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1. Gold has traded between $1,547 and $1,558 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, the yellow metal is up $3 an ounce at $1,549…Gold has very strong support in a band between $1,550 and $1,520, meaning downside risk remains limited at current levels…ETF holdings of Gold and Silver have declined so far in the new year, according to data from Commerzbank and BMO Capital Markets…Gold ETF holdings have fallen for 5 straight days and are now down by around 5% from the start of the year…Commerzbank puts the decline so far in 2020 at “just shy of 14 tons”…Silver ETF holdings are down by only 1.1% over the same period, equivalent to about 6.87 million ounces of outflows…Silver has jumped 13 cents to $17.88 this morning…Palladium remains on fire, up another $42 an ounce at $2,196…Palladium is now forecast by Citi analysts to hit $2,500 by the middle of this year…Copper traded at an 8-month high of $2.83 yesterday…RBC Capital Markets analysts recently predicted that M&A in the Copper space could surge in 2020, especially if Chinese companies remain hungry…as of 7:00 am Pacific, Copper is steady at $2.82, Nickel has pushed 14 cents higher to $6.38 while Zinc is flat at $1.07…Crude Oil has lost 19 cents to $58.04 while the U.S. Dollar Index has retreated more than one-tenth of a point to 97.23…
2. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin stated this morning on CNBC that a future “Phase 2” trade deal with China would ease U.S. tariffs on goods purchased from Beijing even if the 2nd round of negotiations is itself segmented into multiple rounds…“Just as in this deal there were certain rollbacks, in ‘Phase 2’ there will be additional rollbacks,” he said…“It’s really just a question of – and we’ve said before – Phase Two may be 2A, 2B, 2C. We’ll see. The first step is really focusing on enforcement, but this gives China a big incentive to get back to the table and agree to the additional issues that are still unresolved,” he added…top American and Chinese negotiators will sign a “Phase 1” deal this morning that is expected to include an agreement by China to purchase some $200 billion of U.S. goods over 2 years…but the deal is also expected to lower structural barriers for American companies hoping to do business in China…specifically, the pact is said to address concerns of U.S. executives who’ve long complained that they are routinely pressured, if not outright forced, to share key technologies in exchange for market access…Trump continues his “game changing” Presidency on he way to re-election in November, much to the dismay of North America’s new radical left…
3. Azimut Exploration (AZM, TSX-V) climbed as high as $1.67 in early trading following yesterday’s huge jump to $1.50 from 50 cents…after 30 minutes of trading, AZM is off 4 pennies at $1.46…yesterday the company reported a significant new discovery, including frequent high-grade intervals, in all 7 holes of its maiden diamond drilling program at its 100%-owned Elmer Property in the James Bay region of Quebec…the Patwon prospect is part of a larger 7-km-long target zone on the property, so there is plenty of potential scale with this…a ground geophysics survey (IP) is currently under way over the discovery area and its vicinity to prepare for a more comprehensive upcoming drill program…Gold-bearing mineralization occurs in 3 types of veins, and veinlets their wall rocks, and more locally to meter-scale hydrothermal breccia, so this has the characteristics of a robust system…Azimut’s management, known to be quite conservative, considers these first drill results among the most significant in the James Bay region since the 2004 discovery of the Eleonore deposit by Virginia Gold Mines (Eleonore is currently owned and operated by Newmont)…results were highlighted by 3.15 g/t Au over 102 m (from 34 m to 136 m) in hole 2, 2.84 g/t Au over 108.2 m (from 34.3 m to 142.5 m) in hole 3, 1.68 g/t Au over 97 m (5 m to 102 m) in hole 4, and 1.93 g/t Au over 82 m (21 m to 103 m) in hole 7…the Elmer Property and the adjacent wholly-owned Duxbury Property provide Azimut with a controlling position over a 35-km-long segment of a prospective greenstone belt…both properties were staked following the company’s predictive modelling for Gold in the James Bay region using its proprietary AZtechMine expert system…Elmer comprises 276 claims covering 145.4 sq. km over a 22-km strike length…Duxbury, located to the east, covers a further 13 km along strike…the projects are located 285 km north of Matagami, 60 km east of the municipality of Eastmain and 20 km west of the paved James Bay road…the region benefits from quality infrastructure that includes major access roads, a hydropower grid and airports…
4. Ero Copper (ERO, TSX), a top performing stock over the past year, has reported a 39% year-on-year increase in production, significantly exceeding original 2019 guidance of 36,000 to 38,000 tonnes of Copper…total annual Copper production at the Curaca Valley operations of 42,318 tonnes compared to 30,426 tonnes produced in 2018…meanwhile, total annual production at the NX Gold Mine was 30,434 ounces of Gold and 19,641 ounces of Silver at cash costs of $475 to $575 (U.S.) per ounce…David Strang, President and CEO, stated, “Our business strategy has and continues to be focused on achieving near-term organic production growth, at first quartile production costs, while increasing the foundational long-term copper production base of the Curaca Valley through aggressive exploration and discovery. As we look back at the tremendous growth of Ero over the past 2 years, I’d like to recognize the work throughout our organization that has contributed to another year of record Copper production. As we look forward to 2020 in the Curaca Valley, we expect another strong operational year with mill head-grades of greater than 2% Copper resulting in cash costs well below $1 per pound of Copper produced. Additionally, we are executing on our mill improvement plans including the completion of the HIG Mill installation and commissioning of the recently installed ore sorting plant”…ERO is also carrying out aggressive drilling (resource expansion and regional exploration) with 2 dozen drill rigs on site…
