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Gold has traded between $1,179 and $1,189 so far today…as of 8:00 am Pacific, bullion is up $3 an ounce at $1,185…Silver has added 16 cents to $16.89…Copper is up 2 pennies to $2.77…Crude Oil has erased earlier losses this morning and is now up 38 cents at $46.95 while the U.S. Dollar Index is off two-thirds of a point to 97.09…

As of last Monday, total holdings in Gold-backed ETF funds fell to 1,638.4 tonnes…investors sold their holdings for each of the prior 14 days, making it the longest selling streak in over a year – clearly, the general bullion market was anticipating a more hawkish Fed…

With the Dollar Index in the midst of a consolidation phase, Gold has an opportunity over the final 7 trading sessions of March to test the psychologically important $1,200 level…the greenback has been under pressure since last Wednesday when the Fed sounded a cautious note on the health of the economic recovery in the U.S., and slashed its median estimate for the federal funds rate…

Market players’ consensus expectation for a U.S. interest rate increase has shifted, with most of Wall Street’s top banks now expecting the Fed to hold off until at least September and the odds for a June hike fading, according to a Reuters’ poll…it’s a slow week for economic data…markets will be closely scrutinizing tomorrow’s release of February’s CPI…

Physical Gold demand in India is set to pick up on the back of festival related buying ahead of Akshaya Tritiya, which falls April 21, Barclays said today…

Geopolitical Hotspots And Gold

Will Gold start responding again to geopolitical events?…eventually it probably will as there are simply too many hotspots throughout the world…over the weekend it certainly became clear that the situation in Yemen is spiraling out of control as hard-core terrorists, who are a direct threat to Western security, are rapidly increasing their foothold on that country, chasing away a limited number of American special forces…keep in mind, Yemen was held up as an example of U.S. “success” in the war on terror by President Obama just 6 months ago (though he doesn’t want to acknowledge that we are even in a “war on terror” or, more specifically, a war against Islamist extremists)…unfortunately, America’s national security strategy is in shambles and that’s a point that Canadian-born U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex) will be making forcefully in the weeks and months ahead as today he became the first official candidate for the U.S. Republican nomination…

CRB Index Updated Chart

Despite a cloudy outlook at best for Oil, the CRB Index is showing signs that it’s in the early stages of a rally that could pick up steam over the next couple of weeks…this theme is consistent with other charts (Gold, Silver, Venture, Dollar Index, euro) we’ve posted since Saturday…

A bullish candle last week, a double bottom reversal pattern, and an RSI(14) divergence with price are all clues that the CRB could be gearing up to once again test resistance at its 50-day SMA, currently 221…

The Venture typically responds well when the CRB is in an uptrend, so a sudden climb by the CRB would be a welcome development after a more than 35% plunge in the Index since June of last year…the only significant rally during that time was the bounce (9%) from late January into mid-February…

The CRB, up a point at 215 as of 8:00 am Pacific, had an upward bias last year from late March to late June as seen in this 2+ year weekly chart…

Today’s Markets

Asia

Equity markets in Tokyo and Shanghai outperformed the region to hit fresh multi-year highs overnight, drawing strength from a strong finish on Wall Street last week…the Shanghai added 70 points or nearly 2% to close at 3688…

Europe

European markets are lower in late trading overseas amid rising tensions and heated exchanges between Greece and its euro zone neighbors and creditors, particularly Germany…

North America

The Dow has gained 44 points through the first 2 hours of trading…the TSX has added 3 points while the Venture is up a point at 672…

Noront Resources Ltd. (NOT, TSX-V) Doubles Down On Ring Of Fire

Noront Resources (NOT, TSX-V) has firmed up considerably this morning after announcing that it has entered into an agreement to acquire 2 indirect wholly owned subsidiaries of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc., which holds strategic mining claims in northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire, for an acquisition price of $20-million (U.S.)…

Upon closing, Noront will hold roughly 65% (80,000 hectares) of this emerging mining camp 500 km northeast of Thunder Bay which features Noront’s existing Eagle’s Nest Ni-Cu-PGE deposit and its Blackbird chromite deposit.

“This purchase consolidates the world-class discoveries made in the Ring of Fire,” said Noront President and CEO Alan Coutts. “It also underscores Noront’s long-standing belief and commitment to the region. We have made significant investments in the Ring of Fire and our team has become experts in the region from both a technical and social point of view. We also believe in the considerable exploration upside which we are eager to develop.”

