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1. Gold, coming off its best weekly performance since 2008, traded as low as $1,601 overnight before rebounding…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is up $1 an ounce at $1,629…Standard Chartered Bank predicts an average Q2 Gold price of $1,725…at BMR, we see the possibility of some immediate/near-term weakness amid volatility in the yellow metal but we’ve raised our 12-month target price range to between $2,000 and $2,500 as U.S. budget deficits explode in response to the Wuhan COVID-19 virus…Gold ETFs tracked by Bloomberg registered inflows of 64 metric tons last week, with the majority going into the SPDR Gold Trust…ETF inflows into Silver were also strong at 774 tons, the biggest weekly inflow since July 2019…Silver, after a big move in recent sessions, has retreated 28 cents to $14.15 to begin the new week…China’s aggressive efforts to expand its 5G wireless network bode well for Silver demand, according to BMO Capital Markets…the analysts cited reports that up to 18 provinces in China aim to build over 413,000 5G base stations this year, which BMO said “would be a positive for Silver demand”…Palladium, coming off its best week on record, has added another $15 an ounce to $2,180…base metals are flat with Copper, Nickel and Zinc at $2.16, $5.11 and 83 cents, respectively…Crude Oil has tumbled another $1.31 a barrel to $20.20 while the U.S. Dollar Index has jumped three-quarters of a point to 99.13…America’s top infectious disease expert said yesterday that based on models, the U.S. could eventually see 100,000 or more deaths from the Wuhan COVID-19 virus which has already claimed more than 2,000 American lives as cases surge…“Whenever the models come in, they give a worst-case scenario and a best-case scenario,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, explained…“I mean, looking at what we’re seeing now, you know, I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 (deaths).  But I don’t want to be held to that,” he said, adding that the U.S. is going to have “millions of cases”…President Trump yesterday extended the national social distancing guidelines to April 30 in an effort to keep the projected coronavirus death toll in the U.S. from reaching a catastrophic, worst-case scenario…“Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory has been won,” Trump said at an evening press briefing after suggesting that the death rate from the pandemic in the U.S. would likely peak by mid-April…Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, NYSE) announced this morning that human testing of its experimental vaccine for the coronavirus will begin by September and it could be available for emergency use authorization in early 2021…the company said it is also increasing its manufacturing capacity with a new site in the U.S. and additions to existing sites in other countries to produce and distribute the potential vaccine quickly…

2. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that a hidden pile of debt threatens dozens of emerging-market countries as the global economy stalls and commodity prices tumble…an estimated $200 billion of emerging-market debt owed to China has gone unreported in official statistics in recent years…the money is upending assumptions made by yield-hungry investors who have poured roughly $2 trillion into risky emerging markets over the last decade…even before the “Corona Crash”, some borrowers were buckling under their debts to China…Pakistan turned to the International Monetary Fund in 2018 for a bailout while Sri Lanka was forced to cede China control of a strategically located port (just what China was hoping for) to shore up state finances…U.S. and European economists are drawing parallels to the 1980’s debt crisis that shattered growth in Latin America…a global recession would undoubtedly magnify the problem…exactly how much China has lent is kept under wraps by state-run banks such as China Development Bank and the countries receiving the loans…China’s opaque lending can lead investors and organizations to underestimate the risk they are taking when they make loans to these countries or buy their bonds, leading them to lend at rates that might be too low given the potential losses…these include global investors and multilateral lenders such as the World Bank…

3. China’s major industrial provinces fully resumed production today, a top government official said, 2 months after a near-nationwide shutdown of factories, workplaces and retail outlets because of the Wuhan virus pandemic…the revving up of China’s economic engine contrasts with the situation in the U.S. and elsewhere…the number of confirmed cases of the virus rose to more than 724,000 across 177 countries and regions today, while the death total topped 34,000, according to Johns Hopkins University…while more than 152,000 people have recovered globally, case numbers have nearly doubled in a week, led by big increases in the U.S. and Europe…deaths outside mainland China are about 9 times that of China where the virus originated late last year…the world is paying a heavy price for how China’s communist dictatorship handled the situation, first by attempting to cover it up after the first reported case December 10…they arrested whistleblowers, lied about infection rates (even to their enablers at the WHO), denied access to the country to American medical experts, kicked out reporters investigating the story, and to this day China still isn’t fully sharing data sets on the virus…a recent University of Southampton study revealed that 95% of this global pandemic problem would not even exist if China had handled things differently…one of the “Big Picture” outcomes of this pandemic will be a major reset of relations with China…will Americans trust Donald Trump to do that, or Joe Biden who doesn’t consider China a major threat?…Trump’s approval ratings are at a new all-time high, much to the chagrin of the mainstream media…a priority for the U.S. will be to greatly reduce its dependency on strategic products from China, beginning with pharmaceuticals…

