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Check back later this morning for today’s Morning Musings.

1. Crude Oil prices have exploded to the upside today, hitting a 5-week high, as OPEC has apparently agreed to its first Oil output cuts since 2008…the deal is reported to match or even exceed an accord reached in Algiers in September, where OPEC aimed for a new production ceiling at 32.5 million to 33 million barrels per day, down from current levels of 33.6 million…we’ll have fresh analysis and an updated Oil chart in today’s Morning Musings…WTI is up more than $3 a barrel (7%) at $48.45 as of 7:00 am Pacific…the Saudis were desperate for a deal and it appears they got it…

2. The Oil sector in Canada has been given a boost with federal approval yesterday for 2 pipelines…the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, from Alberta to Burnaby, B.C., and Enbridge’s $7.5-billion Line 3 pipeline replacement, from Alberta to Wisconsin, would increase Alberta’s pipeline capacity by more than 1.1 million barrels per day and create thousands of jobs…Green Party leader Elizabeth wants nothing of it as she and others continue their war against Oil and Canadian resource workers, saying she’s prepared to “go to jail” to stop Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Project…

3. Buoyed by an OPEC deal, equity markets are strong in early trading with the Dow hitting a new record high…Gold has softened but base metal prices have firmed after profit-taking yesterday…the Venture is flat at 735 but really appears to have found its bottom in the low 700’s…

4. Garibaldi Resources (GGI, TSX-V) is building a team of Nickel experts and market communicators who will shine a big new light on the company and northwest B.C.’s Heart of Gold Camp in general as GGI ramps up efforts to exploit this prolific district’s only magmatic Ni-Cu-PGE-Au-Co system at the E&L…the deposit and 63 sq. km project is 11 miles southwest of Eskay Creek and 20 miles west of Pretium’s high-grade Brucejack Gold mine which is slated to commence commercial production in the 2nd half of next year…Everett Makela and Ray Goldie, who were both intimately involved with the Voisey’s Bay discovery, were named to the Garibaldi Advisory Board this morning…the company says Makela and Goldie will lay the foundation for a systematic and aggressive exploration and development program of tasks, objectives and milestones at the E&L where recent testing returned high-grade Ni and Cu with Nickel tenors of 4% to 8% and Cu tenors of 2.1% to 10.9% in 100% sulphide…a broad magnetic anomaly featuring a 600-m long conduit-shaped “keel” has been identified approximately 800 m south and 400 m below the original discovery at the top of Nickel Mountain…parallel to the east, in volcanic rocks, the E&L also features a VMS target with astonishing high-grade Zinc values up to 56% at Brass Hill…a confirmed breakout above a long-term downtrend line has occurred in GGI which is up half a penny at 11.5 cents through the first 30 minutes of trading…

5. Tinka Resources (TK, TSX-V), which completed an $11 million financing earlier this month while also receiving Peruvian government approvals for extensive new drilling at its Ayawilca Zinc Project, has also broken out above a long-term downtrend line…TK is up half a penny at 23 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific, and is the latest Zinc junior to see a rush of buying…Ayawilca has considerable exploration upside with Indicated and Inferred resources totaling 18 million tonnes at a ZnEq grade of 8.2% (5% ZnEq cut-off)…

6. Vendetta Mining (VTT, TSX-V), reviewed in yesterday’s Daniel’s Den, is flying out of the gate this morning after releasing fresh results from its Pegmont Lead-Zinc project in Queensland, Australia, including 14.8 m grading 11.9% Pb-Zn…as Daniel reported yesterday, VTT has a relationship with NYSE-listed Solitario Exploration & Royalty (XPL, NYSE), a company with a great eye for quality early stage exploration projects…Solitario grabbed a 10% equity stake in Vendetta earlier this year…VTT is up 2 cents at 15 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific…

7. Nevada Zinc (NZN, TSX-V) has outlined a significant Gold exploration target on its VIP Project located in the Yukon, west of Goldcorp’s Coffee Gold Project…the 700-m-long East Big Creek Gold target at VIP remains open along strike and is unexplored for several km along the trend of the existing anomalous data points…meanwhile, the company is continuing to drill on its Lone Mountain Zinc Project in Nevada where its most recent drilling intersected significant intervals of near-surface high-grade Zinc mineralization including holes that collared in subcropping mineralization assaying up to 5.8% Zinc over 41.1 m…NZN is up 4 pennies at 52 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific…

