Gold has traded between $1,179 and $1,204 so far today…as of 8:50 am Pacific, bullion is up $19 an ounce at $1,202…Silver has climbed 21 cents at $16.84…Copper is flat at $2.75…Crude Oil has jumped $1.59 a barrel to $49.19 while the U.S. Dollar Index, coming off its best quarter since the financial crisis in 2008,has slipped one-third of a point to 98.11…more weakness in the greenback could be on the way…
Friday’s U.S. employment report will be key in determining if the greenback heats up again after its recent pullback, or if the correction from the March high of just under 101 becomes a more extended event…some observers believe that U.S. Q1 economic weakness will start showing up in employment this quarter, which would be dollar negative…indeed, this morning’s ADP employment report for March showed an increase of only 189,000 in monthly private payrolls, below expectations of a modest rise to around 225,000…this could foreshadow a weaker than expected jobs report Friday from the Labor Department…keep in mind, though, that the Labor Department has reported jobs gains above 200,000 for 12 consecutive months, the longest such run since 1994 (funny how the “feel” of the economy doesn’t quite match those numbers)…economists polled by Reuters have been forecasting a 245,000 gain in U.S. jobs in March which would be down significantly from February’s robust figure of 295,000…if the jobs number disappoints, Good Friday won’t be be a good day for the greenback…
UBS is growing more bullish on the prospects for Gold, particularly equities, with the belief that the Fed will be limited in its ability to tighten monetary policy later this year…in a note to clients, analyst Julian Garran highlighted 4 favorite producers – Randgold (“one of the best-managed stocks in the global Gold sector”), Acacia, Goldcorp and Agnico Eagle…
New York-listed SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest Gold-backed ETF, recorded its biggest monthly outflow in March since December 2013…that actually can be interpreted as a bullish sign from a contrarian standpoint as the Gold price jumped by more than 15% in the two-and-a-half months following that large December 2013 outflow that pressured bullion down to a low around $1,180…
Senior Western officials warned today that significant hard work lay ahead on the outlines of a final nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, although they remained hopeful an agreement could be reached…the deadline to complete the framework for a final nuclear deal passed yesterday with U.S. and Iranian diplomats saying enough progress had been made to continue working…it’s the third time in less than a year that the two sides have crashed through a deadline for the diplomacy…a political understanding is supposed to pave the way for a final, fully fleshed-out nuclear deal between Iran and the six powers by June 30…
Oil Update
A nuclear deal with Iran, which President Obama seems determined to achieve even though the Iranian regime has consistently proven it cannot be trusted, has the potential of adding to Crude’s global supply problem…even with prices trading well below where they were just six months ago, the world is still awash in Oil and storage tanks are also brimming…however, there are some signs that U.S. production growth will level off and start to decline later this year (that’s certainly OPEC’s aim)…total output in the seven main U.S. shale Oil producing regions is expected to rise in April, according to the Energy Information Administration, but the EIA is forecasting the smallest month-over-month gain since January 2011…
Gold Seasonality Chart: March Showers Bring April Flowers
March is over, thank goodness…going back over the last two decades, it’s one of the worst months of the year for bullion – in fact, 70% of the time it’s a negative month as John’s seasonality chart shows…
The good news is, based on trading since 1996, April has almost been the polar opposite of March…nearly 60% of the time, bullion has posted positive returns this month – only September has been better in that respect…May also tends to be favorable, followed by what’s usually a June pullback and then a summer rally…
Silver Shines In Q1
Interestingly, Silver enjoyed a solid Q1 with a 5.15% gain – that was even better than the 1st quarter returns posted by the Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq and the FTSE…
Gold was essentially flat for the quarter while Crude, of course, took a heavy hit, declining nearly 10%…below is a Q1 quarterly performance chart covering Gold, Silver, Copper and WTIC…
Note how Copper started a consistent, albeit gradual, trend higher around the end of January…stimulus measures in China are clearly helping Copper…China accounted for about 40% of global Copper demand in 2014 (up from 22% in 2008), and record investment this year in China’s state power grid is one factor that should help support Copper prices…
Shanghai Composite Soars In Q1
Monetary easing in China, and expectations for more of the same during this 2nd quarter, fueled a major move in the Shanghai Composite during Q1 as it posted a gain of nearly 16%…
Today’s Equity Markets
Asia
China’s Shanghai has started Q2 with a bang, surging 62 points overnight to close at 3810…China’s official March manufacturing PMI unexpectedly edged up to 50.1 in March from February’s 49.9, a tad above the level that separates growth from contraction…