4. Canadian heavy Oil prices plunged to a new low on Friday that could force the domestic Oil sands sector to shut in production to survive the historic collapse, according to a new report from Wood Mackenzie…the price of Western Canada Select, the domestic heavy Oil benchmark, followed up a brutal 30% plunge on Thursday with another 28% fall on Friday to as low as $4.58 per barrel (U.S.) – just a fraction of other price benchmarks and cheaper than a crispy chicken sandwich at Tim Hortons…the Trudeau government, of course, has exacerbated the problem with its anti-fossil fuel globalist posture and an unwillingness to expand Canada’s pipeline capacity due to an obsession with “climate change”…in short, Canada’s Oil sector has been decimated by this federal government and all Canadians are about to pay a steep price, not just the West…

5. G6 Materials (GGG, TSX-V) woke up dramatically last week, doubling to 7.5 cents on a massive jump in volume – just the beginning of what could be in store for the $6 million market cap company poised to benefit from the pandemic and its consequences, short-term and longer-term…besides its graphene business, which shows increasing potential as it relates to multiple sectors (military ships, the general boat/yacht industry, electric vehicles, etc.), GGG is about to hit the jackpot on at least a couple of fronts…the company holds a valuable patent on a chemical compound process used in Phase 2 drug trials by a spin-out of a major U.S. pharmaceutical company…the drug is for a disease associated with the lungs that has a potential application for COVID-19…GGG has some intriguing immediate/near-term options including the outright sale of this patent…meanwhile, interest in GGG’s air filtration and sterilization products is skyrocketing, so much so that G6 is preparing to greatly expand this line of its business to capture a rapidly growing market due to the virus pandemic…G6’s experience with handling powder from graphene at its facility has given them unique insights into the air filtration/sterilization space, so they are well positioned to make this a potential major new revenue and profit source…on the graphene side, G6 has been working closely with a company in Singapore – analogous to Lockheed Martin – that has a contract with the national government for the building of military ships…this is another big potential game-changer because it’s believed that G6’s unique graphene concentrate will improve the impact and fatigue resistance of these ships by 3-fold…if that’s the case, it’ll dramatically speed up G6’s entry into a multi-billion dollar market…technically, the stock has broken out above a downsloping channel on its long-term monthly chart, a highly reliable indicator of a major change in trend…GGG is up another penny to 8.5 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific…

6. The Dow, coming off its best week since 1938, is relatively unchanged at 21,643 as of 7:00 am Pacific…in Toronto, the TSX has shed 95 points despite a 10-point jump in the Gold Index, while the Venture is off 1 point at 387…Sona Nanotech (SONA, CSE), a BMR subscriber recommendation at 30 cents last month, was halted pre-market, pending news…the stock closed Friday at $1.09…a SONA-led consortium including GE has been optimizing the working prototype of a rapid response screening test for COVID-19, unparalleled in the lateral flow space…Seabridge Gold (SEA, TSX) has entered into an agreement to acquire a 100% interest in the 3 Aces Gold Project in the Yukon from Golden Predator (GPY, TSX-V) for 300,000 Seabridge common shares, potential future cash payments totalling $2.25 million, continuing royalty participation in the project by Golden Predator and the immediate cash payment of $263,000 as reimbursement for project-related payments made by Golden Predator…Seabridge Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk says 3 Aces is a first rate exploration play with the potential to host a high-grade commercially-viable ore body…“We think 3 Aces is a worthy addition to the three outstanding exploration opportunities we already own in British Columbia, Nevada and the Northwest Territories.  Golden Predator has done an excellent job of demonstrating the exploration potential at 3 Aces, confirming the project’s positive metallurgy and establishing excellent relationships with local First Nations and communities.  Their focus has shifted to the much more advanced and permitted Brewery Creek Mine”…

7. The Wall Street Journal reports that government officials across the U.S. are using location data from millions of cellphones in a bid to better understand the movements of Americans during the virus pandemic and how they may be affecting its spread…the federal government, through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and state and local governments have started to receive analyses about the presence and movement of people in certain areas of geographic interest drawn from cellphone data that comes from the mobile advertising industry rather than cellphone carriers…the aim is to create a portal for federal, state and local officials that contains geolocation data in what could be as many as 500 cities across the U.S. to help plan the epidemic response…the data, which is stripped of identifying information like the name of a phone’s owner, could help officials learn how the virus is spreading around the country and help blunt its advance…it shows which retail establishments, parks and other public spaces are still drawing crowds that could risk accelerating the transmission of the virus…

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