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1. Gold has traded between $1,278 and $1,286 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion has retreated $4 an ounce to $1,284…holdings of SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest Gold-backed ETF, saw some outflows on Friday…holdings, however, are still at their highest since last August…ETF demand has been one of the primary drivers of the move higher for Gold over the past month or so and is still continuing to increase…this has been mainly apparent in U.S. and UK based funds amid uncertainty on growth and Brexit risks…Silver has added a penny to $15.63…Copper, Nickel and Zinc are relatively unchanged at $2.66, $5.04 and $1.16…Crude Oil has climbed another 95 cents to $49.47 while the Dollar Index has rebounded one-third of a point to 95.98…
2. U.S. and Chinese officials met for a 2nd day of talks in Beijing today, with comments from both sides suggesting cautious optimism that a deal on trade can be struck ahead of the March 1 deadline established by Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping last month at the G20 summit in Argentina…China’s impetus to cut a deal with its biggest export market, however, may be more compelling now that its economy is firmly mired in a slowdown and its currency is at risk of drifting even lower against the U.S. dollar…in fact, China’s foreign exchange reserves, which it hoards as part of its enormous trade surplus with economies around the world, fell for the first time in 4 years last year – by $67.24 billion – as the cost of defending the yuan increase…U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC yesterday that both global powers could reach a settlement “they can live with, and that addresses all the key issues”…the broader power struggle between the U.S. and China will persist for years but neither government really has the latitude to pursue policies that could threaten to trigger a global recession…the Argentine handshake, therefore, could morph into a near-term truce which should give commodities a major lift…
3. Small-business owners’ confidence in the U.S. economy beat expectations in December but nonetheless fell for the 4th consecutive month according to the National Federation of Independent Business…the small-business lobby said its optimism index slipped to 104.4 in December from November’s 104.8 reading…economists had expected a December reading of 103, according to a Wall Street Journal survey…the index had set a high of 108.8 in August, breaking a July 1983 record…the NFIB survey is a monthly snapshot of small businesses in the U.S., which account for about half of private-sector jobs…economists look to the report for a read on domestic demand and to extrapolate hiring and wage trends in the broader economy…“Over the past few months, owners’ expectations for the future have tempered, while reporting continued solid economic activity,” the NFIB said in its report, based on responses from 621 small-business owners…“The Index remains at historically high levels but can’t be expected to improve every month”…
4. Chile’s Copper production could jump by nearly 30% over the next decade according to Cochilco, Chile’s state Copper agency…Cochilco said in a report yesterday that output from Chile, the world’s top producer of the red metal, could reach a record 7.25 million tonnes as early as 2025…production by existing, aging mines will decrease by 19%, to 4.46 million tonnes per year, but that decline is expected to be offset by several new projections and expansions as Chilean miners confront declining ore grades at sometimes century-old mines…“The growth in production is only possible if the new investments materialize,” the state Copper agency stated…several major new projects and expansions are planned in the coming years…state-run miner and world top Copper producer Codelco recently launched a $40 billion, 10-year investment plan to boost productivity at its Chilean mines…meanwhile, Canadian miner Teck (TECK.B, TSX) is also moving forward with an expansion plan, known as QB2, which won regulatory approval last August…the overhaul is expected to extend the ageing deposit’s life by 25 years and substantially boost production to 300,000 tonnes of Copper annually from 23,400 tonnes in 2017…
5. Overheating power lines is a growing problem for electric utility companies in British Columbia and elsewhere around the globe…that’s a large potential niche market for Torino Power Solutions (TPS, CSE) which announced this morning another important breakthrough for the company – a purchase order from B.C. Hydro for the installation of a TPS Power Line Monitoring sensor system at an undisclosed location in Northern British Columbia…if B.C. Hydro likes how this works, and we can’t imagine they won’t, then many more orders could follow, and not just from Canada’s 5th largest electric utility…TPS already has an MOU in place with SICAME, a French-based world leader in the manufacturing of components, equipment and services for transmission and distribution electrical networks…getting the attention of the likes of B.C. Hydro and SICAME is further validation of Torino’s unique product and represents a significant company-building opportunity for TPS…in short, Torino’s patented microwave cavity sensor technology delivers real-time temperature measurements of overhead power lines that allow for increased transmission capacity, improved grid resiliency, lower energy costs and bottleneck elimination. Torino sensors, a high margin product, can be deployed quickly and begin transmitting real-time data to the utility almost immediately…Rav Mlait, CEO of Torino commented, “The Torino PLM system is unique because of its completely passive sensors (no electronics or batteries) that provide utilities with the most durable, easy to install and low-maintenance sensor system in the market. We are truly excited to begin this new installation of our technology with a major utility in Canada. We are also pleased that B.C. Hydro selected a local company”…TPS is up 3 pennies on the news at 11 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific…technically, the stock has broken out above its 50-day moving average (SMA) which is also reversing to the upside in a classic bullish pattern…
6. The Dow is up 237 points through the first 30 minutes of trading on optimism regarding U.S.-China trade talks…the TSX has jumped 110 points as of 7:00 am Pacific while the Venture, aiming for its 9th straight winning session, has added 1 point to 592…White Gold (WGO, TSX-V) is up slightly on drill results (RC) from its Betty Property in the Yukon, including 50.3 m @ 1.08 g/t Au, with numerous drill holes across several target areas encountering near-surface Gold mineralization…mineralization was encountered along the eastern extension of the Coffee Creek fault which hosts the adjacent Coffee deposit owned by Goldcorp (G, TSX), currently being developed as an open-pit and heap leach Gold mine with commercial production anticipated to begin in 2021…results reported this morning by White Gold represent a new discovery on a previously undrilled target thanks to the company’s systematic and data-driven regional exploration program backed by partners Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM, TSX) and Kinross Gold (K, TSX)…
7. AnalytixInsight (ALY, TSX-V) has responded well to news that Intesa Sanpaolo, a co-owner of ALY’s financial technology affiliate Marketwall, plans to accelerate its digital transformation as Italy’s first digital bank, and plans to invest 2.8 billion euros over the next 3 years to increase the bank’s digitized business to 70%…Marketwall, a developer of FinTech solutions, is a technology provider within Intesa Sanpaolo’s digitization initiative and developed the “Intesa Sanpaolo Investo” stock-trading app which was recently launched to Intesa Sanpaolo customers…Marketwall is 49% owned by AnalytixInsight, and 33% owned by Intesa Sanpaolo…Intesa Sanpaolo is a leading bank in Europe with 11.9 million customers, a network of approximately 4,400 branches throughout Italy, and has emerged as Italy’s first digital bank…it was ranked as one of the 3 best digital banks in Europe according to the report “2017 European Online Banking Functionality Benchmark” by Forrester Research…Intesa Sanpaolo now reports 8 million multi-channel customers, of which 3 million are now using the Intesa Sanpaolo Mobile banking app with 56 million logins per month on the app alone, and 53 million mobile transactions with the app since the start of 2018…
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Jon: Any thoughts on GTT news today and where the stock price might be headed in the near term? Thanks!
Comment by adrobyshev — January 9, 2019 @ 8:01 am
Great drill results, Adrobyshev…stock should be higher BUT management has made too many clumsy moves in terms of market strategy (or lack thereof) in recent months…that PP comes free trading soon and that’s an overhang…
Comment by Jon - BMR — January 9, 2019 @ 8:11 am