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Gold has traded between $1,211 and $1,224 so far today after yesterday’s pullback…as of 8:30 am Pacific, bullion is up $1 an ounce at $1,221…front-month Gold futures were down for 10 of 13 trading sessions through yesterday, touching their lowest since February 26…Silver has added 3 cents to $15.24…Copper is down 3 pennies at $2.25…Crude Oil has slipped 95 cents to $38.84 while the U.S. Dollar Index has rallied another one-fifth of a point to 96.17…

Gold and commodities in general have been tripped up this week due to confusing signals sent by the Fed – very poor communication, actually, because central bank members have been all over the map in the last 10 days…to traders, the comments from St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard yesterday and several other Fed officials, such as Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker, suggesting the possibility of a rate hike as early as next month, contrast sharply with the dovish message sent after the Fed’s meeting last week…

Has so much changed in just 1 week?…the central bank took no action on rates and slightly downgraded its view on the economy in its March 15 policy statement…the forecasts of Fed officials also showed that most members favored 2 rate hikes this year, versus an earlier forecast of 4 hikes…

Bullard said policymakers should consider hiking rates at their next meeting, suggesting there is a risk in overshooting inflation. “You get another strong jobs report, it looks like labor markets are improving, you could probably make a case for moving in April,” Bullard said…meanwhile, a normally dovish Fed member – Chicago Fed President Charles Evans – said Tuesday he expects to see 2 rate hikes this year…Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said “there is a strong case that we need to continue to raise rates”…and, on Monday, Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart also suggested the U.S. could be in line for another hike as soon as April…

Despite its rally this week, the Dollar Index still faces technical pressures after its recent breakdown…other supportive influences for Gold include the “Brexit” worries about the U.K. leaving the European Union (immigration problems in Europe, even more evident after the attacks in Brussels the other today, could certainly influence Britain’s June referendum), as well as potential for still-lower interest rates due to economic worries in key markets such as Japan and Europe…

Trudeau:  “We’re Not At War With ISIS”

The real reason Justin Trudeau ended Canada’s bombing mission against ISIS in Iraq is that Trudeau simply doesn’t comprehend the scale of the ISIS threat against the West…he actually doesn’t take ISIS or Islamist extremism seriously, as demonstrated by his comment to media yesterday that “Canada is not at war with ISIS”…how could a leader of a country be so foolish and naïve, especially after the horrific attacks this week in Brussels that followed the massacre in Paris last November?…even the socialist President of France, Francois Hollande, recognizes that his country is at war with ISIS…and Canada somehow is not?…this is pacifism and ignorance at its extreme…ISIS has declared war against Canada and all of the West…Canada is a country that has always punched above its weight in conflicts and has helped defeat evil in the past…Trudeau, however, has chosen to downplay the crisis with ISIS as he tries to show a politically correct and “tolerant” Canada while falsely claiming that “climate change”, not radical Islamist terrorism, is the world’s biggest threat…it’s like Trudeau is in a parallel universe (Tuesday’s budget indicated that as well, a $30 billion boondoggle that did nothing to improve Canada’s security or defense capabilities)…

The facts are that ISIS, referred to as merely a “JV team” by President Obama a couple of years ago, has an army of at least 30,000 jihad fighters in Iraq and Syria…it is extremely well-funded and has already conducted or inspired more than 70 terrorist attacks in 20 countries (including the U.S. and Canada) other than Iraq and Syria where its carnage has taken a much deadlier toll (including genocide against Christians and others)…in addition, what we also know now is that ISIS has established a chemical weapons factory in Syria and, as reported yesterday by the Associated Press, has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves of attacks, deploying international terror cells like the ones that struck Brussels and Paris with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum chaos…

ISIS makes al Qaeda look like amateurs…rest assured, ISIS is plotting to kill not hundreds but tens of thousands of Europeans and Americans and Canadians and other “infidels” through attacks that would dwarf 9/11…a well-funded terrorist organization with its hands on weapons of mass destruction is a nightmare scenario, and the only way this army can be defeated is by attacking it with boots on the ground…in other words, a large NATO ground force, supplemented by troops from various Muslin countries, is probably the only way to stop ISIS…in the meantime, though, Trudeau (and Obama) will keep pretending that everything is okay while they lecture us about the danger of stirring up hatred against Muslims…

