Gold is trading slightly higher this evening after falling a few dollars an ounce Wednesday…as of 7:30 pm Pacific, bullion is up $4 at $1,204…Silver has added 3 cents to $16.25…Copper is flat at $2.66…Crude Oil is up another 25 cents to $51.78 while the U.S. Dollar Index is up slightly at 96.00, threatening to break above yet another resistance level…
This is a special evening and shortened version of BMR Musings due to this being the final day of PDAC…our regular morning version resumes tomorrow…
China lowered its economic growth forecast to about 7% this year at the opening of the country’s biggest political event of the year, ushering in what leaders have dubbed a “new normal” of slower growth in the world’s second-largest economy…this will be the mainland’s lowest growth target in 11 years, according to a speech by premier Li Keqiang at the annual National People’s Congress, down from 7.5 last year – a sign of the government’s increased focus on quality over quantity as it seeks to overhaul the country’s growth model…
Equity Markets
Asia
China’s Shanghai Composite is off about 1% in early Thursday trading…
Europe
European markets were up moderately today…the ECB meets tomorrow – it may reveal details on the timing of the bond-buying program announced earlier in the year…
North America
The Dow fell for the second straight session today, losing 106 points to close at 18907…stocks held to earlier declines despite the Fed’s Beige Book showing optimism on an expanding economy in most regions, with some pressure from energy and winter weather…the report also said there are some wage hikes in separate industries…
The U.S. ADP national employment report for February was released today and showed a rise of 212,000, which was in line with expectations…traders and investors are looking ahead to Friday’s critical jobs report from the Labor Department…the key non-farm jobs number is expected to be up 240,000 in February…
In Toronto, the TSX fell 51 points while the Venture was off for the third straight session, declining 4 points to close at 698…
Crude Oil Updated Chart
A couple of very encouraging short-term signs regarding Crude Oil is that the very strong bearish trend is clearly weakening, and WTIC is beginning to overcome resistance at the still-declining 50-day moving average (SMA) which currently is almost exactly $50…that level has also been long-term support…if WTIC can start to gain traction above $50, this would be certainly be helpful for the Venture as the CDNX-WTIC correlation has been so high for much of the last year…
Saudi Arabia’s oil minister said today he expected Oil prices, which hit a near 6-year low in January, to stabilize, signalling cautious optimism about the market outlook…
Below is a WTIC 2-year weekly chart…it’s possible that a reversal to the upside in the 50-day could occur here in March, and that would supply from fresh fuel for a further advance…
WTIC-Venture Comparative
Interestingly, while the correlation between the Venture and WTIC has been very tight for the last year, the Venture since mid-December has been out-performing Crude and that’s a very positive sign…
The Venture led WTIC to the downside…is it now leading WTIC to the upside?…
PDAC Wraps Up In Toronto
Monday and Tuesday in particular were robust days at PDAC which wrapped up this afternoon at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre…in general, we noted increased optimism regarding the junior resource market for 2015, but it’s a market that remains highly selective…majors are clearly kicking a lot of tires at the moment – that was very evident here the last few days – which means we’re likely to see an acceleration of the M&A activity that has picked up over the last couple of months…
Chuck Jeannes, the CEO of Goldcorp Inc. (G, TSX), believes investor sentiment is starting to turn positive regarding Gold mining stocks. “I find there’s some green shoots of optimism emerging,” Jeannes stated in an interview with the Financial Post at PDAC…Jeannes said he’s had dozens of meetings with large institutional investors over the last couple of weeks, and noted that more and more of them are coming around to the idea that the Gold price has found a bottom around $1,200 an ounce…
Dundee Capital Markets’ Martin Murenbeeld says sentiment is now “constructive” regarding Gold and investors should start looking at the industry again. “We have been telling our clients that this is a good year to start averaging in again into the resource sector.”
BNN live at PDAC.
“Truckloads” Of Impressive Rusty Boulders – Is Visible Gold Mines (VGD, TSX-V) Onto Something?
At BMR, we followed Visible Gold Mines (VGD, TSX-V) rather extensively in 2011 but underestimated the resolve and strategic long-term thinking of President and CEO Martin Dallaire when the overall market turned increasingly sour that year…
Dallaire’s Visible Gold Mines (VGD, TSX) has caught the imagination of investors, not to mention the attention of some heavy hitters in the industry, and that was very evident during these 4 days at PDAC as the VGD booth was a hotbed of activity…
VGD is enjoying success with its Project 167 that comprises a whopping 1156 mining claims covering 611 sq. km in northern Quebec…it’s located approximately 320 km north of Chibougamau in the James Bay region in the heart of Plan Nord territory…
Below is a picture of Dallaire at the VGD booth displaying some of the high-grade boulders that have put the company on the trail of a potential important grassroots Gold discovery…10 holes have been completed in the current initial drill program (results pending)…
Will these high-grade rocks lead to a source at Project 167?
VGD 16-Month Weekly Chart
This is a phenomenal chart as VGD has soared from just above a penny in late 2014 to a high of 26.5 cents in early February…focus on the upsloping channel and the cluster of Fib. support in the mid-to-upper teens…
Last October, McEwen Mining Inc. (MUX, TSX), a company founded by its chairman Rob McEwen, who is also the founder and former Chairman and CEO of Goldcorp, subscribed for 8,333,333 units ($500,000) in a VGD private placement…in addition, accounts managed by Goodman & Company, Investment Counsel Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Dundee Corp., of which Ned Goodman acts as Chairman, invested $1 million in combined hard dollars ($375,000 @ 6 cents) and flow-through ($625,000 @ 8 cents)…
Cannabix Technologies Inc. (BLO, CSE, BLOZF, OTC) Update
Our favorite non-resource play is also extremely volatile, and Cannabix Technologies (BLO, CSE) demonstrated that again today as it traded between a high of 45 cents and a low of 31 cents on the CSE…it closed down 4 pennies at 39.5 cents…
Importantly, RSI(2) is now at an extreme low of just 1% – the mirror image of the situation a few weeks ago when the stock soared to 77 cents intra-day February 11…
Below is a BLO chart in U.S. dollars, based on the OTC listing as Stockcharts.com does not yet provide charts for CSE-listed companies…note the strong “accumulation” zone beginning at 25 cents U.S. (30 cents CDN)…
We see an exciting year for BLO as it continues to advance its marijuana breathalyzer…at the beginning of this week the company announced it has produced an alpha version of the breathalyzer prototype and is now testing the device internally with medical marijuana users…
Note: John and Jon both hold share positions in BLO.
WRR – I commented my opinion on post #43 on the previous day. just letting you know in case no one looks at the end of yesterday’s post.
Comment by dave — March 4, 2015 @ 7:51 pm