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1. Gold has traded between $1,470 and $1,488 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific the yellow metal is off $4 an ounce at $1,471…it firmed up yesterday following the final FOMC meeting of the year and then climbed further this morning until a tweet moments ago from President Trump who declared, “Getting VERY close to a BIG DEAL with China.  They want it, and so do we!”...Gold’s nearest resistance is in the high $1,480’s, as demonstrated again this morning, followed by $1,500…Silver is now down 2 cents at $16.82 after climbing as high as $17.21…Palladium continues to surge, up another $22 an ounce at $1,918…base metals are getting support from a possible U.S.-China Phase 1 trade deal…Copper, trading at a 4.5-month high, is up slightly at $2.77…nearest resistance is the July high of $2.81…Nickel has advanced 6 cents to $6.24 while Zinc has added a penny to $1.02…Crude Oil has gained 68 cents to $59.44…OPEC says it now expects a small deficit in the Oil market in the next year, suggesting the market is tighter than previously thought – even before the latest pact with other producers to curb supply takes effect…the revised forecast by OPEC marks a further retreat from a prediction of a glut in 2020 as U.S. production growth begins to slow (perhaps only temporarily)…Crude Oil prices and energy stocks, often in lockstep, have split apart this year…as Crude prices have jumped significantly in 2019, Oil and gas stocks have mostly fallen…the Dollar Index has slipped nearly one-fifth of a point to 97.24…Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in a strong position to win a solid majority in today’s UK general election…the snap vote was called by the government due to parliamentary impasse over the Brexit deal he had negotiated with the EU…North Korea is asking for trouble…the rogue regime accused the United States of “hostile provocation” today for criticizing its ballistic missile tests during a United Nations Security Council meeting and warned that the Trump administration may have “blown its chance” to salvage nuclear negotiations…U.S. producer prices were unchanged in November, according to fresh data released this morning, as increases in food and gasoline prices were offset by declining costs for services, pointing to muted inflation despite a recent uptick in consumer prices…

2. Should the Federal Reserve be careful what it wishes for (more inflation?)…Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said yesterday that he’d prefer to let inflation rise and hold above the central bank’s target before considering future interest rate hikes, meaning there appears to be a lower threshold to reduce rates rather than to raise them…“In order to move rates up, I would want to see inflation that’s persistent and that’s significant,” Powell explained at his post-statement news conference…“A significant move up in inflation that’s also persistent before raising rates to address inflation concerns: That’s my view”…concluding a year that saw the central bank take down its benchmark rate 3 times, the FOMC met widely held expectations yesterday and kept the funds rate in a target range of 1.5%-1.75%…meanwhile, the Fed’s updated “dot plot” chart released yesterday showed that most central bank officials don’t expect the Fed will need to raise rates until 2021…

3. Canadian royalty and streaming company Triple Flag Precious Metals has cancelled its planned IPO, citing difficult market conditions, underscoring lacklustre demand for new issues in the mining sector…this would have been the biggest IPO in the sector in 2 years…Toronto-based Triple Flag, backed by hedge fund Elliot Management Corp., last month said it aimed to raise $360 million by selling 20 million shares at $15 to $18 each for a valuation of up to $2.12 billion…the company provides up-front financing to miners in exchange for future revenue or a share of production…the planned listing had been closely watched by investors…in a statement yesterday, Triple Flag said it had been encouraged by investor interest but that the environment for share offerings “continues to be challenging”…the company did not say when or if it would revisit markets…Triple Flag, led by a former Barrick Gold executive, holds royalty interests in Alamos Gold’s (AGI, TSX, NYSE) Young-Davidson mine in Ontario and Kirkland Lake Gold’s (KL, TSX, NYSE) Fosterville underground mine in Australia…lead underwriters for the offering included Bank of America Securities, CIBC World Markets and Scotia Capital…Triple Flag is the 2nd Canadian company to ditch plans for a public float in recent weeks…last month, waste management company GFL Environmental abandoned plans to raise up to $2.42 billion…