Gold has traded between $1,180 and $1,193 so far today…as of 10:30 am Pacific, bullion is down $5 an ounce at $1,189…Silver has bounced off its lows and is now up 12 cents at $16.69…Copper has slid a nickel to $2.59…Nickel has retreated 16 cents to $5.01…Crude Oil has fallen $1.93 a barrel to $45.15 ahead of tomorrow’s critical OPEC meeting in Vienna while the U.S. Dollar Index is off slightly at 100.99…

TD Securities describes the precious metals complex as “down but not out” after Gold’s fall below $1,200 an ounce.  “Much of the move can be traced to the now 100% certainty that the Fed delivers another rate hike in December, while the risks to faster rate hikes in 2017 have grown substantially,” TDS says. “Many point to rising inflation expectations as cause for concern and that for now has driven real rates quite a bit higher.  However, if inflation does continue to creep higher, and the FOMC remains dovish in their approach to normalizing rates, real rates are likely to fall lower again, and 2017 would set up to likely surprise the current pessimism.”

Stronger-than-expected U.S. economic data was released this morning…

• Consumer Confidence Index hit 107.1 in November, up from 98.6 in October, and well above expectations of 101.2…
• Q3 GDP increased at a 3.2% annual rate instead of the previously reported 2.9% pace, though a surge in soybean exports contributed to approximately one-third of that growth…
• U.S. home prices came in 5.5% higher in September, up from the 5.1% annual gain in August, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index which has surpassed its previous peak of July 2006…

Uprisings In India

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of cities throughout India to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new economic policy of demonetization…Modi estimated that forcing people to exchange the country’s largest currency bills for new banknotes would allow the government to crack down on “black money” – unaccounted-for cash holdings that haven’t been taxed but, under the law, should be (the government recently released data that showed that in 2013, merely 1% of Indians paid taxes – obvious this is a country still in need of major reforms)…

Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister who has stirred up the nation in recent weeks with a demonetization scheme.

Modi’s agenda, beyond the broad approach that he wants to push India toward a cashless society, is to force people with “illegal” cash holdings to deposit their money into bank accounts and pay taxes on them…his advisers thought this plan would work just fine, but the Law of Unintended Consequences always applies when governments act in such fashion…

Just one problem is that the supply of new banknotes has been far smaller than the supply of old ones…average Indians have been hit hard, and the country itself may pay a heavy price – many economists expect the growth of India’s booming economy to slow substantially in the final quarter of 2016…farmers looking to sow their next set of crops can’t buy the full quantity of seeds they need…property sales, which typically require huge cash investments, are slowing…weddings, which can cost millions of rupees, are taking a serious hit…

Most “black money” in India, however, doesn’t actually take the form of cash held in the country but is rather in Gold, Silver, real estate, and overseas bank accounts – what does Modi plan to do about that?…

How current events in India may impact the Gold market in the coming months remains to be seen…rumors have circulated that a ban on Gold imports is next…India has tried that before and it hasn’t worked…Modi’s policies should further solidify the value of Gold in the minds and hearts of Indians…

Mining Shares Are Cheap!

While some investors say the bull market in mining stocks is over after Gold’s $200 drop, a more than 30% collapse in the TSX Gold Index and a 15% fall in the Venture from its August high of 848, the chart below shows that mining shares as a percentage of global market cap is still fairly depressed with the overall trend remaining very positive…

Venture Long-Term Monthly Uptrend/Downtrend Periods

Now’s a great time to review some Venture history through an updated chart from John that carves the Index into 6 distinct trading periods going back to 2001…we’re currently in “Period 6” – a confirmed bull cycle that should last for at least a couple of years…

Period 1 (2001 into early 2003) is best described as “neutral” – mostly range trading as the Venture gauged developments including 9/11 and the war and recession that followed…

Period 2 (early 2003 to early 2007, a bull cycle) delivered a stellar return of 280%…

Period 3 (early 2007 to the end of 2008) was nasty – an 80% wipe-out thanks to the Great Crash…

The gain during Period 4 (2009 to early 2011, another bull cycle) was staggering, similar to Period 2 but over a shorter time frame, at 264%…

Period 5 (early 2011 to early 2016) was an ugly bear market as we all know, and the Venture declined a whopping 81% (same percentage decline but worse in many ways than Period 3 because it dragged on for 5 years)…