A major technical breakout in this index occurred in July of last year when it broke out above a multi-year symmetrical triangle…the upsloping channel here is amazing and there’s every reason to believe that momentum will carry this market to the next Fib. level around 4100 in the coming weeks…
Europe
European markets were up modestly today…
North America
While off its lows of the morning, the Dow is still down 78 points as of 8:50 am Pacific…
Another sign of a sputtering U.S. economy – the pace of manufacturing growth fell in March to its slowest in almost 2 years, pressured by fewer new orders and stagnant employment, according to an industry report released today…the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said its index of national factory activity fell to 51.5 from 52.9 the month before…the reading was shy of expectations of 52.5, according to a Reuters poll of economists, and was the lowest reading since May 2013…
In Toronto, the TSX is up 16 points while the Venture continues to try to push through the 680 area – it’s up 1 points at 681 through as of 8:50 am Pacific…
International Montoro Resources (IMT, TSX-V) Update
International Montoro Resources (IMT, TSX-V) continues to show strength as drilling of the 1st hole progresses at the intriguing Pecors anomaly near Elliot Lake in northern Ontario…in fact, IMT is on the cusp of a major technical breakout above a multi-month horizontal channel – a pattern that has played out in several other situations John has tracked just recently…
A broad range of data, including sediment sampling from Pecors Lake, suggests that the potential mineralization causing the massive Pecors anomaly is more similar to that found at Nickel mines in the Sudbury Basin to the east than to that of nearby Uranium and REE discoveries…that’s not just the conclusion of IMT’s technical team – the Ontario Geological Survey has conducted important work in the area and is no doubt following this drill program with great interest…the initial 2,000 m of drilling at Pecors has a chance to produce some fascinating results, and that’s why we believe April could be a breakthrough month for this play…it’s exploration – there are never any guarantees – but this has a good shot at success given the intense study of the target…
Unusual geophysical anomalies cannot be ignored…a great example, of course, is the discovery of the massive Kidd Creek Copper-Zinc-Silver deposit in 1964 near Timmins…there was no exposure of the mineralization to tell mine finders what lay below their feet…that discovery came entirely through the effort to trace and explain a geophysical anomaly – volcanogenic massive sulfide ores that formed 2.7 billion years ago on an ancient seafloor…
IMT Takes Aim…
Noront Resources (NOT, TSX-V) Updated Chart
Noront Resources (NOT, TSX-V) jumped 22% in March and remains in a bullish pattern with strong support at the 50-cent level, just above the rising 50-day SMA, as demonstrated during this week’s consolidation…
NOT is unchanged at 55 cents as of 8:50 am Pacific…
Note: Jon holds a share position in IMT.
Last week for buy IMT lower than 0.10 !
Comment by Guy Delisle — April 1, 2015 @ 10:58 am
Anyone have an idea how long DBV will need to complete and report the newest results of H23?
Comment by Steve A. — April 1, 2015 @ 11:18 am
The drill should be in the sweet spot before Monday. Friday is a holiday so…………
Comment by Dan — April 1, 2015 @ 11:21 am
Steve A- The DBV crew just recently went up to the site. Here is what I heard…..Dr Razique is up at the site and his priority was cutting and logging the core from H23. The turn around for results at the lab is 2 weeks. So basically, it depends on when they bring them down from the site. The worse case scenario would be the core coming down for the Easter long weekend at the latest as I am sure some of the crew may go home for it. This puts the company receiving the results on approx. 21 April then give a few days to analyze the data and do a PR. So anytime starting 21 April (in case they were rushed sooner to the lab instead of waiting for some to come back from the site). I am surprised that those that have done their DD are not buying on this weakness while the shares are easy to grab and at a low price. As usual, people will wait until the news hits and then chase a high demand stock with the rest of the buyers if the results impress the market. I expect at minimum H23 400 to 650m to continue with the grades that were found near the bottom of the 400m (.96%cueq) for at least another 120m. However, my guess is that like Red Chris the best grades will be in this next section and will probably get even better with depth. Red Chris’ best grades were from 600 to 1100m! At this point the first 400m had 332m of .48%cueq and remember that Red Chris deposit has an average of .54%cueq so depending on the remaining 250m we could get something which is better than Red Chris as the grades got better with depth in the first 400m. Now the best scenario would be the grades continuing to get better with depth AND ending in good stuff at the 650m mark……this would really get the market excited and speculating on how deep it goes and whether or not a 1000m+ intercepts like Red Chris will happen! The junior market is desperate for a major find, lets hope DBV can provide it!