4. Shares in Aramco jumped on their 2nd day of trading to reach Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s coveted valuation target of $2 trillion…in early trading today the Oil giant’s share price on Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul exchange rose 8% to 38.15 riyals ($10.30 U.S.), giving the Oil giant a market capitalization of $2 trillion…that was up from a $1.7 trillion valuation set during the company’s IPO, the world’s largest ever…the shares increased 10% on their market debut yesterday, hitting an upward limit set by the exchange…the increase in value is partly a function of the outsize impact that the company’s tiny 1.5% share float has on its valuation…it took only $300 million in shares traded yesterday to drive the value of Aramco up by nearly $200 billion…at a price of 38 riyals, Aramco’s 1.5% free float means shares owned by the public are worth $30 billion…

5. The Dow has shot up 208 points through the first 30 minutes of trading following President Trump’s tweet…an analyst at Credit Suisse says Apple’s iPhone sales in China fell sharply in November by 35.4% on a year-over-year basis…in Toronto, the TSX is up 62 points…the Gold Index quickly pushed as high as 254.52 in early trading until the Trump tweet and then backed off as Gold prices reversed – just a matter of time, however, before there’s a confirmed breakout above the key 250 level…the Venture is 2 points higher at 539 as it continues to prepare for a breakout through 540…as expected, Discovery Metals‘ (DSV, TSX-V) shareholders have passed a resolution approving 2176423 Ontario Ltd., a corporation beneficially owned by Eric Sprott, to become a control person…the conversion of Sprott’s subscription increasing to approximately 21%…Blue Moon Zinc’s (MOON, TSX-V) exploration partner, Australian-listed Platina Resources (PGM, ASX) has intersected massive and semi-massive sulphide mineralization in the 1st drill hole  of this year’s program at the Blue Moon Zinc-Copper-Gold Project in Mariposa County…hole BMZ79 intersected 40 m of mineralization from 410 m (core length), approximately 30 m from the mineralized intercept in BMZ78…the 2nd hole is now in progress…Westhaven Ventures (WHN, TSX-V) is up a penny at 88 cents after falling 12 cents yesterday on the latest drill results (very respectable but not spectacular) from Shovelnose, highlighted by SN-19–26 which returned 42.8 m @ 2.6 g/t Au and 27.8 g/t Ag, including 15.46 m of 4.8 g/t Au and 61.2 g/t Ag in Vein Zone 1…Vein Zone 1 has been extended by 460 m to a total strike length of 1.3 km…the company has also staked an additional 21 sq. km on the northeastern border of the Shovelnose claim package…

6. The U.S. Army plans to fund construction of rare earths processing facilities, part of an urgent push by Washington to secure domestic supply of the minerals used to make military weapons and electronics, according to a government document seen by Reuters…the move would mark the first financial investment by the U.S. military into commercial-scale rare earths production since World War Two’s Manhattan Project built the first atomic bomb…it comes after President Trump earlier this year ordered the military to update its supply chain for the niche materials, warning that reliance on other nations for the strategic minerals could hamper U.S. defenses…China, which refines most of the world’s rare earths, has threatened to stop exporting the specialized minerals to the United States, using its monopoly as a cudgel in the ongoing trade spat between the world’s 2 largest economies…“The U.S. rare earths industry needs big help to compete against the Chinese,” said Jim McKenzie, CEO of UCore Rare Metals (UCU, TSX-V) which is developing a rare earths project in Alaska…“It’s not just about the money, but also the optics of broad support from Washington”…the Army division overseeing munitions last month asked miners for proposals on the cost of a pilot plant to produce so-called heavy rare earths, a less-common type of the specialized minerals that are highly sought after for use in weaponry, according to Reuters…responses are due by next Monday (Dec. 16)…UCore, Texas Mineral Resources (TMRC.PK) and a joint venture between Lynas (LYC, AX) and privately-held Blue Line are among the expected respondents, according to company officials…

7. Cannabis retailers in Ontario sold the most cannabis of any province in the first year following legalization, even though there was only one online store and 24 brick-and-mortar stores in operation for most of that period, according to new Statistics Canada data…Ontario accounted for $217 million in recreational cannabis sales, or 24% of the overall Canadian market, from October 2018 to September 2019, followed by Alberta and Quebec, which sold $196 million and $195 million worth, respectively…on a per capita basis, Alberta leads the way in sales – no surprise as they’ve reached out to the private sector more than any other province…the year following legalization saw more than 400 brick-and-mortar stores established across the country…total adult-use cannabis sales from online retail stores amounted to $908 million for that period, far short of many estimates prior to legalization…

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