Crude has a strong support band between $84 and $86 as shown in John’s 6-month daily chart below…RSI(14) is also currently at a support level, so we’ll see what happens…

UK Comes Out Of Double Dip Recession

The U.K. Office for National Statistics reported that the British economy rebounded out of recession in the third quarter, posting a stronger-than-expected 1% quarterly rise in gross domestic product after three consecutive quarters of contraction…that marked the strongest quarterly rise in GDP since 2007, aided in part by the impact of the London Olympics and technical factors…

Fed Stays The Course

The conclusion yesterday of a two-day meeting of the Federal Reserve’s policy-making panel was uneventful, as expected…the central bank made no changes to its plans to make $40 billion in monthly purchases of mortgage-backed securities via its third round of quantitative easing, or QE3, unveiled last month…the Fed is also buying $45 billion of Treasurys offset by sales of shorter-term securities under its Operation Twist program…making minimal changes to its statement, the Fed noted some areas of improvement, such as consumer spending, but said job growth remains slow and that unemployment remains “elevated”…it also noted that “inflation recently picked up somewhat”…

China Overtakes U.S. As Top Foreign Investment Venue

China overtook the U.S. as the world’s top destination for foreign direct investment in the first half of 2012, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)…China absorbed $59.1 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first six months, down slightly from $60.9 billion a year earlier, the agency said in a report…the United States attracted $57.4 billion in 2012’s first half, down 39% from a year earlier, it said…during 2011, the U.S. received $227 billion in FDI while China attracted $116 billion, according to UNCTAD…the third biggest recipient of FDI in the first half of this year was Hong Kong, with $40.8 billion…the report said the third biggest in 2011 was Belgium, with $102 billion…

Canadian Conservatives Give Up On Paying Down Debt

All the hawkish rhetoric from Stephen Harper’s Conservatives about the importance of paying down the federal debt was just that – rhetoric, and Republicans down south will probably be no different…it seems once in office, all politicians catch the spending disease and are incapable of making the really tough decisions…the Globe and Mail reports this morning that Ottawa’s “Conservative” government no longer has targets for easing Canada’s federal debt, which grew by a whopping $125 billion since the 2008 recession…Finance Minister Jim Flaherty confirmed yesterday that the recession has derailed Ottawa’s long-term debt plans and new targets won’t be set until the government starts posting yearly surpluses again – which is not forecast to happen for three more years…Canada’s federal debt stood at $582.2-billion for 2011-12, which is up from $457.6-billion in 2007-08…it was just five years ago that the government was promoting an ambitious plan called Advantage Canada that promised to erase the country’s net public debt “by 2021 at the latest,” according to Flaherty’s 2007 budget…meanwhile, the fiscally conservative Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation said the government should be pressured to stick with its original debt plan, regardless of the recession…“By abandoning it, they’re saying they’re adrift,” said Gregory Thomas, the federation’s federal director…“I think the fiscally conservative base of the government has to be profoundly concerned”…

U.S. Economic Data

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, giving a clearer sign that the labor market is healing after wild fluctuations in claims data at the beginning of the month…initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 23,000 to a seasonally adjusted 369,000, the Labor Department said this morning…that was pretty much in line with expectations…the four-week moving average for jobless claims, which smooths out volatility, rose 1,500 to a 368,000…

The Commerce Department reported this morning that non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, was unchanged last month at $60.3 billion…that was short of economists’ expectations for a 0.7% gain…

New durable goods orders, however, posted their biggest gain last month since January, 2010…new orders for durables (items from toasters to aircraft that are meant to last at least three years) rose 9.9% , above analysts’ expectations and partially reversing a sharp loss in August….

