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Gold has traded between $1,240 and $1,254 on this first trading day of February…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is up $3 an ounce at $1,249…Silver has added 16 cents to $19.32 (see updated charts below, reasons for encouragement)…Copper is flat at $3.21…Crude Oil is up 15 cents at $97.64 while the U.S. Dollar Index is down slightly at 81.22…

Physical demand volumes out of Asia dwindled considerably since last Thursday with the start of Chinese New Year, and Chinese traders will not likely be back in full force until the week of February 10…this Friday’s U.S. jobs report could prove to be critical in determining bullion’s next major move…Gold finished lower last week for the first time in six weeks, and the bulls must overcome key resistance at $1,275 in order to seize momentum and put the bears on the defensive…

The U.S. Mint sold 91,500 ounces of Gold coins last month, the most since April, joining counterparts from Australia to Europe in reporting higher demand…meanwhile, Global security services company Brinks is getting ready to open its fifth Gold vault in Singapore to profit from bullion’s movement from the West to the East…

Not sure if this is a good sign or not – hedge funds’ net-long position in Gold jumped 40% (the most since July) to 60,672 futures and options in the week ended January 28, according to data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data…

Today’s Markets

Asia

Japan’s Nikkei average closed at a two-and-a-half month low overnight, falling nearly 300 points to finish at 14619…several Asian markets, including Shanghai and Hong Kong, were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday…data released over the weekend showed Chinese factory growth slumped to a six-month low in January…China’s official PMI fell to 50.5 in January from December’s reading of 51, heightening worries of an economic slowdown in the world’s second largest economy…

Europe

European markets are mixed in late trading overseas…

North America

After falling more than 5% in January in its worst month in over a year, the Dow is off another 60 points through the first 30 minutes of trading today…the TSX is off 78 points but the Venture is bucking the trend with a gain of 3 points to 954 as of 7:00 am Pacific…

CDNX Updated 3-Year Weekly Chart

Below is John’s updated 3-year weekly CDNX chart that we’ve been tracking consistently over the last several months…what will be interesting to monitor is whether or not the RSI(14) will find support around the 50% level…it broke out above this resistance area in late December/early January for the first time on the 3-year weekly since the bear market began in early 2011…accumulation remains strong…the Venture out-performed the Dow, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq and the TSX in January with a gain of 2%…

Interesting headline at www.CliveMaund.com this morning:  “Precious Metals Sector New Uptrend – Juniors To Lead The Charge”…Clive is a respected technical analyst…

Junior Financings Surge

The money exists to fund junior exploration companies, but how it’s allocated – which companies and projects it goes to – is the key…at the recent Vancouver Resource and Investment Conference, Rick Rule stated that Sprott funds had invested $800 million in deals last year and will likely substantially pick up the pace in the first quarter of 2014 by pouring another $600 million into various projects…

Check out the article this morning by Mineweb’s Kip Kean at www.mineweb.com…Kean noted, “The latest tallies of junior financings year-to-date in January put the first month of the year on pace to equal all financings in the fourth quarter 2013.  In a recent research for its clients, Canaccord counted 144 equity financings over C$250,000 worth a total $480 million CDN in January versus $410 million in 180 financings in the fourth quarter 2013.  About a third of the January financings had closed, Canaccord noted.  Much of the January surge in terms of value stems from three multi-million bought-deals: Torex Gold ~C$125 million, Timmins Gold ~C$25 million and True Gold ~$36 million. In the final talk of the recent Roundup conference in Vancouver, PI analyst Jim Mustard pointed to similar figures as a positive sign for the junior market.  “That’s a significant start to the year,” Mustard said. “Maybe it’s the January effect. I don’t know. I hope it establishes a trend.”

Sheslay Valley Cu-Au Porphyry Play Heats Up More

Significant news this morning from Ashburton Ventures Inc. (ABR, TSX-V) which adds further support to the theory that Doubleview Capital Corp’s (DBV, TSX-V) recently announced discovery at its Hat Property may extend for a considerable distance to the east and southeast…

Besides staking additional claims, Ashburton has reported that a “large gossanous zone” has been observed, through recent flyovers, along the western edge of its Hackett Property contiguous to Doubleview’s Hat Property and within just 1,000 meters of DBV’s discovery holes…DBV’s discovery, as we showed in an updated map last week, is within a parallel trend dipping southeast that begins at least nine km to the northwest at Prosper Gold Corp’s (PGX, TSX-V) advanced Star target…several of these parallel trends appear to exist throughout the Sheslay district, extending all the way through Garibaldi Resources Corp.’s (GGI, TSX-V) massive Grizzly Property south to Teck Resources Ltd.’s (TCK, TSX) Eagle Project…