5. The Dow hit a new record high in early trading as stocks rose ahead of the U.S. and China signing a Phase 1 trade deal while the corporate earnings season picked up steam…as of 7:00 am Pacific, the Dow is up 122 points while the TSX has added 39 points…the TSX Gold Index is steady at 252… Yamana Gold (YRI, TSX; AUY, NYSE) has released 4th quarter production results that exceeded guidance for Gold, Silver and Gold equivalent ounces…Q4 production featured 256,288 GEO, including 221,595 ounces of Gold and 2.97 million ounces of Silver…full-year production of 1.02 million GEO, including 900,339 ounces of Gold, slightly exceeded guidance of 1.01 million GEO and 899,000 ounces of Gold…the Venture is up a point at 575…a minor healthy pullback has unwound temporarily overbought conditions, setting the stage for the Venture’s next move to the upside above the key 600 level…Skeena Resources (SKE, TSX-V) is hitting new highs on fresh drill results from its 2019 Phase 1 surface drilling program at Eskay Creek…4 surface drill rigs were utilized for the 21A, 21E and HW zones to infill and upgrade areas of Inferred resources to the Indicated classification…highlights from 21A include 10.1 g/t Au and 345 g/t Silver over 36.85 m, 7 g/t Au and 114 g/t Ag over 37.89 m, and 6.3 g/t Au and 42 g/t Ag over 59 m (intervals represent 80% to 100% of true widths)…the 21A zone continues to return both higher Gold-Silver grades and thicknesses than expected…the Venture is trading within a very strong new support band that continues to 560…the Index should get a boost going into the end of the week ahead of resource conferences in Vancouver from Sunday through January 23 (Vancouver Resource Investment Conference plus Roundup)…the VRIC, one of the largest of its kind, will be celebrating its 25th anniversary…this milestone year for VRIC will see the event host over 60 keynote speakers, 350 exhibiting companies and 9,000 investors, bringing together a host of experts from the mineral exploration, metals, Oil and gas, and renewable energy sectors…
6. Ascot Resources (AOT, TSX-V) has announced an updated resource estimate for its Premier Gold Project near Stewart, including the Silver Coin, Big Missouri and Premier deposits…resources at Premier are 1,066,000 ounces of Gold and 4.7 million ounces of Silver in the Inferred category, and 1,180,000 ounces of Gold and 4.7 million ounces of Silver in the Inferred category…Ascot’s combined resources for Premier and Red Mountain are as follows: Measured & Indicated: 1,849,000 ounces of Gold and 6,824,000 ounces of Silver; Inferred Category: 1,250,000 ounces of Gold and 4.8 million ounces of Silver…since late 2017, Ascot management turned its focus towards developing high-grade underground resources…the company now has a substantial amount of high-grade resources from 4 deposits, which could feed the centrally located Premier mill…Ascot completed over 53,000 m of drilling in 2019, of which 43,000 m was focused on an infill drill program to improve the confidence level and classification of the Premier Project resource from Inferred to Indicated…Derek White, President and CEO, commented, “I am pleased with our progress and the large increase in tonnage, grade and contained Gold and Silver in the Indicated Category at the Premier Gold Project. We convincingly achieved our goal of rapidly creating a strong base of Measured and Indicated Resources as the basis for developing a mine plan for the project. We have scheduled the release of our Feasibility Study by the end of March, 2020“…AOT is up 2 cents at 80 cents through the first 30 minutes of trading…
7. Wayne Tisdale’s 21C Metals (BULL, CSE) has changed its name to Canadian Palladium Resources to reflect the company’s concentration on its flagship East Bull Palladium Project in the Sudbury mining division…Tisdale commented, “With Palladium reaching new highs of over $2,100/ounce, we look forward to drilling the East Bull Palladium Project to further expand the 43–101 compliant 523,000-ounce Palladium equivalent resource we have. This name change reflects our focus on a world-class asset in a mining friendly jurisdiction”…effective on Monday, January 20, the company will begin trading on the CSE under its new name, Canadian Palladium Resources, with the stock symbol (BULL) remaining the same…BULL acquired the project in early 2019…it contains a pit-constrained Inferred resource of 11.1 million tonnes of 1.46 g/t Palladium equivalent (523,000 ounces)…the property consists of approximately 1,000 hectares covering more than 3.6 km of the East Bull layered intrusion featuring an inclusion bearing zone hosting Palladium mineralization…BULL is off half a penny at 11.5 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific…
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Great CCW trading activity today to go from near 7% down to up 3% by days end
Comment by Bryan — January 15, 2020 @ 2:17 pm
That was quite a classic and bullish intra-day reversal on CCW, Bryan, bodes well going into the end of the week and more potential news…
Comment by Jon - BMR — January 16, 2020 @ 5:16 am