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Gold has traded between $1,172 and $1,187 so far today…as of 8:30 am Pacific, bullion is down $12 an ounce at $1,173 ahead of tomorrow’s U.S. jobs report…Gold has not benefited from a lower greenback this week, frustrating the bulls…bullion may need a really weak jobs number tomorrow to prevent a further slide…Silver is off 34 cents to $16.14…Copper is down 3 cents at $2.68…Crude Oil has slid $1.47 a barrel to $58.17 while the U.S. Dollar Index is off slightly at 95.36…

The Fed’s third round of bond buying would have had a bigger impact if not for Washington’s political gridlock, former Dallas Fed CEO and President Richard Fisher said today on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”…

“For all the criticism of QE3, including my own criticism, it would have worked a heck of a lot better if we had had fiscal authorities that actually got something done, if we didn’t have a feckless President and a feckless Congress,” Fisher stated…the people who tax, spend and regulate have failed the American people, Fisher added (our emphasis), and he couldn’t be more accurate in that analysis…

IMF Cuts U.S. Growth Forecast, Urges Fed To Delay Rate Hike Until 2016

The Federal Reserve should hold off from raising interest rates until the first half of 2016, the International Monetary Fund said today as it cut its U.S. growth forecast for the second time in 3 months…the lender also said that the dollar was “moderately overvalued” and a further marked appreciation would be “harmful” in a statement released in Washington today on its annual checkup of the U.S. economy…

“The FOMC should remain data dependent and defer its first increase in policy rates until there are greater signs of wage or price inflation than are currently evident,” the IMF said. “Based on the fund’s economic forecast, and barring upside surprises to growth and inflation, this would put lift-off into the first half of 2016.”

Oil Update

OPEC tomorrow is expected to keep a group output target of 30 million barrels per day, a “ceiling” it has actually been exceeding for most of the last 2 years, weakening prices…the cartel is now pumping about 2 million bpd more than needed, analysts say, feeding a glut that has left millions of barrels stored on tankers without a buyer and kept prices at close to half their peak levels last year…Saudi Arabia in particular has deep pockets and continues to focus on market share while trying to inflict some pain on regional rival Iran and put the squeeze on marginal North American shale producers…

Energy advisors Wood Mackenzie have echoed the views of many analysts, saying it was unlikely OPEC would agree to cut production and the group’s Crude output was likely to stay above its official 30 million bpd ceiling through 2016…

Meanwhile, strong global fuel demand has helped support Oil prices despite the glut…in China, almost 2 million new cars are sold every month despite its economic slowdown…demand is also strong in Europe…Goldman Sachs said Europe’s high diesel consumption was a risk to the bank’s bearish outlook for Brent prices…

WTIC 6-Month Daily Chart

As mentioned previously, the big test for WTIC is a strong band of resistance in the low-to-mid $60’s…since the beginning of May, Crude has not been able to sustain a price above $62, and buy pressure has turned into weak sell pressure with RSI(14) trending lower as well…strong support around $54 could be tested before WTIC attempts again to push through key resistance…

Today’s Equity Markets

Asia

China’s Shanghai Composite was volatile in overnight trading, falling more than 4% before reversing to close up nearly 1% at 4947…

Europe

European markets were down moderately today…yesterday, in his news conference, ECB President Mario Draghi said markets should get used to volatility…Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will resume talks with EU leaders tomorrow in an 11th-hour attempt to strike a deal to release much-needed bailout aid after more than 4 hours of negotiations in Brussels last night failed to achieve a breakthrough, according to the Financial Times…high-ranking members of Greece’s governing radical left Syriza party say they cannot accept a deal proposed by the country’s creditors…the Athens stock market was down sharply today…

North America

The Dow is down 100 points as of 8:30 am Pacific…U.S. non-farm productivity fell at a 3.1% annual rate in the 1st quarter, down sharply from the previously reported 1.9% rate…

In Toronto, the TSX is off 133 points while the Venture has slipped 5 points to 686…support at 680…

TSX 25-Year Monthly Chart

This is a “Big Picture” look at the TSX going back more than 2 decades (25 years)…interestingly, just before the Crash of 2008, you can see how it had just made another failed attempt to push through an upsloping channel at a time of extended overbought RSI(14) conditions…that previous resistance around 15000 is currently acting as support, aided by a rising 300-day moving average (SMA) at 14967…the Index has dropped below its 300-day on only a handful of occasions over the last 2 years, all between late last year and early this year…

Probabilities appear to favor a higher TSX over the second half of the year given the upsloping wedge that’s currently in place, and the pattern of gradually increasing buy pressure…

Discovery Ventures Inc. (DVN, TSX-V) Update

Discovery Ventures (DVN, TSX-V) has perked up this week following news that (subject to satisfactory due diligence by the investor and Venture Exchange approval) the company has entered into a definitive binding agreement with an investor to secure credit facilities totaling $7 million to Discovery…the investor is Dan Omeniuk from Oakbank, Manitoba, who’s President of privately-held Trappers Transport Ltd. out of Winnipeg…Discovery would use proceeds from the credit facilities to advance its high-grade Willa deposit (aided by its nearby Max mill) in southeast British Columbia…Omeniuk would also become President and CEO of Discovery…interesting developments which we’ll continue to follow…

Discovery plunged from a high of 41.5 cents in the 3rd quarter last year to a low of 9 cents in late March…it has been volatile over the last few years, and certainly has the potential to roar back to previous highs – especially if the tone of the overall junior resource market improves over the last half of the year…the Willa-Max Project has a lot of merit to it given the robust PEA that was released in May of last year, and the excellent condition of the Max mill…

Below is a 3-year weekly chart from John…DVN has traded primarily in a horizontal channel between 13 cents and 40 cents since 2012…it’s up 1.5 cents at 17.5 cents as of 8:30 am Pacific…

Klondex Mines Ltd. (KDX, TSX) Update

Despite all the gloom and doom in the Gold sector over the last couple of years, some companies have out-performed the market tremendously which underscores the importance of selectivity…Klondex Mines (KDX, TSX) is a great example with its successful high-grade operation in Nevada…

Look below at how this stock has performed since early 2013…the company reported net income of $10.1 million or 8 cents per share on revenue of $47.3 million in the 1st quarter of this year…

KDX is off 2 pennies at $3.41 through the first 2 hours of trading…the 50-day SMA, currently $3.10, has been providing solid support this year…a big gap has opened between the current price and the uptrend line, so look for potential opportunities here on a pullback…

Tribute Pharmaceuticals Inc. (TRX, TSX-V) Update

Our non-resource chart of the day is Tribute Pharmaceuticals (TRX, TSX-V) which continues to look very strong, despite easing off slightly from its morning high today, after breaking out recently above a pennant formation…

TRX is unchanged at $1.30 as of 8:30 am Pacific…

Note:  John, Terry and Jon do not hold share positions in DVN, KDX and TRX…