Comment by d4 — April 1, 2015 @ 1:46 pm
D4. Didn’t they drill that hole about four months ago? Why are they just heading up to prepare core now?
Comment by Ben — April 1, 2015 @ 2:48 pm
Frankly speaking, I have doubts about DBV … thinking this is a reflection of RBW…. If you still remember this one which has a relatively low shares. Trading volume was low and when the news dried up, the price went down…. and finally, became another stock after a reverse split. People are not buying …. for sure for a lot of reasons. I will not put ALL IN for this one as this is way too risky than other penny stocks. Low volume is the killing part. The players are only a small number of investors. I prefer to invest in NAR and TH…. I had TH since their 55 cents and now, it is $1. This one has more potential to go to $1.5 or even $2 .
Comment by Theodore — April 1, 2015 @ 3:06 pm
What happened to wrr and gbb updates There’s been no news on this site in weeks.
Comment by Matt — April 1, 2015 @ 3:34 pm
Lots to come, Matt, on both…as per WRR’s last news, “On-site activities are scheduled to begin in mid-April, 2015. Results and compilation from this initial drill program will be utilized in the planning of a follow-up drilling program.” So as we go further into this month, we will have plenty on WRR. Sometimes we went a few weeks without updates on BLO, meant nothing…quite often this can occur in situations we follow regularly simply because of research, time constraints, market issues, breaking developments, etc.
Comment by Jon - BMR — April 1, 2015 @ 4:36 pm
Thanks Jon for update on WRR….might as well wait till they get closer…..some coming out at 3.5 but not much…..offers are light too….
Comment by STEVEN1 — April 1, 2015 @ 7:01 pm
Thanks for the update d4! Exciting times ahead.
Comment by Steve A. — April 2, 2015 @ 5:54 am
Prediction, Steven: Venture will finish in the green today and confirm a breakout above 680. Then a long weekend, to boot.
Comment by Jon - BMR — April 2, 2015 @ 6:00 am
GGI somebody is tired of waiting this morning and dumped their shares twice the average volume already and down 2cents. Come on Regoci give us some good news!!
Comment by Greg — April 2, 2015 @ 7:04 am
jon,ggi-this is a,wish i could add on level,april we should see ggi pick up steam.
Comment by tombc — April 2, 2015 @ 7:06 am
Tom, I suspect a couple nervous nellies this morning may look a little foolish next week.
Comment by Jon - BMR — April 2, 2015 @ 7:09 am
GGI. Jon, I confess I contributed to some of the selling this morning. However, since I was in early on GGI (thanks to you and the folks at BMR) I took a little off the table in profit and put it on IMT (very intriguing play). Still, long and strong on GGI! Cheers and Good Luck all.
Comment by Frank — April 2, 2015 @ 7:17 am
Any word from Regoci as to how things are going at La Patilla? Have they started excavating the ”mineralized rock”? It’s been 5 weeks since the PR and it sounded like they were going to get things going pretty quick at that time.
Comment by Tom UK — April 2, 2015 @ 7:27 am
GBB have some news out regarding recent trenching at their Castle property. The 30 day DD on the LOI is due up next week, so we should get some sort of news on the spin off.
Comment by Tom UK — April 2, 2015 @ 7:38 am
Hi Tom, my understanding is they’re moving forward on schedule with the game plan for shipping mill feed from La Patilla to Gainey’s processing center…what I’m hoping we’ll see at La Patilla, very shortly, is the start of a new drill program to cut into the high-grade potential there at both the breccia and the La Patilla vein system…
Comment by Jon - BMR — April 2, 2015 @ 8:23 am