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Visit the BMR comments section throughout the day for updates and helpful information.

1. Gold has traded between $1,270 and $1,279 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, the metal is off $5 an ounce at $1,271…nearest technical support is $1,260…Silver has retreated 12 cents to $16.71…Copper is steady at $3.10 while Nickel has jumped 11 cents to $5.35…Crude Oil is relatively flat at $54.02 while the U.S. Dollar Index has added one-fifth of a point to 94.63…the Bank of Japan today kept its monetary policy steady after a 2-day meeting…the central bank said it would maintain the short-term interest rate at minus 0.1%…meanwhile, China’s official manufacturing PMI for October has come in at 51.6, slightly below the consensus estimate of 52.0…the official servies PMI was also a bit lower than expected at 54.3…however, this doesn’t change the broad picture of continuing steady growth in China which is underpinning the metals sector…

2. Reuters ran a piece this morning highlighting how battery makers are increasingly turning to Nickel to help power growing global electric car sales, but only half of the world’s producers of the metal are likely to benefit according to mining analysts and executives quoted in the article…the battery boom promises a new and growing market for miners producing high-grade Nickel products…however, half of the world’s supply of the metal, comprising so-called ferroNickel and Nickel pig iron grades, is unsuitable for battery production…some of the biggest producers of the higher-grade ores, including BHP Norilsk Nickel, Vale and Sumitomo Corp., are moving quickly to take advantage and seal long-term supply deals with battery producers (Norilsk, for example, announced a tie-up with the German battery maker BASF)…battery growth is going to disrupt the Nickel market in the major way and put a premium on the discovery of new high-grade Nickel sulphide deposits…

3. The London Metal Exchange announced yesterday that it’s planning to launch futures contracts for battery metals as early as the start of 2019, the latest example of how the commodities market is hoping to capitalize on the push toward electric vehicles…the LME will “be working with the battery and electric-vehicle industries over the coming months to deliver new contracts such as Lithium and Cobalt sulfate to bring price risk management to this rapidly growing market,” the exchange’s CEO Matthew Chamberlain said in a statement…according to a report this morning in the Wall Street Journal, in order for the world’s auto fleet to convert to EVs, hybrid battery makers would have to cut by half the amount of Cobalt they currently use in each battery at current supply levels of the metal…makers of full-electric batteries would only be able to use one-seventh of current levels…Lithium provokes similar forecasts…if cars across the globe were to convert to EVs using current technology, the battery sector’s hunger for Lithium could increase 3-fold according to some estimates…

4. Federal Reserve officials started their 2-day policy meeting this morning amid fresh signs that inflation remains lower than they would like, despite strong economic growth and increasingly bullish consumer sentiment (consumer confidence for October, reported this morning, exceeded expectations as it jumped to 125.9, its highest level since December 2000)…the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, the price index for personal-consumption expenditures, rose 1.6% in September from a year earlier, the Commerce Department reported yesterday…that is up from its 1.4% year-over-year gain in August but still well below the Fed’s 2% annual target…

5. Reuters reported this morning, citing an unnamed source, that President Trump is likely to pick Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell as the next head of the U.S. central bank…the Republican President, who in recent weeks has been considering Powell, current Fed Chair Janet Yellen and 3 others for the top central bank job including “hawk” John Taylor, will announce his decision on Thursday, a White House official said separately…by picking Powell, a soft-spoken centrist and Fed governor since 2012, Trump would get the combination of a leadership change and the continuity offered by somebody who has been a part of the Yellen-run Fed that has kept the economy and markets steady in recent years…the 64-year-old Powell has supported Yellen’s general direction in setting monetary policy, and in recent years has shared her concerns that weak inflation justified a continued cautious approach to raising interest rates…

6. The market for bitcoin continues to expand – CME announced today that it plans to launch bitcoin futures later this quarter pending regulatory review.  “Given increasing client interest in the evolving cryptocurrency markets, we have decided to introduce a bitcoin futures contract,” stated Terry Duffy, CME Group Chairman and CEO…in August, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the largest U.S. options exchange, said its CBOE Futures Exchange plans to offer cash-settled bitcoin futures by late this year or early 2018, pending review from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission…

7. The Dow is off 7 points through the first 30 minutes of trading…in Toronto, the TSX is building on its first-ever move past 16,000…Canada’s economy unexpectedly contracted in August, adding to signs of a faster-than-expected cooling following a torrid pace of growth in the 1st half of this year…that bodes well for a “dovish” central bank well into next year…data released this morning showed the Canadian economy posted its first monthly decline in August since October 2016 and follows a flat reading in July…goods producing industries and the Oil and gas sector suffered the most…the Venture is flat at 784 as of 7:00 am Pacific…in an example of the growing appetite for Lithium plays in Argentina, Neo Lithium (NLC, TSX-V) has announced a $20 million bought deal financing at $1.95 per share with a syndicate of underwriters led by Cormark Securities…

The Template For The Next 10% Move In Garibaldi Resources

Thunder In The Corridor!

The Nickel Mountain Magma Highway

Two Big Plays Emerge in B.C., Setting The Stage For A Summer To Remember

How To Bring A Junior Resource Market To Life!

The Dramatic New Chase For A Nickel-Copper-Rich Massive Sulphide Deposit In The Heart Of A Famous Gold Camp

Northern Ontario Cobalt Junior Attracts Interest From Metal Trading Companies

The Most Important Venture Development Since The New Bull Market Began

Check back later today for Daniel’s Den and visit the BMR comments section throughout the day for updates and helpful information.