God forbid but there will come a point, we predict, when the West’s inability to deal effectively with ISIS and Islamist terrorism will have enormous consequences beyond what anyone can currently imagine…there will be safety in Gold which got its kick-start after 9/11…

In today’s Morning Musings…

1.  Venture chart update…

2.  The “Drone Deal” moves closer to landing on the CSE…

3.  Aphria (APH, TSX-V) shows technical and fundamental momentum…

Plus more…to view the rest of today’s Morning Musings, login with your username and password, or click here to gain full access to this and other exclusive BMR content and features…

Gold is under pressure today due in part to a firmer U.S. dollar and hawkish comments from another Fed member, but keep in mind the Dollar Index has suffered some major technical damage recently and any rallies are likely to be sold into…Gold, which has traded between $1,243 and $1,215 so far today, is down $25 an ounce at $1,223 as of 10:00 am Pacific…selling, which has now stabilized, started in Asia overnight…Silver is off 62 cents at $15.25 after failing to push above $16 yesterday, but the metal has very strong support around $15 and could rebound powerfully at any time given a bullish overall chart pattern…Copper is 3 cents lower at $2.27…Crude Oil is down $1.28 a barrel to $40.17 while the U.S. Dollar Index has rallied half a point to 96.16…

This is Gold’s worst day in more than a month as it trades near levels not seen since February 29…however, support is rock-solid between $1,200 and $1,220 an ounce…overnight, Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker (FOMC voting member) said in a Reuters report the central bank should consider another interest rate hike as early as next month if the U.S. economy continues to improve as it has of late…while he supported last week’s decision by his colleagues to leave policy unchanged, “there is a strong case that we need to continue to raise rates,” he said in the article…

According to data released by the Swiss customs department yesterday, Venezuela exported 11 tonnes of Gold to Switzerland last month which equates to about 443 million Swiss francs ($456 million U.S.) worth of the metal…it’s believed that the financially strapped Venezuelan government has sold at least that same amount of bullion thus far in March…

Oil Update

John’s most recent Crude Oil chart continues to show a bullish trend, so today’s weakness should be viewed as just another healthy pullback in a rising market…

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported this morning that U.S. Crude stocks rose more than expected last week, up 9.4 million barrels to a record total of 532.5 million barrels…offsetting the build was a 4.6 million barrel decline in gasoline inventories…weekly production ticked down by about 30,000 barrels per day, the EIA said…

Oil prices have been rebounding on supply disruptions from Nigeria and Iraq and on discussions over a proposed output freeze by members and non-members of the OPEC…the possible deal to stabilize production was snubbed as “meaningless” by the head of the International Energy Agency’s Oil industry and markets division, Neil Atkinson, yesterday.  “Amongst the group of countries (potentially participating) that we’re aware of, only Saudi Arabia has any ability to increase its production,” Atkinson said.  “So a freeze on production is perhaps rather meaningless. It’s more some kind of gesture which perhaps is aimed…to build confidence that there will be stability in Oil prices.”

Oil and gas exploration company Emerald Oil filed for bankruptcy protection last night, the latest victim of stubbornly low Oil prices…more than 50 Oil and gas companies have sought bankruptcy protection since the beginning of 2015, according to law firm Haynes & Boone…that number is expected to rise this year…

The New Canada – Welcome Back To The 1970’s

Yesterday’s federal budget was an absolute disaster…coming into the budget, of course, the Liberals had already chopped 45% off Canadians’ annual TFSA contributions, and more importantly they also introduced a sequel to Pierre Trudeau’s horrendous National Energy Program with a “climate-change” driven energy strategy that will do nothing but hinder the ability of Western Canada to get its Oil and natural gas to market…

It is a national disgrace that Canada is content to import tens of billions of dollars in Crude Oil from Saudi Arabia while at the same time pursuing policies at home aimed at eliminating Canadian Oil from the market…how have we lost our way as a nation?…

