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Gold has traded between $1,082 and $1,100 so far today…as of 9:00 am Pacific, bullion is up $5 an ounce at $1,095…Silver has jumped 29 cents to $14.94…Copper is flat at $2.34…Crude Oil, set for its 6th straight weekly loss, is off 37 cents at $44.29 while the U.S. Dollar Index has reversed intra-day and is now down one-fifth of a point at 97.67…

Negative sentiment in the Gold market continues to grow (positive sign) with another bank downgrading its forecasts for the year…in a report released yesterday morning, analysts at French bank Natixis said that they now expect Gold to drop below $1,000 an ounce after the Federal Reserve raises interest rates in September, which would be the first hike in 9 years…

Natixis is making 2 big assumptions – the first being a rate hike next month, the second being that Gold would actually drop after the announcement of a rate hike…bullion has been suffering for more than 2 years in anticipation of a Fed move; the removal of this seemingly endless Fed speculation might actually take the wind out of the sails of the greenback and at least allow Gold to stabilize if not regain some lost ground…the bank added that it now sees Gold averaging $1,100 an ounce for the year and expects prices to average $950 an ounce in 2016…at $950, a significant amount of Gold being mined around the world would be uneconomic…

In any event, we don’t believe the Fed has the courage to initiate a rate hike next month given continuing concerns over deflationary pressures and weakening global growth…

U.S. Jobs Report In Line With Expectations

U.S. employers are adding jobs at a steady clip though the labor market is showing little signs of overheating…non-farm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 215,000 in July, the Labor Department reported this morning…revisions showed employers added slightly more jobs during the previous 2 months than previously estimated…the unemployment rate, which is obtained from a separate survey of U.S. households, held steady at 5.3% in July…

The jobs numbers are in line with the Fed’s narrative for how the economy is developing – solid job growth and diminished slack in labor markets but, significantly, no sign of wage or inflation pressure…July’s job’s growth was the norm for 2015 while average hourly earnings of workers, up 2.1% from a year earlier, are showing no signs of acceleration…

The odds of a rate increase at the September FOMC meeting are now at 56%, compared with 46% before the jobs report and 48% yesterday, according to traders based on implied yields of Fed funds futures which are used by investors and traders to place bets on central bank policy…the odds of a rate boost at the December meeting stand at 79%, versus 72% pre-data and 73% yesterday….

Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, told the Wall Street Journal  this week that it would take a “significant deterioration of economic data” for him to not vote to raise rates in September…he’ll face opposition…

U.S. Dollar Index Long-Term Chart

The greenback remains a “crowded” trade based on this 20-year monthly chart…note the very overbought RSI(14) conditions that have persisted through the first 7 months of this year…the likelihood of this trend continuing through the balance of 2015 is remote in our view…in other words, stiff Fib. resistance at 100 is likely to continue, and a significant retracement is overdue…a runaway dollar would have to be a major concern for the Fed…

The Dollar Index initially surged higher, to about 98.30, following this morning’s jobs report but has since reversed lower…

Crude Oil Update

WTIC has been performing exactly to script according to John’s charts, and we’re now about to see a test, as expected, of the March $42.41 low…given the steadily increasing sell pressure on this 6-month daily chart, and the bearish fundamentals, it’s likely in our view that Crude may ultimately need to test major support in the mid-30’s (not shown on this particular chart)…that’s one reason the Venture is having problems gaining traction despite the jump today in Gold prices…

Today’s Equity Markets

Asia

China’s Shanghai Composite rallied more than 2% overnight, climbing 83 points to finish the week at 3744…after a “B” wave bounce that took the Shanghai to Fib. resistance and the 100-day moving average (SMA), which is close to “rolling over”, our contention is that a potentially dangerous “C” wave is in progress that could entail another significant plunge in the index over the near to short-term…

Shanghai Composite 2-Year Weekly Chart

Europe

European markets finished modestly lower today…official data from Germany showed that exports fell more than expected in June while industrial output also declined, signaling a setback for the bloc’s largest economy…in contrast, Spain’s industrial output rose 4.5% year-on-year in June, according to official data, the highest annual increase since March 2010…

