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Huge exploration expenditures in the Eskay Camp and elsewhere in the “Golden Triangle” will lead to new near-term discoveries that will help revive the Venture…

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 $1,307 and $1,316 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, Gold is down $2 an ounce at ounce at $1,309…Silver is flat at $16.36…Copper is unchanged at $3.07…Nickel is up slightly at $6.26 while Zinc is steady at $1.36…Cobalt has jumped 79 cents to $41.05…Crude Oil has gained 31 cents to $68.74…the possibility that the U.S. will pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and refrain from extending sanctions relief is keeping Crude markets near 3-year peaks…the U.S. Dollar continues to trade within a resistance band between 92 and 93…it’s up one-third of a point at 92.76 as of 7:00 am Pacific…how’s this for good luck – a Korean janitor has uncovered 7 Gold bars worth about $325,000 while cleaning out a garbage bin in South Korea’s biggest international airport…it’s possible he may be able to keep the loot under the country’s “finders keepers” law…each Gold bar weighed 1 kilogram and was wrapped in a newspaper…

2. Gold bounced off morning lows after a modestly weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report showed April non-farm payrolls increasing by just 164,000, about 30,000 less than the consensus estimate…however, the unemployment rate dipped to an 18-year low of 3.9%…meanwhile, the closely watched average hourly earnings number rose by 4 cents, equating to a 2.6% percent annualized gain, a bit off the pace from the previous month…looking at the bigger picture in this morning’s report, the monthly pace of hiring this year is 200,000…that’s a healthy pace and stronger than 2017’s average of 182,000 per month…factories remain a bright spot…manufacturing firms added 24,000 workers to payrolls last month, after adding 22,000 and 31,000 the prior 2 months…while manufacturing employment has been generally declining for decades, hiring has picked up in the sector over the past year…mining increased by 8,000, and has risen 86,000 since October 2016 on a successful push by President Trump to give that sector new life as well…

3. Holdings of Gold by exchange-traded funds have fallen in recent days after rising during April, points out Commerzbank. “The Gold ETFs tracked by Bloomberg have recorded outflows of 10.5 tonnes so far this week,” Commerzbank stated. “Holdings were topped up by 60 tonnes in April, however – the highest monthly inflow since February 2017.  Silver ETFs saw inflows of 52 tonnes in April.  While holdings in Platinum ETFs remained virtually unchanged, Palladium ETFs registered further outflows of 44,000 ounces last month.”

4. The Dow is off slightly in early trading…Apple (AAPL, NASDAQ) is closing in on a new all-time high after news that Warren Buffet had bought 75 million shares of the tech giant during Q1…Apple is now roughly $20 per share short of a $1 trillion market cap…in Toronto, the TSX has added 34 points while the Venture is flat at 771…the Venture has declined in 8 out of the last 9 sessions with RSI(2) plunging into extreme oversold conditions at just above 1%, suggesting a turnaround is imminent…

5. Seabridge Gold (SEA, TSX) has added nearly $20 million to its treasury with the closing of a non-brokered flow-through financing at $17.16 per share as the company prepares for a busy exploration season in the Eskay Heart of Gold Camp…Chairman and CEO Rudy Fronk noted, “This year’s exploration program at KSM will follow up on the tremendous success we achieved last year at KSM’s Iron Cap deposit where Inferred Gold resources increased by 302% to 20 million ounces and Inferred Copper resources increased by 379% to 8.6 billion pounds.  As in previous years, we are confident that this year’s program should add sufficient resource ounces of Gold to more than offset the share issuances from this financing.  Increasing Gold ownership per share remains an important objective for Seabridge.” 

6. More concerns about Canada’s energy sector as GMP Capital (GMP, TSX) grew its Q1 investment banking revenue by 90% to $30.2 million by diversifying beyond energy and resources into cannabis and new areas of technology…CEO Harrs Fricker stated, “An explicit element of our strategic agenda has been to diversify and further strengthen the non-commodities portion of our franchise and, we believe, our result this quarter shows we are on the right path.” GMP posted a profit of $4.1-million, up 17% from a year ago, led by its investment banking division.  “In energy, a lack of hard timelines and a regulatory process that has been subject to dithering and near endless legal challenges will continue to be the major stumbling block for domestic and international investor confidence.”

7. Medreleaf (LEAF, TSX) confirmed yesterday that it has held talks with Aurora Cannabis (ACB, TSX) and other rivals about possible transactions…Medreleaf stated in a news release that it “engages from time to time in discussions with other industry players, including Aurora Cannabis, regarding various alternatives”…it added that the company “has not entered into an agreement to effect any particular transaction, and there can be no assurance that such discussions will result in any such agreement.” The news comes a day amid fresh rumors that Medreleaf is in play and had contacted several possible suitors about a deal…Medreleaf’s talks with Aurora and other players come at a time of increasing consolidation in the space, as companies look to add scale in an effort to lower their cost structures, while others look to cash in on elevated valuations…