But getting back to yesterday’s budget, how can Canadians have any trust in the political system when the Liberals have committed what amounts to election fraud?…the party ran on a platform to incur only “modest deficits” of no more than $10 billion a year before bringing the national budget back into balance by the end of its mandate (keep in mind, the Liberals inherited a budget surplus)…now after getting elected, the Liberals have gone on a wild social program spending spree with a forecast deficit of $30 billion in their first fiscal year, part of a cumulative $118.6 billion that will be added to the national debt over the next 6 fiscal years…that’s simply not what Canadians voted for, especially when 2 out of the 3 main parties promised balanced budgets…what’s worse, the Liberals are creating chronic, structural deficits, very different from what was introduced in 2009 by the Conservatives (after 11 straight surplus national budgets) during the global financial crisis…

In addition, the Liberals courted Conservative voters in the election campaign when they proposed lowering the small business tax rate to 9.5% by the end of 2019, from 11% at the end of last year, but that was a promise broken yesterday as well…the rate, now at 10.5% after a small cut in January, will remain unchanged in the foreseeable future….

It gets even worse…at a time when anti-terrorism measures and national defense should be key priorities, the Liberals are actually starving those areas in their budget plans at the same time as they are pumping hundreds of millions of more dollars into their favorite media outlet – the CBC…

Justin Trudeau is taking Canada back to the 1970’s, and we all know what that led to…the Liberals aren’t “investing in Canadians”, as they claim…they are investing in the ideology of Big Government, something that even the Chretien-Martin Liberals tried to resist as they kept the books balanced and actually ran surpluses to pay off debt…in his budget speech yesterday, Finance Minister Bill Morneau waxed poetic about how this government will be a direct job creator (infrastructure programs, and the like)…not once – yes, not once in his 40-minute speech did he mention the private sector, or the need to create the environment necessary to unleash the power and productivity of the private sector and Canadian entrepreneurs…

The only hope for Canada is if some of the provinces rebel, starting with Ontario, and if a Republican wins the White House in November and is able to implement game-changing tax and regulatory reform, spurring job creation while slowing down the growth of government in the process…

In today’s Morning Musings…

1.  CRB Index update…

2.  Newly discovered deposit widens on fresh drill results from Cansasil Resources’ (CLZ, TSX-V) Sandra Escobar Property…

3.  New addition to BMR Top 50 Opportunities List…

Plus more…to view the rest of today’s Morning Musings, login with your username and password, or click here to gain full access to this and other exclusive BMR content and features…

Gold has traded between $1,243 and $1,261 so far today…as of 9:00 am Pacific, bullion is up $9 an ounce at $1,253…Silver is flat at $15.82 as it continues to flirt with the critical $16 level…Copper is unchanged at $2.30…Crude Oil is off slightly at $41.31 while the U.S. Dollar Index has climbed one-tenth of a point to 95.53…

Analysts and investors point toward stockpiles of LME-monitored Copper that have slumped to their lowest since the spring of 2014 as one of the reasons for Copper’s rally this year…however, while LME stocks have dropped quickly, the build taking place in China has been at least as severe according to Macquarie Group in a report sent out late last week…traders have been shifting Copper from LME-tracked warehouses to China to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities, boosting the amount in facilities monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange to a record…

In today’s Morning Musings…

1.  Big question – will momentum allow the Venture to blast through next Fib. resistance at 591?…

2.  A junior up 270% in just 6 weeks…

3.  Updates on 2 discovery plays…

Plus more…to view the rest of today’s Morning Musings, login with your username and password, or click here to gain full access to this and other exclusive BMR content and features…

Gold has traded between $1,240 and $1,253 so far today…as of 9:00 am Pacific, bullion is down $9 an ounce at $1,246…Silver, which is now starting to outperform Gold, appears ready for a breakout this week…it’s up 6 cents at $15.84…Copper is a penny higher at $2.31…Crude Oil has added 66 cents to $40.10 while the U.S. Dollar Index has rallied one-tenth of a point to 95.19…

$16 is the key level for Silver to push through and that could occur as early as this week given John’s latest charts which we’ll be sharing in today’s Morning Musings…

HSBC on Silver:  “Up to now, Silver failed to keep up with the Gold rally. Part of this may be due to producers streaming or selling Silver forward to raise cash. This increase may have weighed on prices. Longer term, this may be positive because future production has already been sold. Also, Silver coin and bars are becoming increasingly competitive with Gold coins and bars and may see greater demand.”