The existence of a large gossan on the western edge of the Hackett is interesting indeed, and this is also very close to the historical “Hoey” showing that appears to be on Doubleview’s ground…besides “Anomaly B”, where DBV has made its discovery, four other areas with similarly strong geophysical and geochemical characteristics, including two areas with Copper mineralization and Gold values in surface outcrops, have not been tested by drilling at the Hat…as DBV stated in its Jan. 20 news release, “The horizontal distance from mineral zones in drill hole H-6 to drill hole H-8 is almost one kilometre. Speculatively, if the newly discovered mineral zone is, as appears likely, continuous with the historic Hoey Copper-Gold zone that lies two kilometres south of the drill hole H-8 and has closely similar geologic and mineralogic characteristics, the horizontal extent may be in excess of three kilometres.”  Given what Ashburton is now reporting, it’s quite conceivable that any deposit at the Hat could extend onto ABR’s Hackett Property with continued potential going east and southeast…Garibaldi‘s acquisition of the Hat East and Hat East 2 claims to add to the Grizzly (plus the staking of Grizzly strike extension claims) represents a growing understanding of this whole system…

Below is a close-up look at the Doubleview discovery area…for scale purposes, keep in mind that this area – as significant in size as it is – represents just a small slice of the massive Sheslay pie which is a growing mineralized district covering at least 600 sq. km…

Ashburton Ventures Inc. (ABR, TSX-V) Updated Chart

Below is an updated chart to assist our readers with their own due diligence regarding Ashburton…since the summer of 2012, the stock has traded in a horizontal channel between support at 3.5 cents and resistance at 10 cents…in addition to its presence in the Sheslay Valley, ABR is focused on PGE exploration in the Yukon in the immediate vicinity of Wellgreen Platinum Ltd.’s (WG, TSX-V) deposit…as of 7:00 am Pacific, ABR is unchanged at 6.5 cents…

Prosper Gold Corp. (PGX, TSX-V)

Prosper Gold Corp. (PGX, TSX-V) has been perking up recently and of course is a very important player in the Sheslay district with its nearly 70 sq. Sheslay Cu-Au Porphyry Project that hosts at least five porphyry targets, four of them within a 12 sq. km area (Star, North Star, East Star and Copper Creek)…Prosper is gearing up for a 2014 drill program that will step out beyond the Star to test the theory that at least some of those targets are connected to the Star as one very large porphyry system…alternatively, Prosper could be looking at a series of potential deposits while the same holds true for Doubleview and Garibaldi…the Sheslay system is so “pregnant”, in our view, that the possibilities are truly incredible…

The 2.5-year weekly PGX chart shows increased momentum with a resistance band between 50 and 65 cents…as of 7:00 am Pacific, PGX is off a penny at 41 cents…

Magor Corp. (MCC, TSX-V) Updated Chart

We continue to keep a close eye on Magor Corp. (MCC, TSX-V), a tech play we like for the long-term…2014 could be Magor’s breakout year after the company first started trading on the Venture nearly a year ago…Magor is a “visual collaboration” company led by an all-star management team that includes some of the same senior personnel that guided Newbridge Networks…the company recently reported “solid growth” in its existing software transaction business, while it’s also in the process of rolling out its key Aerus cloud-based services…we expect Magor’s business model to really start to kick into gear during the second half of this year…no guarantees but superb potential here as we’ve seen their impressive technology in action…

Technically, Magor shows strong support in the mid-30’s, the ADX trend indicator is bullish and buy pressure remains strong despite the recent pullback in the share price…MCC closed Friday at 44.5 cents…below is a 10-month weekly chart from John…

Silver Long-Term Chart Update

One encouraging aspect to this long-term Silver chart is the current oversold RSI(2) condition at 11%…the RSI(2) indicator on the long-term chart has consistently been a reliable indicator of a near-term turnaround in the Silver price if it dips below the 15% level…given strong support for Silver around current levels, and this extreme RSI(2) reading, the metal could be ready for an immediate or near-term move higher…

Silver Short-Term Chart Update

Note: John and Jon both hold share positions in GGI.  Jon also holds share positions in DBV, ABR, PGX and MCC.