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

1. Gold has firmed up today in the wake of yesterday’s ho-hum FOMC meeting that revealed no surprises…as of 7:00 am Pacific, Gold has rallied $10 an ounce to $1,314…today’s range has been between $1,306 and $1,319…Silver has added 12 cents to $16.46…Copper has climbed 3 pennies to $3.10…Nickel is up slightly at $6.32 while Zinc is off a penny at $1.37…Cobalt remains steady at $40.26…Crude Oil has retreated 41 cents to $67.52 while the U.S. Dollar Index has pulled back one-fifth of a point to 92.53…tomorrow features the much-anticipated April U.S. employment report from the Labor Department, arguably the most important U.S. data point of the month…the key non-farm payrolls number is forecast to come in at 195,000…

2. Gold prices pushed modestly higher in Q1 despite the fact that overall global Gold demand fell to its lowest 1st quarter level since 2008, according to a report issued today by the World Gold Council…the drop in demand was driven by a slump in the sale of Gold bars while ETF inflows took a hit, falling to 32.4 metric tons from 96 metric tons in the same quarter a year earlier…total Gold investment demand fell to 973 metric tons in Q1, down 7% from 1,047 metric tons in the 1st quarter of 2017…

3. Oil prices are under mild pressure today as swelling U.S. Crude inventories and record weekly U.S. production clashed with OPEC supply cuts and the potential for new U.S. sanctions against Iran…yesterday’s EIA report showed a much larger than expected Crude build for last week as well as an unexpected build in gasoline inventories, but bullish factors including an increase in Saudi Arabia’s official Oil selling price to Asia are providing support to the Crude market….state-owned producer Saudi Aramco has raised the June price for its Arab Light grade for Asian customers to a premium of $1.90 a barrel to the Oman/Dubai average, the highest since August 2014…additionally, the latest Reuters‘ survey of OPEC production showed it pumped around 32 million barrels per day in April, slightly below its target of 32.5 million bpd, due largely to plunging output in Venezuela…

4. The Dow is off more than 150 points through the first 30 minutes of trading on a revival of (overblown) U.S.-China trade worries…shortly before much-anticipated trade talks were set to take place today in Beijing between the U.S. and China, traders perceived that the mood between the world’s two largest economies worsened amid reports the U.S. administration is considering taking executive action to restrict some Chinese firms’ ability to sell telecom equipment…in Toronto, the TSX is up slightly while the Venture has dropped another 2 points to 770…Venture RSI(2) conditions are at an extreme low, suggesting an imminent reversal to the upside with the Index also trading in an area of strong support…Northern Vertex Mining (NEE, TSX-V) reported this morning that it has completed 5 Gold shipments and the company continues to meet the design expectations of its feasibility report at its Moss mine in northwest Arizona…

5. Strange earnings call yesterday between Tesla (TSLA, NASDAQ) CEO Elon Musk and analysts and investors, one that trimmed a couple of billion dollars off Tesla’s market cap.  “These questions are so dry. They’re killing me,” Musk said after an analyst asked what percentage of Tesla 3 reservation holders have started to configure options for their cars, an indicator of how much profit Tesla will be able to wring from the vehicles…another analyst asked about a capital requirement before being cut off.  “Excuse me. Next. Next,” Musk said to the call operator. “Boring, bonehead questions are not cool. Next?”  Tesla’s future is anchored to the Model 3 and the company said that it had largely overcome production bottlenecks, with Musk vowing a dramatic turnaround that would reverse losses and generate positive cash flow in just a few months…some analysts and investors aren’t so sure…Tesla did post a narrower-than-expected quarterly loss and its burn rate was slower than most analysts had anticipated, but that doesn’t put to rest questions about the company’s need to raise more money in the near future…Tesla shares have fallen more than 5% in early trading as the impact of Musk’s evasiveness sank in…the impact has been felt across the sector with tech shares overall under pressure this morning…

6. Musk did reveal yesterday that the carmaker had reduced the amount of Cobalt in its Nickel-Cobalt-Aluminum battery cells produced by Panasonic below rival battery companies who use a different chemistry…Korean battery companies such as LG Chem and Samsung SDI, who produce Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt batteries, are expected to commercialize a lower Cobalt battery chemistry by next year. “Cells used in Model 3 are the highest energy density cells used in any electric vehicle,” Tesla said in its Q1 earnings release.  “We have achieved this by significantly reducing the Cobalt content per battery pack while increasing Nickel content and still maintaining superior thermal stability.” 

7. Do governments across Canada, provincial and federal, realize what they’re doing in terms of killing investment in the critical Oil and gas sector?  Suncor Energy (SU, TSX) says it’s giving up on big-ticket investments, with CEO Steve Williams saying the company will not sink cash into new Oil sands projects without progress on pipelines…Williams told investors on a call yesterday, “We need to see shovels in the ground and pipelines being built” before contemplating major new investments…the comments by Canada’s biggest Oil sands producer underline growing pessimism about the viability of new investments in one of the world’s priciest extraction zones as shipping constraints show few signs of easing…Suncor reiterated that it would prioritize increasing dividends and share repurchases, while limiting spending to several smaller projects designed to lift margins at its operations near Fort McMurray…the company bought back $1.85 billion in stock over the past 12 months and said earlier this week that it would repurchase up to $2.15 billion in shares over the next 12 months starting May 4…

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