NOT is up 10.5 cents to 46 cents as of 8:00 am Pacific…technically, NOT appears to be on the cusp of a breakout, and such an event would be a positive sign for the Venture…

Fission Uranium Corp. (FCU, TSX) Update 

Fission Uranium (FCU, TSX) released results this morning from 19 additional holes from the R780E zone of its Triple R deposit at PLS…nothing blockbuster, but 17 of those holes were mineralized including PLS15–368 (line 480E) which intercepted 8.98 m total composite greater than 10,000 cps radioactivity with peaks up to 65,500 cps in a 57-m zone…

Fission has also expanded its winter exploration budget by an additional $3 million…this equates to approximately 6,270 m (28 holes) of additional drilling for a total of 26,500 m in 91 holes…the additional meters will be used to test high-priority areas within the R780E Zone where specific step-out targeting of the high-grade domain is prospective….additional drilling is also planned to further test the recent discovery of high-grade mineralization at the R600W zone, located 555 m on strike to the west of the Triple R deposit…

FCU is unchanged at $1.22 through the first 90 minutes of trading…

NexGen Energy Ltd. (NXE, TSX-V) Update

NexGen Energy (NXE, TSX-V) is mobilizing a fourth rig to its Rook 1 Property in the Athabasca Basin where fresh results this morning show continued strong potential of this growing system…mineralization at Fission’s world class Triple R deposit is shallower, thicker and more consistent…however, NXE is effectively outlining potentially higher grades in vertical shear zones at Rook 1…

The high-grade core of the A2 shear is thus far defined by an 88-m strike length, 340-m vertical extent, and true widths ranging from approximately 11 to 27.5 m…the high-grade core of the A3 shear is thus far defined by a 73-m strike length, 420-m vertical extent, and true widths ranging from approximately 30 to 78.6 m…the Arrow zone covers an area of 515 x 215 m with the vertical extent of mineralization commencing from 100 to 905 m, and it remains open in all directions and at depth…40 of 42 drill holes completed at Arrow to date have intersected uranium mineralization…

NXE is up 2 pennies at 44 cents as of 8:00 am Pacific…

Fairmont Resources Inc. (FMR, TSX-V) Update

We’ve mentioned Fairmont Resources (FMR, TSX-V) on several occasions since the beginning of the year, and we’ll be increasing our focus on it in the near future given what we see as a very capable management team progressing well with its plan to take some key properties in its industrial mineral portfolio in Quebec to the production stage…

The extraction of industrial minerals may not seem as exciting to some investors as traditional precious metals exploration, or whatever the flavor of the day might be, but in terms of practicality and the opportunity to build near-term cash flow and profits for shareholders, a company like Fairmont has us really intrigued given its assets and game plan…we see the company’s 2 main value drivers this year being the Buttercup Property (C-of-A from Quebec authorities was received just recently which allows for up to 300,000 tonnes annually of titano-magnetite production) and the nearby Lac Bouchette Property, a past producer which has high-purity quartz possibilities…

Technically, this is a no-brainer…FMR has been in an overall primary uptrend since late 2013, and the stock has merely retraced since September of last year to its rising 500-day SMA and Fib. support…FMR has just 18 million shares outstanding, giving it a market cap of only $2.5 million based on Friday’s 14-cent close…

Silver Short-Term Chart

Significantly, Silver has broken out of a short-term downsloping flag…the metal found support at the bottom of that flag last week which was critical…we’d prefer to see a more gradual rise, but we’ll see how this plays out over the coming days..

The metal reacted in January at $18.50 (almost exactly at chart and Fib. resistance) and then went into a consolidation phase within the downsloping channel…we were waiting for a move above or below that channel, and it came at the end of last week…

RSI(14) is rising rapidly…

In December, Silver finally staged a definitive breakout above a downtrend line that was in place since the summer (note how the downtrend line became new support that month)…this gave Silver the fuel it needed to test higher levels…

Silver Long-Term Chart

This 34-year monthly chart continues to give hope that Silver could be in the very early stages of a powerful “Wave 5” move to the upside, though we caution that this could take some time to play out (if indeed this theory is correct)…the reasons for such a possible move are also not clear at the moment…

RSI(14) has bounced off previous long-term support which will need to hold along with key price support in the immediate vicinity of $15…

One note of concern on this chart is the sell pressure that has prevailed since the beginning of 2013, after a decade-long period of buy pressure…based on historical patterns, sell pressure could persist for a considerable time yet – though that doesn’t necessarily mean that the price can’t still trend higher…nonetheless, it would be encouraging to see this sell pressure begin to abate…it has eased off only very slightly in recent months…

Note:  Jon holds a share position in FMR.