If Period 6 is similar to Periods 2 and 4, we can expect the Venture to make its way to at least 1700 during this cycle…

Steady buy pressure has replaced sell pressure which was dominant since mid-2012…the 300 and 500-day SMA’s – not shown on the chart below – have reversed to the upside, while the ADX indicator confirms the bear market peaked in late 2015/early 2016…RSI(14) has made a big move this year out of extreme oversold conditions and should find support around 50% on this monthly chart…note the critical breakout, as well, above the downtrend line on a jump in volume…

All those signals confirm a new bull market…

In Today’s Morning Musings…

1. Another Zinc play ready to leap with a resource and a whole bunch of drilling on the way…

2. Understanding what’s in store for DBV – as simple as A-B-C-D-E-F…

3. HIT takes a hit on old news but the chart and upcoming quarters give a bullish outlook…

4. If Uranium is about to turn, the NXE 50% off sale was a steal…

5. Has the Silver recovery started?…

6. Daniel’s Den – how about these Zinc picks?…

Plus more…click here to read the rest of today’s Morning Musings and all BMR exclusive content, through a risk-free Pro, Gold or Basic package, or login with your username and password…

Check back later this morning for today’s Morning Musings.

1. Crude Oil prices are under pressure today ahead of tomorrow’s critical meeting in Vienna when OPEC members will attempt to implement an agreement outlined in September to cut output by around 1 million barrels per day…Goldman Sachs commented, “The latest headlines suggest that while there is a broad agreement on the rationale for a cut, political considerations and country level quota negotiations are so far preventing a deal from being reached”…WTI has slipped $1.77 a barrel to $45.31 as of 7:00 am Pacific…

2. According to the Financial Times, 8 of Italy’s banks risk failing if Sunday’s congressional reform referendum in that country fails, quoting sources from senior bankers…according to the latest polls, the “No” side currently has a significant lead over the “Yes” camp, leading 41% to 34%…Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who called for the referendum, has said that he would step down if the vote failed to pass…

3. Gold dipped as low as $1,180 overnight but has recovered to $1,187, down $7 an ounce, as of 7:00 am Pacific…yesterday marked a 12th straight day of Gold ETF outflows…with Gold, Silver, base metals and Oil all soft this morning, the Venture is holding up with just a 2-point loss at 735 as of 7:00 am Pacific while the broader equity markets are also slightly negative…

4. Thank goodness for soybeans!…the U.S. economy grew faster than initially thought in the 3rd quarter, notching its best performance in 2 years thanks in part to a surge in soybean exports…Q3 GDP increased at a 3.2% annual rate instead of the previously reported 2.9% pace, the Commerce Department said in its second GDP estimate this morning…growth was the strongest since the 3rd quarter of 2014 and followed the 2nd quarter’s anemic 1.4% pace…meanwhile, tight supply and high demand pushed U.S. home prices in September to a new peak nationally…

5. Otis Gold (OOO, TSX-V) has drilled 85.4 m grading 2.5 g/t Au (hole 338), 69.1 m grading 2.07 g/t Au (hole 348) and and 50.3 m grading 2.04 g/t (hole 330) at its Kilgore Gold Project in Clark county, Idaho…drilling associated with the 2016 field program is now complete and totaled 10,300 m spread among a combination of 40 core and reverse circulation (RC) drill holes…results from the final 12 holes of the 2016 campaign are pending…OOO is up half a penny at 23.5 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific…

6. ICC International Cannabis Corp. commenced trading on the Venture Exchange this morning under the ticker symbol ICC…formerly named Shogun Capital Corp., ICC announced the closing of its qualifying transaction involving the acquisition of International Cannabis Corp. by way of a 3-cornered merger…ICC, which completed a $13 million financing and has 112 million shares outstanding, aims to build a dominant position in South America where several countries have either recently relaxed their cannabis and hemp laws or are in the process of doing so…ICC is trading at 90 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific…

7. Naturally Splendid (NSP, TSX-V) has announced a new CEO this morning with Dave Eto taking over the reigns while Craig Goodwin retains the position of President…Eto has spent over 30 years in the food-processing industry and recently served as Executive Director and CEO of the B.C. Dairy Association…Eto was responsible for the overall management of the B.C. Dairy Association, including communicating with hundreds of farmers, working with various governmental departments as well as developing many of the marketing initiatives launched during his term…previously, he held a senior corporate position with Premium Brands Holdings (PBH, TSX), a Canada-based producer, marketer and distributor of specialty food products…NSP is unchanged at 39 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific…

Morning Musings returns tomorrow due to technical difficulties today.

