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Check out Daniel’s Den later today and visit the BMR comments section throughout the day for updates and helpful information.

1. Gold, enjoying its best quarterly winning streak since 2011, has traded between $1,328 and $1,337 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is up $8 an ounce at $1,333…ETFs backed by bullion are near 5-year highs…Silver has added 24 cents to $16.59…Copper, Nickel and Zinc are all relatively unchanged at $3.02, $6.01 and $1.49, respectively…Copper recorded its first quarterly decline since 2015…Cobalt has added 11 cents to $42.51…Crude Oil is steady at $64.98…U.S. drillers cut 7 Oil rigs in the week to March 29, bringing the total down to 797, the first decline in 3 weeks…meanwhile, President Trump has given the European signatories a May 12 deadline to “fix the terrible flaws” of the Iranian nuclear deal…a possible U.S. withdrawal from that deal and the prospect of American sanctions against Iran should help limit any pullback in Crude prices after a strong 1st quarter…Russian Oil output rose in March to 10.97 million bpd from 10.95 million bpd in February, keeping the country ahead of the United States as the world’s biggest Crude producer…the U.S. Dollar Index is unchanged at 90.00…

2. Markets are eagerly anticipating Friday’s jobs report to get the latest gauge on how Fed interest rate policy may evolve in 2018…economic data released this morning showed a modest pullback in U.S. factory activity in March amid a decline in new orders, but growth in the manufacturing sector remains underpinned by strong domestic and global economies…other data this morning showed a marginal increase in construction spending in February…the 1st quarter tends to be the U.S. economy’s weakest of the year due to a seasonal quirk…

3. At $95,000 a tonne, Cobalt is up another 24% in 2018 as it builds on a more than 4-fold increase in value from record lows just over 2 years ago…batteries, mainly for cell phones, constitute 55% of Cobalt demand at present, but is set to rise substantially as the world’s automakers move away from internal combustion engines…Nickel has also been swept up by the positive sentiment, trading at approximately $13,315 a tonne which represents a 33% gain over the last 12 months…Nickel, Cobalt and Manganese are crucial elements in batteries favored by most of the world’s automakers…

4. Hobbled by its own regulatory hurdles and anti-fossil fuel climate change fanatics, Canada has fallen far behind the United States in the race to export liquefied natural gas…for the first time since 1957, the U.S. exported more LNG than it imported…between 2016 and 2017, natural gas exports quadrupled from 0.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) to 1.94 Bcf/d…the Energy Information Administration (EIA) attributes this acceleration to the expansion of export facilities in Louisiana and Maryland, with 6 additional ones currently under construction…as a result, the IEA projects the U.S. will become the world’s leading LNG exporter by the mid-2020′s…in British Columbia, a $40 billion potential investment by LNG Canada, which would bring at least 10,000 new jobs to the province, is being opposed by Green Party leader Andrew “Wacky’ Weaver who says the project will add 8 to 10 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions…who’s side is Wacky Weaver really on?…he has a track record of participating in foreign-funded, foreign-orchestrated smear campaigns against Canadian jobs related to the resource sector but he goes virtually unchallenged by the left-wing mainstream media…

5. A big warning this morning from the head of one of Canada’s largest banks…RBC President and CEO Dave McKay is urging the federal government to stem the flow of investment capital from this country to the United States because, he warns, it’s already leaving in “real time”…Ottawa is coming under increasing pressure from corporate Canada to respond to a U.S. tax overhaul that’s expected to lure business investments south of the border, but that’s not all…there are grave concerns about Canada’s energy sector and of course the lack of pipeline capacity in this country…McKay told The Canadian Press that a “significant” investment exodus to the U.S. is already underway, especially in the energy and clean technology sectors…

6. The S&P 500 ended the quarter with a 1% loss, its first negative period since Q3 2015 and the worst January-February-March performance since the 1st quarter of 2009…however, in 9 of the past 10 years, April has been a positive month for the S&P 500…going even further back, since 1950 the benchmark has posted an average 1.5% gain in April…that average is only eclipsed by the typically bullish months of November and December, so this morning’s weakness to begin April may not be indicative of what’s in store for this month…

7. The Dow is down 25 points as of 7:00 am Pacific…a decline in Amazon shares is putting pressure on the broader tech sector…the e-commerce giant’s stock is down 3.5% in early trading after President Trump tweeted on Saturday how the U.S. Postal Service is losing “billions of dollars” delivering packages for Amazon, one of the market’s best-performing stocks over the past year with a gain of 64%…in Toronto, the TSX has slid 74 points while the Venture is off 3 points at 794 with marijuana stocks retreating again after Thursday’s rally…the closest parallel to the Venture’s last 4 months (December through March) was 2003 when the Index soared 20% during December and January, only to lose ground during February and March…after remaining relatively unchanged in April, the Venture started a huge run in May 2003 that led to a better than 50% gain by year-end…RBC Capital Markets reports that of the around $925 million raised by junior precious metals companies so far in 2018, only 14% has come from traditional equity sources with the rest from alternative lenders such as streamers…Emblem (EMC, TSX-V) became the 5th company to sign a supply agreement for an undisclosed amount of cannabis with Shoppers Drug Mart as announced last Thursday…the pharmacy chain, which has applied for a sales license under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations, has already inked deals with Aphria, MedReleaf, Tilray and Aurora…it won’t be able to sell medical cannabis online until it secures a license, and it’s unclear whether pharmacies will ever be able to sell cannabis in store…

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