In a sign of a still struggling housing market, signed contracts to buy existing homes were essentially flat in September from August, edging up just 0.3% according to a monthly index from the National Association of Realtors…the index is 14.5% above September, 2011…

Today’s Markets

North American markets are in the green amid plenty of corporate earnings reports today and a slew of economic data (Apple comes out with earnings post-market)…as of 8:15 am Pacific, the Dow is up 30 points while the TSX has gained 100 points…

Venture Exchange

The Venture has been finding support right around its rising 50-day moving average (SMA), and is getting a bounce today from higher Gold prices and another friendly takeover…Hana Mining (HMG, TSX-V) is up 35 cents to 80 cents on news that it has entered into an agreement with Cupric Canyon Capital LP for an all-cash buyout at 82 cents per share, an 88% premium to the 20-day volume-weighted-average HMG share price…this values Hana at approximately $82 million, and further illustrates how so many Venture companies remain undervalued…this is the third buyout in just over a week, and undoubtedly there will be more…in part this is why we’re so bullish regarding this market looking out over the next several months…as of 8:15 am Pacific, the Venture is up 15 points to 1303…

Below is an interesting chart from John that shows how the Venture is so close to breaking out of a down trendline that has been in place since early 2011…both Gold and the CRB Index have broken out of their down trendlines, so the Venture should follow soon…

Mineral Mountain Resources (MMV, TSX-V)

Mineral Mountain Resources (MMV, TSX-V) has more than quadrupled the size of its original Holy Terror land package in South Dakota with new staking covering significant structural and magnetic anomalies…the project now encompasses an area 14 kilometres long by 1.5 kilometres wide (1,800 hectares) with the company consolidating eight former high-grade producers in a proven mining district that has been under-explored…drilling is in progress…MMV, with a strong support band between 28.5 and 31 cents, is up 2 pennies at 33 cents as of 8:15 am Pacific…

Rainbow Resources (RBW, TSX-V)

With drilling underway or just about to commence at Gold Viking and Jewel Ridge in Nevada, there are two more important reasons to be bullish regarding Rainbow Resources (RBW, TSX-V) which is also expected to have results out from the International Silver Property within the next week or two…at the International, the language from RBW has indicated that the Phase 1 shallow drill program consistently hit mineralization but the company has taken what appears to be a conservative approach with little in the way of “visual” information with regard to the core…in a way we find that refreshing as perhaps the strategy is to “under-promise” and “over-deliver”…too often we’ve seen companies provide glowing remarks regarding drill core, only to disappoint with actual assay results…in terms of the Gold Viking Property, it has received little fanfare and we’re surprised Rainbow hasn’t been more aggressive in highlighting this property given its strong geological merits and history…it’s also right beside the former producing Ottawa Mines that churned out nearly 2 million of Silver in the 1900’s at an incredible average grade of over 60 oz per ton…there appear to be multiple vein systems at Gold Viking and all Rainbow needs to do is cut through a few of these in its drilling to really get the ball rolling…at Jewel Ridge, if Rainbow is successful just in duplicating some of the historical drill results, that project will really start to garner some major attention given the fact it’s right in between over 4 million ounces of 43-101 reserves and resources (Ruby Hill and Lookout Mountain)…

Carlisle Goldfields (CGJ, TSX-V) and Canasil Resources (CLZ, TSX-V)

John has chart updates on two situations we’ve pointed out that are worthy of our readers’ due diligence, Carlisle Goldfields (CGJ, TSX-V) with a major project in northern Manitoba, and Canasil Resources (CLZ, TSX-V) which is focused on Gold, Silver, Copper, lead and zinc opportunities primarily in Mexico…

Carlisle Goldfields (CGJ, TSX-V)

Canasil Resources (CLZ, TSX-V)

iSign Media Solutions (ISD, TSX-V)

An interesting non-resource play we’ve followed on and off for the past year-and-a-half, because of its interesting business model, is iSign Media Solutions (ISD, TSX-V)…buying on weakness and selling into strength has proven to be the best strategy with this play which continues to be volatile…below is a chart update from John…

Note: John and Jon both hold share positions in RBW.