Check back later today for Daniel’s Den and visit the BMR comments section throughout the day for updates and helpful information!
1. Gold has traded between $1,287 and $1301 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, the yellow metal is up $10 an ounce at $1,295 after a weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report…Silver has made a nice move as well, up 25 cents at $15.25…weak trade data out of China has pushed base metals lower…Copper, Nickel and Zinc are at $2.91, $5.96 and $1.23, respectively, but remain within their broader uptrends…Crude Oil has lost $1.72 a barrel to $54.94 while the U.S. Dollar Index has slipped one-fifth of a point to 97.39…the bond market is taking the February jobs report as another sign the Federal Reserve will struggle to raise short-term interest rates again this year…the yield on the 2-year U.S. Treasury note, which often moves in line with investors’ expectations for monetary policy, has slipped to 2.463%…federal-funds futures also suggest traders are pricing in a higher probability of the Fed lowering rates in the coming months…futures show the market pricing in a 20% chance of at least 1 rate cut by year-end, compared with 14% yesterday, according to CME Group…the U.S. and China have yet to set a date for a summit to resolve their trade dispute, the U.S. ambassador to China said this morning, as neither side feels an agreement is imminent…Terry Branstad, the U.S. envoy to Beijing, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that preparations for such a meeting aren’t yet under way, either…he added that negotiators need to further narrow the gap in their positions, including on enforcement of an eventual deal, before summit arrangements are made…“Both sides agree that there has to be significant progress, meaning a feeling that they’re very close before that happens. We’re not there yet. But we’re closer than we’ve been for a very long time”…
2. Job growth in the U.S. came to a near halt in February after a blistering start to the year, with non-farm payrolls increasing by just 20,000 even as the unemployment fell to 3.8%…it was the worst month for job creation since September 2017, falling far short of the relatively modest estimate of around 180,000 new jobs…however, there was some good news – average hourly earnings increased by 3.4% on a year-over-year basis, easily the best of the economic recovery that began nearly 10 years ago…that compares to a 1.5% increase in the consumer price index for all urban consumers from January 2018 to January 2019…economists had been expecting an increase of 3.2%…
3. Shares in mainland China tumbled today after Chinese trade data missed (exports and imports) expectations by a wide margin, though the mainstream media’s headline numbers were somewhat misleading…all major Chinese indexes closed the day deep in negative territory…the Shanghai composite plunged 4.4% while the Shenzhen composite fell 3.8%…the CSI 300, which tracks the largest shares on the mainland, plummeted nearly 4%…China’s exports slumped 20.7% from a year earlier in February, after jumping 9.1% in January, according to data from the General Administration of Customs…however, stripping out the Lunar New Year effects, the customs agency said February’s exports and imports rose 1.5% and 6.5%, respectively, from a year earlier…
4. One of the few talked about benefits of “climate change”, given how the world is in need of new Gold and base metals deposits, is how receding glaciers and melting snow and ice in Northwest British Columbia and other parts of the world are exposing potential major new discoveries for the first time…in the prolific Eskay region, a rapidly receding glacier has led to an early-stage discovery reported last night by Crystal Lake Mining (CLM, TSX-V) which completed 4 first-pass shallow reverse circulation (RC) drill holes in challenging winter conditions during Q4 at Burgundy Ridge, northwest of Eskay Creek and southeast of Galore Creek…these were the first-ever drill holes at Burgundy Ridge and each hole intersected multi-element Copper-rich porphyry-skarn-style mineralization that appears to strengthen with depth…the 4th hole cut 58 m @ 0.31% Cu and 0.27 g/t Au starting from surface, followed by a 1.5-m interval grading 2.60% Cu from 118 m to 119.5 m…interestingly, an intrusive unit containing blebs of chalcopyrite and finely disseminated bornite mineralization that geologists say could be new to the district was intersected in 3 of the 4 holes, generating high-grade Copper plus Gold, Silver, Cobalt and Zinc…diamond drilling will have to confirm what this intrusive unit is and how extensive it might be…Burgundy Ridge is now interpreted to be part of a >3-km-long belt adjacent to a high-grade Gold corridor along the McLymont Fault…more to come from