North America

The Dow is off 108 points as of 9:00 am Pacific…in Toronto, the TSX has lost 109 points while the Venture is 3 points lower at 578…

Thanks to the Alberta NDP’s 20% corporate tax hike, Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ, TSX) reported a Q2 loss this week…the company took a took a $579-million “deferred income tax charge” to account for Alberta’s decision to hike the provincial corporate income tax rate to 12% from 10%, effective July 1…without the charge, CNQ would have reported adjusted net earnings of $174 million or 16 cents a share…hiking corporate taxes – the socialists always love to go after the corporations and the “rich” – is a jobs-killer and a proven losing economic strategy for any jurisdiction…

Venture 2-Month Daily Chart

This 2-month daily Venture chart shows how the EMA(8) is providing strong resistance on any minor relief rallies in the Index…this resistance must be overcome to give us confidence that a legitimate rally or turnaround could be in the works…sell pressure has declined somewhat since late July which is encouraging…the 39-week Venture cycle chart suggests the possibility of a significant turnaround around the end of August/beginning of September…

Cannabix Technologies Inc. (BLO, CSE, BLOZF, OTC) Update

The ever-volatile Cannabix Technologies (BLO, CSE), which doubled in price over 8 sessions last month, has retraced to what should be strong support around 20 cents…a general recovery started to set in after the late June intra-day low of 13 cents…

Cannabix in our view stands to benefit enormously from the growing, albeit unfortunate, social acceptance of marijuana in North America…development of the company’s groundbreaking technology – a marijuana breathalyzer – has been proceeding methodically (though never quickly enough for investors) with an alpha prototype unveiled at the beginning of June…BLO continues to work toward a beta version acceptable for 3rd party testing to assess the operability and measurement precision of the device for use by law enforcement…solid management team has guided this company wisely over the past year…

Below is an updated 6-month daily chart in U.S. dollars (based on OTC listing) as StockCharts.com still doesn’t provide charts for CSE-listed companies…a cup-with-handle pattern has formed…15 cents U.S. (19 cents CDN) is critical support – a drop below that level would invalidate the pattern…

BLO is unchanged at 21.5 cents as of 9:00 am Pacific…note the extreme low RSI(2) level – accumulation is always safest at such extremes…

Sernova Corp. (SVA, TSX-V) Update

Another speculative non-resource play that readers may wish to check out is Sernova Corp. (SVA, TSX-V), a clinical-stage company developing products for the treatment of chronic diseases using therapeutic cells transplanted into an implanted medical device to replace missing proteins or hormones…last month, the company announced that it has started research collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital to develop a novel treatment for diabetes….

Technically, SVA has pulled back from Fib. resistance at 31 cents into the low 20‘s…buy pressure remains steady and the ADX indicator continues to show a bullish overall trend…the Fib. support band between 20 and 23 cents coincides with the rising 200 and 300-day SMA’s, so this area appears to be an especially attractive entry point…as always, perform your own due diligence…

SVA is off 1.5 cents at 24 cents as of 9:00 am Pacific…

Biorem Inc. (BRM, TSX-V) Update

A situation that intrigues us, technically and fundamentally, is Biorem Inc. (BRM, TSX-V) which has only 13 million shares outstanding and reported revenues of nearly $5 million for Q1 and quarterly profit of $528,000…

Biorem is an environmental biotechnology company that designs, manufactures and distributes a comprehensive line of high-efficiency air emissions control systems used to eliminate odors, volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants…

In mid-June, the company announced it had received several new orders totaling $2.5-million…the orders are for air emission abatement projects in North America, the Middle East and Asia…

“These recent orders are a reflection of our customers’ desires for reliability and the ability to achieve stringent performance targets,” said Derek S. Webb, President and CEO.  “Each of these orders are from repeat customers who are accustomed to having their projects successfully completed on time and on budget. These projects are in the semiconductor, petrochemical, as well as the food and beverage sectors, and represent a cross-section of the potential applications where our advanced biological solutions can be effectively applied.”

Technically, what’s interesting about BRM is the fact that it’s very close to pushing through a downtrend line that has been in place for several years as shown in this 10-year monthly chart…all aspects of this chart are encouraging…BRM closed at 30.5 cents yesterday…

Note:  Jon holds a share position in BLO.