The popularity of Gold exchange-traded funds has been a “cornerstone” of the metal’s rally this year, according to HSBC…SPDR Gold Shares, the largest Gold ETF in the world, reported an increase in holdings last Thursday of nearly 12 tonnes to 807.09, a jump of 1.5% in 1 day…holdings rose that much again on Friday to 818.98 tonnes, according to data on the ETF’s website. “Even if ETF holdings do not keep increasing at this rate, we believe the recent accumulation is enough to lend some support to prices,” the bank says…

Indian jewellers called off a 19-day strike over the weekend after the government apparently assured them that they will not be “harassed” by the excise department in collecting a new tax, whatever that means…jewellery sales in India have fallen since the start of the year due to higher Gold prices and as consumers delayed purchases in hopes for a cut in the import duty in the budget…this has forced importers to offer discounts up to $50 per ounce to clear inventory….India’s Gold imports should now start to rebound after dropping in half in February to $1.44 billion from $2.91 billion in January…

In today’s Morning Musings…

1.  The most reliable Gold chart there is…

2.  Opportunities in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua…

3.  Updated chart for the Venture’s most active stock this morning…

Plus more…to view the rest of today’s Morning Musings, login with your username and password, or click here to gain full access to this and other exclusive BMR content and features…

The Explorers, Sleepers and New Additions categories continue to gain momentum in the BMR Top 50 Opportunities List that was unveiled in early December.

Combined, the 5 initial categories from December 4 have posted a stellar average return of 36.0% vs. a 12.4% advance for the Venture. The TSX is up 1.0% during that time, the Dow has fallen 1.4% while the NASDAQ is off 6.7%.  Gold has climbed 15.6% since December 4.

The BMR New Additions category is already up 28.3% since February 23, comprising Canasil Resources (CLZ, TSX-V), Calibre Mining (CXB, TSX-V), Gold Bullion Development (GBB, TSX-V) and Nevada Energy Metals (BFF, TSX-V).

The Explorers category, featuring 17 companies, has climbed an average of 46% since December 4, led by Cordoba Minerals (CDB, TSX-V) and Lithium X Energy (LIX, TSX-V) with massive gains of 208% and 191%, respectively.

The Near-Term Producers/Advanced Resources category is now up 45.6%.  True Gold Mining (TGM, TSX-V), about to be merged with Endeavour Mining (EDV, TSX), has surged 96% since December 4.  Kaminak Gold (KAM, TSX-V) has jumped 87.5%, Gold Standard Ventures (GSV, TSX-V) is up 79.5% while Nemaska Lithium (NMX, TSX-V) is 79% higher.

Gold Producers have increased 41.5% with Kirkland Lake Gold (KGI, TSX), Claude Resources (CRJ, TSX), Richmont Mines (RIC, TSX) and OceanaGold (OGC, TSX) setting the pace with gains of 84%, 71%, 51% and 46%, respectively.  Seven of the 8 selections in that category have gained in value.

The best performing category is Sleepers Under A Nickel – 3 very speculative plays that are doing extremely well.  Walker River Resources (WRR, TSX-V) is up a whopping 160%.

The Non-Resource category is lagging behind the others, posting an average gain of 8.8%.   This is led by 33.3% advances in Cematrix Corp. (CVX, TSX-V) and Greencastle Resources (VGN, TSX-V).  Greencastle, which is still trading below its working capital position, holds a couple of Gold properties in Nevada.  More importantly, however, they own 8 million shares of Deveron Resources (DVR, TSX-V) which will soon to be trading on the CSE as a drone and technology deal with an incredibly exciting business model and some powerful players behind it.

In tonight’s report is an updated performance review of each category.  In total, 35 of the 50 picks have increased in value since the 4th of December, 14 are down and 1 is unchanged.  The average return so far, as mentioned, is an impressive 36.0%.  We’ll be issuing an updated Top 50 Opportunities List (#2) in the near future.

1.  Three explorers post 3-month gains of 150% or more…

2.  Interest remains high in Lithium plays with one Venture company even completing a stock split…

3.  Certain non-resource plays that could surge during this 1st half of 2016…

To view the full report, login with your username and password, or click here to gain full access to this and other exclusive BMR content and features…