1. Gold has traded between $1,268 and $1,275 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, the metal is off slightly at  $1,273…nearest technical support is $1,260…Gold bugs will have much to chew on this week with 3 central bank meetings, including the Fed tomorrow and Wednesday, an expectation of an announcement from President Trump on who will be the Fed chair after January, and non-farm payrolls on Friday…Silver has retreated 9 cents to $16.75…Copper and Nickel are steady at $3.10 and $5.20, respectively…Crude Oil continues to climb, up another 42 cents to $54.32 a barrel, while the U.S. Dollar Index has eased off one-tenth of a point to 94.73 but remains locked in an uptrend…

2. U.S. consumer spending recorded its biggest increase in more than 8 years in September, driven in part by households in Texas and Florida replacing flood-damaged motor vehicles, but underlying inflation remained muted…the Commerce Department reported this morning that consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, jumped 1.0% last month…the increase, which also included a boost from higher household spending on utilities, was the largest since August 2009…

3. The only thing growing faster than the U.S. economy right now is U.S. debt…$1 trillion annual deficits are rushing back to Washington, and that has to be considered bullish for Gold prices in 2018…a new analysis from the Bipartisan Policy Center adds new disaster relief spending and the costs of GOP tax-cut plans to earlier projections from the Congressional Budget Office…its conclusion is that the deficit could reach $1 trillion as early as 2019 – 4 years earlier than the CBO calculated in January…the only previous episode of trillion-dollar annual deficits began during the Great Recession and financial crisis…as the economy recovered, the deficit fell below that level in 2013…but now, as retiring baby boomers rapidly swell the rolls of Social Security and Medicare, trillion-dollar deficits are on track to return during a strong economy…higher interest rates on the debt won’t help, either…noting deficit trends since 1980, the analysis adds that the nation “has piled up debt more than twice as fast as economic growth”…

4. President Trump is expected to name a new Fed chair to replace Janet Yellen prior to his departure Friday for a 12-day trip to Asia…according to data from political predictions market website PredictIt, Jerome Powell is the runaway leader in the race to become the next chair of the central bank…Powell is considered much less hawkish than his nearest competitor, John Taylor…of the 5 individuals believed to be in the running for the position, including Ma Yellen, only one really strikes any fear into the market’s heart and that’s Taylor…a Stanford economist and proponent of a rule bearing his name, he has expressed a preference for the Fed returning to its pre-crisis mechanics for monetary policy…it’s quite likely he would push the Fed into a considerably different direction than investors have been used to for the past 12 years…

5. On an after-inflation basis, the S&P/TSX Composite Index lost money over the past decade, despite Friday’s record-high close of 15,953…the TSX averaged a gain of just 1.1% per cent annually for the 10 years to late October, while inflation averaged 1.6%…the Venture performed much worse during that time, of course, losing more than 2,300 points or nearly 75% of its value…by contrast, the NASDAQ has soared 134% over the last decade, jumping more than 3,400 points to Friday’s record close of 6,701, while the Dow has gained 68% by adding 9,500 points after Friday’s close at 23,434…

6. The Dow is off 34 points through the first 30 minutes of trading on some profit-taking after last week’s strong gains…in Toronto, the TSX has added 55 points as it climbs above 16,000 for the first time…Robert Friedland announced this morning that Ivanhoe Mines (IVN, TSX) has agreed to rebuild 34 km of track to connect the Kipushi mine with the Democratic Republic of the Congo national railway at Munama, south of the mining capital of Lubumbashi…Friedland said the resumption of rail service along the Kipushi spur line is the most economical and reliable solution for the transportation of Kipushi’s projected annual output of approximately 530,000 tonnes of Zinc concentrates…the Venture is 2 points higher at 789 as of 7:00 am Pacific…LeoNovus (LTV, TSX-V), which soared 70% last week, once again tops the most active list in early trading, pushing 4 cents higher to 55 cents as it attempts to overcome Fib. resistance at 54 cents…

7. Jaxon Mining (JAX, TSX-V) has firmed up this morning after announcing that it’s commencing a 2,000-m Phase 1 diamond drilling program this week at its Max target, the key high-grade prospect defined to date at its 440 sq. km Hazelton Project in north central British Columbia…Max is characterized by VMS high-grade Silver, Zinc and Lead mineralization in sporadic outcrops over a roughly 1 sq. km area…recently completed 2-D and 3-D induced polarization (IP) geophysical surveys indicate extensive high-chargeability and low-resistivity anomalies from surface to a depth of approximately 150 m…these anomalies are interpreted by Jaxon geologists to be related to sulphide-rich material…JAX is up 2.5 cents to 24 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific…

The Template For The Next 10% Move In Garibaldi Resources

Thunder In The Corridor!

The Nickel Mountain Magma Highway

Two Big Plays Emerge in B.C., Setting The Stage For A Summer To Remember

How To Bring A Junior Resource Market To Life!

The Dramatic New Chase For A Nickel-Copper-Rich Massive Sulphide Deposit In The Heart Of A Famous Gold Camp

Northern Ontario Cobalt Junior Attracts Interest From Metal Trading Companies

The Most Important Venture Development Since The New Bull Market Began

The NASDAQ soared 144 points or 2.2% yesterday to a new record high on the strength of bullish earnings reports from the world’s biggest tech companies, while the TSX closed at a new all-time high as energy shares surged alongside Oil prices.

When will the Venture join the party?