1. Crude Oil prices have reversed from their early morning lows (up $1.03 a barrel to $47.09 as of 7:00 am Pacific) after a report said that Iraq will cooperate with other OPEC members to reach an agreement acceptable to all…yesterday, Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih reportedly said the Oil market will rebalance on its own and questioned the need for production cuts – perhaps just last-minute posturing on the part of the Saudis…how things play out with Saudi arch-rival Iran will be key heading into Wednesday’s meeting in Vienna…Iranian officials have said they want their country to be pumping about 4 million barrels a day before they would consider joining OPEC action on production – either as an agreement to hold output steady or cut it…independent sources put Iran’s current output at approximately 3.7 million barrels a day…

2. Copper prices climbed as high as $2.72 overnight before pulling back into the mid-$2.60’s for a modest gain from the end of last week…Nickel surged as high as $5.34 overnight (currently $5.30) while Zinc touched a new multi-year high of $1.32…

3. Canopy Growth (CGC, TSX) has entered into an agreement to acquire MedCann GmbH Pharma and Nutraceuticals, a German-based pharmaceutical distributor which has successfully placed Tweed-branded cannabis strains in German pharmacies…meanwhile, a Canadian task force on marijuana legalization will release its findings to cabinet on Wednesday…task force chairperson Anne McLellan says her 9-person group has authored a responsible, fair and balanced report that will “engender a lot of interest”…CGC is up 35 cents at $10.95 as of 7:00 am Pacific…

4. Nemaska Lithium (NMX, TSX) released final results this morning from a 4,000-m drill program covering a new discovery parallel to its Whabouchi deposit…the Doris zone, which has yielded drill holes with similar widths and grades to the Main zone, contains 5 interconnected dykes and has now been confirmed on 420 m of lateral extension and up to a maximum depth of 440 m where it joins the main dyke…Doris starts in the southwest and is open along strike to the northeast, running parallel to the Main zone which extends for 1.2 km… “It will immediately impact the Whabouchi project as we intend to add it to the resource estimate and possibly the reserves of the mine,” states Guy Bourassa, President and CEO of Nemaska.  “Doris is open towards the northeast, with excellent potential to add additional tonnage to the Whabouchi project, as we consider a drill program during the winter to expand and confirm its extension”…results from Doris included 23 m grading 1.74 % Li2O (114.9 m to 137.9 m, 20.9 m true width) in WHA-16–146, and 80.7 m @ 1.4% Li2O (300.3 m to 381 m, 33 m true width) in WHA-16–184…NMX is up 4 cents at $1.33 through the first 30 minutes of trading…

5. Doubleview Capital (DBV, TSX-V) has closed the second tranche of its financing and has also increased the amount of its previously announced PP to a total of $7 million ($1.25 million non-flow-through and $450,000 flow-through)…that’s going to mean more drill holes at the Hat Gold-Copper Porphyry Project after a very promising start to the current program with exceptional-looking core from H-26…samples are already in the lab as drilling continues…

6. Emerging Zinc producer Morumbi Resources (MOC, TSX-V), anticipating final approvals by the end of next month for its acquisition of the El Mochito mine in Honduras, is trading at a 3-year high of 18 cents…

7. Pasinex Resources (PSE, CSE) reported Q3 earnings this morning of $355,000 thanks to higher Zinc prices and improving production (5.3 million pounds in Q3 vs. 6.6 million pounds for the entire first half of 2016) from the company’s 50%-owned Horzum AS Joint Venture for the Pinargozu mine in Turkey…

TSX Venture Exchange and Gold

The Venture roller coaster ride continues:  The Index has moved up or down by at least 12 points in each of the past 6 weeks, with the weekly gain or loss extending from a minimum of 1.6% to a maximum of 4.5%.  Two weeks have been up (18 points and 19 points) while 4 weeks have been down (15, 14, 34 and 12 points).  Last week the Index shed 12 points to close at 735 while U.S. equity markets hit new record highs.

Technical and seasonality factors as well as Gold’s weakness have kept the Venture within a corrective phase that started in mid-August.  The good news is, sunny days again are just around the corner as the Venture enters its strongest 3-month period on the calendar (December, January, February).