CLM re: the high-grade Gold area shortly…in the meantime, for comparative purposes, the initial Burgundy Ridge results are actually better than the very first numbers from Galore Creek, which turned into a world class porphyry system, while GT Gold’s (GT, TSX-V) first 4 holes at Saddle North in late 2017 were highlighted by 0.14 g/t Au and 0.16% Cu over 210.5 m from deeper drilling…Saddle North turned into a major new discovery last year…Crystal Lake’s Newmont Lake Project covers more than 2 dozen showings and mineral zones over a 430 sq. km under-explored land package, including the historic Northwest zone Gold resource, 50% bigger than the combined land packages held by Garibaldi Resources (GGI, TSX-V) and Metallis Resources (MTS, TSX-V)…
5. In a move that is politically driven by the Loony Left, Norway’s trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund plans to dump Oil and gas companies from its benchmark index, the finance ministry announced this morning…the opposition Labor Party, Norway’s biggest political group, has long said it’s sympathetic to the proposal, and recently pushed hard in favor of selling the fund’s Oil stocks…the move is supposedly designed to make the Norwegian government’s wealth less exposed to a “lasting drop” in Oil prices…“The Government is proposing to exclude companies classified as exploration and production companies within the energy sector from the Government Pension Fund Global to reduce the aggregate Oil price risk in the Norwegian economy,” the finance ministry said in a statement published on its website…the exclusion will affect companies that explore and produce Oil and will not impact integrated Oil and gas companies such as BP and Shell…the Norwegian government also said that the companies to be excluded are those belonging to FTSE Russel’s Index sub sector called exploration and production…according to the government, the value of 134 stocks to be excluded from the fund amounted to $7.9 billion (U.S.), Reuters reported…
6. The Dow has retreated 191 points through the first 30 minutes of trading…in Toronto, the TSX has slipped 156 points despite higher Gold prices and news that Canada’s labor market improved in February, generating a 2nd straight month of strong job gains with the creation of 55,900 net new positions, all of which were full-time (46,200 in the services sector while goods-producing industries added 9,500 new jobs)…the February surge follows a gain of 66,800 positions in January to give Canada its strongest 2-month stretch of job creation since the spring of 2012, and its best 2-month start to a year since 1981..the TSX Gold Index is looking strong, up 2 points at 192 in early trading after recently correcting to its rising 50-day moving average (SMA)…the Gold space is still a great place to be, even more so after Gold’s pullback from $1,350 resistance…the Venture is off 2 points at 613…on the CSE, Miramont Resources (MONT, CSE) – in the midst of a promising drill program in Peru – continues to hit new multi-month highs with the stock up another 4 cents at 54 cents…key breakout point was in the mid-40’s…American Pacific (USGD, CSE), perusing high-grade Gold in Nevada, is also hitting new multi-month highs, up half a penny at 21 cents…
7. Chemesis International (CSI, CSE), one of our favorite cannabis plays, announced this morning that it has appointed Deepak Anand to its board of directors…Anand brings over 15 years of leadership in the health, charitable and private sectors, where he has amassed a wealth of experience in regard to business development, strategy and executive leadership…Anand has served on the boards of many associations in Canada, the United States and Europe…within the global cannabis sector, he has worked in conjunction with governmental officials, politicians, policy makers, health professional organizations, educators, investors, patients as well as producers…currently, Anand serves on the boards of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis in the United Kingdom and he is also on the board of CFAMM (Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana) and the National Association of Cannabis Professionals…he was most recently appointed as vice-president for NORML Canada (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws)…“I look forward to bringing my experience from the Canadian and global cannabis industry to provide strategic guidance to the team at Chemesis,” said Anand. “The company has been able to assemble an incredible portfolio of assets and I look forward to adding a global strategy to the vision”…Chemesis is currently operating within California, Puerto Rico and Colombia…CSI is up 3 pennies at $2.22 as of 7:00 am Pacific, just a nickel shy of its all-time high…
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