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1. Gold shook off a stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs report this morning, holding above $1,500…as of 7:00 am Pacific, the yellow metal is off $3 an ounce at $1,510…it traded as low as $1,505 following the jobs report before bargain hunters stepped in…in a report published earlier this week, the World Bank said that it expects Gold prices to rally 5.6% in 2020 which would see prices trade around $1,600 an ounce (a conservative projection in our view)…“The risks to the precious metals price outlook are on the upside and reflect heightened uncertainty and weak growth prospects of the global economy,” the analysts said…Silver is in the midst of confirming a key breakout above $18 an ounce…it’s relatively flat at $18.06 as of 7:00 am Pacific…Nickel, Copper, Zinc and Cobalt are all relatively unchanged at $7.62, $2.64, $1.15 and $16.10, respectively…Crude Oil has rebounded 86 cents a barrel at $55.04 while the Dollar Index is off slightly at 97.31…the initial “Phase 1” trade pact with China appears to be in good shape and is likely to be signed around mid-November, although a finite date is still in question, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox Business Network this morning…“We’re pretty comfortable that the Phase 1 is in good shape,” he said…China’s factory activity unexpectedly expanded at the fastest pace in well over 2 years in October as new export orders rose and plants ramped up production, a private business survey showed…however, by contrast, Japanese factory activity sank to more than a 3-year low in October in a fresh warning sign for the world’s 3rd-largest economy…October surveys for much of the euro zone will be released on Monday…some major U.S. economic data was released just moments ago…sentiment in the manufacturing sector (hurt not only by trade tensions with China but a high U.S. dollar) remained lackluster in October, according to numbers just out from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM)…its non-manufacturing index dropped to a reading of 48.3%, up slightly from September’s 47.8%…the data missed expectations as economists were calling for a reading of around 49%…

2. U.S. employers hired at a solid clip in October, showing the job market remains very resilient in the face of labor strikes and trade disputes…the economy exceeded expectations by adding 128,000 jobs in October, the Labor Department reported this morning…meanwhile, job creation in September and August was revised up by a net 95,000…the jobless rate ticked up to 3.6% last month from 3.5% in September (as expected)…the prior month’s reading was the lowest rate since December 1969…wage gains also continue to outpace inflation…average average hourly earnings climbed 3% from October 2018, in line with expectations…economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal forecast payrolls to grow by only 75,000 in October, partly due to the GM strike…the 40-day strike ended last week but the government wouldn’t have counted thousands of GM workers on picket lines last month because they were on strike the week of the employer survey…this morning’s report stated employment in auto manufacturing fell by 42,000, “reflecting strike activity”…when excluding autos, manufacturing employment actually increased last month…so the jobs report was quite a bit better than the pundits had expected…

3. The U.S. Dollar Index has come under some technical weakness, but that could be just the beginning according to Citi’s head of Asia Pacific trading, Mohammed Apabhai, who was interviewed on CNBC’s “Street Signs”…“Our latest projections are that it would weaken even further – maybe to the high 80’s, perhaps even as low as 85.  We’re basically saying that the Fed is probably going to be the most dovish of all the central banks, regardless of the fact that…they’ve put rates on pause,” the Citi strategist said…the central bank on Wednesday cut interest rates for the 3rd time this year but signaled that a pause was ahead…“That’s because the Fed’s balance sheet has expanded quickly, by more than $205 billion since the beginning of September,” Apabhai explained…in comparison, an increase of that size would take the European Central Bank more than a year to complete…“For us, the fact that the Fed has gone into pause mode is not really as significant as the fact that the balance sheet of the Fed is going to expand,” he said. “We’re basically looking at substantially weaker levels on the dollar”…

4. The Dow has jumped 167 points through the first 30 minutes of trading…according to data from Strategas, going back to 1982 U.S. stocks have produced higher-than-average returns when the Fed has finished its easing cycle at the 3rd rate cut, but they have produced either middling or negative returns when the Fed has had to ease monetary policy further…in Toronto, the TSX is 109 points higher as of 7:00 am Pacific…Wallbridge Mining (WM, TSX), up 20% for the week, has slipped half a penny to 60 cents…Calibre Mining (CXB, TSX) has enjoyed a strong week thanks to encouraging news yesterday...CXB has added another nickel to 78 cents through the first 30 minutes of trading…the Venture is up 1 point at 540…early volume leaders include Antibe Therapeutics (ATE, TSX-V) and Bee Vectoring Technologies (BEE, TSX-V) which was really buzzing following more news yesterday…BEE has added another 1.5 cents to 44.5 cents…Palladium One (PDM, TSX-V), which has attracted the interest of Eric Sprott, is up 2 pennies at 10 cents…

5. “A tragedy for Canada”: That’s the view of Alex Pourbaix, CEO of Oil sands producer Cenovus Energy (CVE, TSX) on the decision yesterday by Calgary-based Encana (ECA, TSX), a company with very deep roots in Alberta, to move its corporate headquarters to the U.S. to gain access to needed investment…Pourbaix added that the move is consistent with announcements by some drilling companies to shift rigs south of the border to pursue more active Oil fields, and the exodus of foreign companies over the past few years from the Oil sands under the Trudeau government…“I think this is a tragedy for Canada,” he emphasized on a conference call to discuss quarterly results, adding foreign companies have taken billions of dollars with them as they left the Canadian Oil patch…“Over the past 5 or 6 years, we have generally seen an exodus of investment, both by international companies and, frankly, Canadian companies, from this country and it’s an element of our competitiveness, our regulatory world that we’re in right now”…Encana was once the largest company by market capitalization in Canada (Cenovus was created as a spinout from the company in 2009)…Encana, which is also changing its name to Ovintiv, said having a U.S. address will expose it to increasingly larger pools of investment in U.S. index funds and passively managed accounts…knowing the extent to which Trudeau broke the rules in the SNC Lavalin scandal to protect some jobs in Quebec, what would the Liberals be saying if Encana were a Quebec-based company headed south?…

6. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney blames the Encana decision on a deliberate “hostile environment for producers” created by the Trudeau government…Kenney said he believes Encana’s move is yet another chapter in the broad decline of Canada’s energy sector for the last 5 years due to unfavourable federal government policies…“This is not just about Encana.  It’s about the broader decline of the Canadian energy industry, which is I think a deliberate policy of the Trudeau government,” Kenney remarked yesterday…“The Trudeau government’s negative attitude towards the energy sector has had serious consequences”…Encana’s move comes at a time when Alberta has been rapidly implementing policies in the last 6 months to drive investment into the province and increase job creation, including lowering the corporate income tax rate to 8%  from 12% over the next 4 years, and reviewing policies surrounding the approval of energy projects in an effort to speed up the process…however, that won’t be enough to overcome the obstacles Ottawa is throwing at Alberta and the Oil and gas sector in general…

7. Despite a bear market that has seen the average cannabis stock lose more than half its value since March, 79% of Canadians and 74% of Americans still find the industry appealing, according to a new survey of 660 retail investors with at least $250,000 (U.S.) in investable assets…the survey was commissioned by California-based omnichannel cannabis platform Manifestseven and conducted by FTI Consulting…it found that 90% of Americans and 82% Canadians who are currently invested in cannabis believe they are “completely on track” to achieve their financial goals despite the recent slump in markets (that’s a scary statistic)…not surprisingly, interest in the industry, is the highest among millennials, at 92% in Canada and 85% in the United States…

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