The fact the Venture is holding up as well as it is in the face of an exceptionally strong U.S. dollar and weakness in Gold is a positive sign.  There are just 13 more trading sessions before a likely Fed rate hike which should kick-start a pre-Christmas turnaround and a powerful finish to what has been the Venture’s best yearly performance since 2010.

As for Gold, which has plunged in each of the past 3 weeks, the charts and the fundamentals following the Trump victory are fascinating…

Click here to read the rest of today’s Week In Review And A Look Ahead, and learn more about the Venture’s critical bull market support zone and Gold’s near-term prospects, with a risk-free Pro, Gold or Basic subscription featuring a 100% money-back guarantee, or login with your username and password.

Gold has traded between $1,177 and $1,194 so far today in thin trading conditions due to U.S. Thanksgiving…as of 10:30 am Pacific, bullion is down $1 an ounce at $1,183…Silver, which has corrected 20% from its August high, has recovered 18 cents to $16.49…Copper is up a penny at $2.64…Nickel, enjoying a great week, has pushed 4 cents higher to $5.26…Crude Oil has slipped $1.50 a barrel to $46.46 while the U.S. Dollar Index has retreated one-quarter of a point to 101.43…

Assets in bullion-backed ETFs have contracted 85.5 metric tons this month, retreating to 1,902 tons, the lowest level since June according to data compiled by Bloomberg…Gold’s decline this month is a reversal from earlier this year when prices were surging as the Fed held off raising rates and investors reacted to unexpected political events, especially the Brexit vote…Fed officials will hold their final meeting of the year on December 13–14, and investors see a 100% probability of a move at that gathering according to futures contracts…this would be only the second rate hike in more than a decade, so the pummeling that Gold has taken should be considered an over-reaction…the greenback, like last year, should start to cool off as soon as the rate hike news is out of the way, allowing bullion to stabilize and push higher into year-end…a renewed focus on U.S. budgetary woes would help Gold significantly during Q1…

Crude prices extended losses this morning after Reuters reported that top OPEC Oil exporter Saudi Arabia told the producer group it will not attend scheduled talks in Vienna on Monday with non-OPEC producers…traders interpreted that negatively, but OPEC sources said the Saudis want to focus on having a consensus within the organization first…the Saudis have much at stake and are anxious to pull a deal together…2 years ago at this time, it was a different story as Saudi Arabia pulled away in hopes that a sharp drop in Oil prices would increase their market share, damage arch-rival Iran and decimate the North American shale industry…that strategy didn’t work out quite the way the Saudis had imagined…

U.S. equity markets have already closed today as it’s always a half trading session following the Thanksgiving holiday…the Dow and S&P 500 both hit new record highs as the Trump rally continues…several retailers actually kicked off Black Friday sales yesterday (is there no respect for Thanksgiving?)…J.C. Penney opened its doors Thursday at 3 pm while Macy’s began sales at 5 pm…

Key economic reports out of the U.S. next week (besides Black Friday sales) include consumer confidence and a revision to GDP on Tuesday, the ADP private-sector employment report, personal income and spending plus the Beige Book on Wednesday, the ISM manufacturing survey on Thursday, and nonfarm payrolls on Friday.

This is an abbreviated edition of Morning Musings due to U.S. Thanksgiving with Canadian markets also very quiet as a result…Daniel’s Den returns Monday…

Gold In Canadian Dollars

Below is a look at Gold in a different currency – the Canadian dollar…

Note the uptrend line in place since late 2014 with bullion now trading on the edge of that around $1,600…the uptrend line was violated briefly at this time last year when speculation of an imminent Fed rate hike was rampant, but that proved to be an historic buying opportunity…the same scenario could unfold between now and December 14…Gold in Canadian dollars has strong support in the $1,550’s, so that’s where we’d expect a turnaround to kick in if the metal gets pushed a little lower…

Based on a convergence of technical and fundamental factors, a 1-day “washout” in Gold can’t be ruled out anytime over the next 2–3 weeks, followed by a powerful reversal…

In Today’s Morning Musings…

1. Copper’s new price range…

2. A must-see chart for Hit Technologies (HIT, TSX-V) – all on board!…

3. A Uranium turn in 2017?…

Plus more…click here to read the rest of today’s Morning Musings and all BMR exclusive content, through a risk-free Pro, Gold or Basic package, or login with your username and password…