1. Gold has traded between $1,220 and $1,229 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is off $4 an ounce at $1,223 but is still holding above its 50 and 100-day moving averages (SMA’s)…Silver has slipped 19 cents to $14.28…Copper is off 2 pennies at $2.80…Nickel has retreated another 9 cents to $4.90 while Zinc is 4 cents lower at $1.19…Cobalt is steady at $25.06…Crude Oil is getting pounded again, down $3.80 a barrel to $50.83…the U.S. Dollar Index has gained nearly one-fifth of a point to 96.66…euro zone business growth was much weaker than expected this month as exports fell sharply, hurt by a slowing global economy and trade tensions…market watchers are now looking ahead to the G-20 summit in Argentina at the end of the month where leaders from the United States and China will be holding talks…U.S. shoppers hit department stores on Thanksgiving evening and spent $1.75 billion online by 5:00 pm ET…a strong American economy and rising wages drove what is being described as a solid start to the holiday shopping season…smartphone sales lifted overall online spending by 28.6% last night from a year ago, according to Adobe Analytics…even though U.S. retail sales are not likely to beat last year’s performance – the strongest in more than a decade – the 2018 holiday season will still be a “cheerful” one, according to IHS Markit’s latest outlook released yesterday…retail sales during the winter holidays will grow 4.4% over last year, down slightly from 2017’s 5.7% jump…online shopping will be one of the biggest winners this year, accounting for 18.9% of all holiday retail sales, up from 17.8% reported last year, according to IHS…
2. The broad sell-off in Oil resumed today (prices are now down 35% since the early October multi-year high) as investors grow increasingly concerned about a surge in U.S. production and fears of a slowdown in global economic growth…there’s also uncertainty around the outcome of an OPEC meeting in Vienna December 6…will the cartel be able to turn the tide on supply enough to give prices a lift?…“The imminent OPEC meeting in Vienna is unlikely to provide massive support this time around because of the troubling situation in and around Saudi Arabia,” stated Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank…meanwhile, economic growth outside the U.S. is showing signs of slowing which would initially hurt Crude demand…the latest sign was in export-dependent Germany where a purchasing managers index hit a 4-year low, well below the level economists were expecting…however, a period of weak Oil prices is a form of global economic stimulus – just like high prices in the past have led to demand destruction and recessions (a prime example was 2008)…
3. Canadians can thank gutless politicians, wedded to climate change extremism and globalism, for the crisis in the Canadian Oil sector…Alberta’s “ongoing and acute” issues with getting Crude to market pose an “extraordinary” challenge for the province’s energy sector, according to a new report from Scotiabank Economics…but it says the provincial government must set a “high” bar for intervening directly in the sector, adding it should only be done in “an effort to prevent extreme value destruction” (the same politicians who helped create this problem can fix it? )…a shortage of pipeline capacity – the Liberals killed Northern Gateway and Energy East and deliberately bungled TransMountain – combined with Oil sands production growth has led to bottlenecks that have drastically widened the usual price gap between Canadian Crude and the American benchmark…Scotiabank’s report says under a scenario where the discount remains at $40 U.S. through next year, Alberta could lose out on up to $4.1 billion in royalties, while the industry could be deprived of up to $39 billion in revenues…the cost to the Canadian economy has already been staggering, adding up every single day to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, yet there is no sense of urgency from the Trudeau Liberals who have an anti-Oil, anti-resource and anti-West mentality…if such a crisis had hit the Quebec or Ontario manufacturing sectors, Trudeau’s attitude and actions would be far different…no pipelines will be built under the current federal government, while the NDP in Alberta deservedly faces political annihilation next spring…
4. Nickel prices were driven to their lowest in 11 months this morning on worries about a supply surplus in 2019 and weaker demand from China…it’s important, though, to look at the bigger trend in Nickel which is still up about 40% since its late 2015 bear market lows when prices dipped below $4 a pound…from there, Nickel jumped to $5 during 2016, retraced to support at $4 in 2017, surged to $7 in early 2018, and now appears to be nearing the end of another correction…
5. iMetal Resources (IMR, TSX-V) has cut 10 g/t Au in channel sampling at Zone 3A of Gowganda West Project contiguous to Tahoe Resources‘ (THO, TSX) and soon-to-be Pan American Silver’s (PAAS, TSX) multi-million ounce Juby deposit and approximately 15 km west of Canada Cobalt’s (CCW, TSX-V) Castle mine and property…a system of quartz-carbonate veins, quartz stockworks and shear zones mineralized with pyrite and chalcopyrite was intersected in most of 84 new channel samples at Zone 3A which is part of a 2.4-km-long apparent structural corridor where extensive logging operations have revealed high-grade Gold and Copper in outcrop…channel sample assays have been as high as nearly 2 ounces per tonne Gold and 2.6% Copper…targets are being finalized for near-term drilling…red jasper clasts identified elsewhere in the region near major deposits have been noted in conglomerate in Zone 3A…the Timiskaming-type rocks, alteration and style of mineralization at Zone 3A share similarities with the Kirkland Lake Gold Camp to the northeast…Gary Grabowski, iMetal’s Advisory Board member who served as district geologist for Ontario’s Ministry of Northern Development and Mines for more than 35 years, commented: “The Archean rocks of the Gowganda area have been under-explored and offer excellent potential for new discoveries. This is a large property that’s showing exciting possibilities at this early stage”…IMR is up half a penny at 11 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific as the stock shows signs of breaking out powerfully above a long-term downtrend line that currently intersects through about 11 cents…
6. The Dow, which has lost about 1,000 points this holiday-shortened week, is off 99 points as of 7:00 am Pacific…today is an abbreviated session after Thanksgiving yesterday…U.S. markets will close 3 hours early…in Toronto, the TSX closed is 89 points lower while the Venture has added 1 point to 603…we saw this one coming – Cobalt Power Group (CPO, TSX-V) announced this morning that it will be rolling back its shares 1-for-12…CPO is not the only company in the Northern Ontario Cobalt Camp that has destroyed its share structure the last couple of years – the only company that has protected its share structure while also delivering results is Canada Cobalt…
7. Health Canada is moving for the first time to revoke a Canadian cannabis producer’s licences to grow and sell marijuana, citing unspecified “unauthorized activities”, barely 1 month after the legalization of recreational cannabis took effect…Vancouver-based Ascent Industries (ASNT, CSE), which initially had licences for its Agrima Botanicals LP suspended in September, announced yesterday that Philip Campbell, Reid Parr and James Poelzer – the company’s long-time CEO, COO and head of business development, respectively – have resigned…the company has only a matter of days to persuade Health Canada to back down, otherwise it will become the first legal cannabis producer in Canadian history to have its licences revoked…while Ascent is able to maintain its U.S. operations in Oregon and Nevada, the licensing issues facing its Canadian division have weighed heavily on shareholders…the company says it has 89 employees in British Columbia…neither Health Canada nor the company would comment on the nature of the infraction…ASNT is down sharply from its yearly high but has rebounded 4 pennies to 22 cents in early trading today…
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Jon,
I have long felt that we were unlikely to have a meaningful, sustained rally in Gold as long as there was a “viable alternative” investment. Bitcoin and its clones were said to fit that bill.
With the persistent, relentless unraveling of the price of Bitcoin and serious questions arising about Bitcoin trading practices, it seems to me that Bitcoin and the others are much less likely to present a challenge to Gold. As the plunge in their prices continues isn’t the stage set for a powerful rally in Gold (when oil stabilizes). For the first time since the inception of Bitcoin.
Comment by Marshall — November 23, 2018 @ 10:24 am