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1. Gold has traded between $1,546 and $1,558 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, the yellow metal is up $1 an ounce at $1,553…Gold initially firmed up modestly after the release of a slightly weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report this morning, then quickly gave up those gains, followed by a reversal higher…Gold has a strong new floor at either $1,550 or $1,500, meaning downside risk is limited at current levels…bullion should also start to benefit from traditionally strong buying ahead of Chinese New Year festivities later this month…Silver added 10 cents to $17.96…Palladium hit a new record high of $2,139 this morning…base metals are flat with Copper, Nickel and Zinc at $2.79, $6.35 and $1.08, respectively…Crude Oil has eased off 39 cents to $59.17 while the U.S. Dollar Index is up slightly at 97.50…the expected signing of an interim trade deal between China and the U.S. next week has been giving dollar a boost…the Canadian job market rebounded in December after its worst month since the depths of the financial crisis…a higher-than-expected 35,200 net jobs were created in December, entirely in full-time positions, while the unemployment rate fell to 5.6%, official data showed this morning…Ontario and Quebec led the way…wages for permanent employees rose by 3.8%, Statistics Canada said, lower than the 4.4% gain seen in each of the previous 2 months…
2. U.S. employers added 145,000 jobs in December and unemployment stayed at a 50-year low of 3.5%, capping a 10th straight year of payroll gains (the longest stretch in 80 years of data which points to steady growth heading into 2020)…private-sector wages advanced 2.9% from a year earlier, the smallest annual gain since July 2018…and revisions showed payrolls for November and October were revised down by a net 14,000…for all of last year, the Trump economy added 2.11 million jobs…that was off modestly from 2018’s robust gain of 2.68 million…a cooler pace of hiring reflected employers’ difficulty finding enough workers, global economic uncertainty and the fading effects of 2018’s tax cuts…today’s figures were slightly weaker than expected…economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a gain of 160,000 new jobs in December, a 3.5% unemployment rate and 3.1% annual wage growth…in December, employers added jobs in construction and retail…the health-care and professional-services sectors grew, but at a slower pace…employment fell in manufacturing and transportation and warehousing…the Fed will stay the course with today’s numbers…
3. Was Iran’s launch of surface-to-surface missiles Tuesday against Iraqi bases housing U.S. and coalition troops just a smokescreen for something much bigger and sinister a few hours later, such as a deliberate targeting and downing of Ukrainian Airlines Flight 752 carrying 176 passengers and crew including 63 Canadians?…yes, there were dozens of Iranians on that plane, too, but this rogue regime – the world’s leading sponsor of state terror – thinks nothing of oppressing or even killing its own people for a larger goal…did the Iranians target this particular flight as part of their retaliation for the Soleimani killing because they knew there were no American passengers on board, that killing 63 Canadians, some Brits, Germans, Ukrainians and others would be just as effective and wouldn’t cross President Trump’s “red line” of killing an American?…as stated by the leaders of Canada, Australia and the U.K. yesterday, evidence suggests an Iranian missile brought down that Ukrainian plane, though for now they seem to be giving Iran the benefit of the doubt that this was simply an “accident”…knowing the regime, which denies the plane was brought down by a missile, it’s wiser to assume that Iran carried out this act deliberately…a full and proper investigation needs to be carried out…in the meantime, it’s difficult to imagine that Justin Trudeau will stand up for Canada in this matter like Donald Trump stands up for America…Trump will have his hands full maintaining deterrence with Iran this year – this is not a regime that will easily change its behavior, and it’s also one of the best at “plausible deniability”…continued Iran-U.S./coalition friction will help Gold reach new highs this quarter…
4. There is nothing that some fossil-fuel haters won’t attempt to do in order to carry out their radical agenda, encouraged by certain left-wing politicians who say they will use “every tool in the tool box” to help “save the planet”…tensions are rising further in northern British Columbia after the RCMP opened a criminal investigation after discovering “traps” and gasoline-soaked rags in the blockade by a breakaway First Nations group (these people belong in jail) against the $6.6 billion Coastal GasLink Pipeline…the Financial Post reported this morning that RCMP officers on patrol this week along the pipeline blockade found 3 stacks of tires covered by tarps and trees and were staged along with multiple jugs of gasoline, diesel, Oil and kindling as well as “bags full of fuel-soaked rags”…in a release late yesterday, the police said they had found the tires and fire-starting equipment on the Morice West Forest Service Road, which leads into a Coastal GasLink pipeline work camp…dozens of trees had also been felled along the road and other trees were partially cut, in preparation for felling, which the RCMP said created a dangerous hazard…“These concerning items have been brought to the attention of the Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs (they say they will defy a B.C. Supreme Court injunction against them). They have also been advised that the RCMP has entered into a criminal investigation under Section 247 of the Criminal Code for Traps Likely to Cause Bodily Harm,” the release stated…Coastal GasLink, a natural gas pipeline project that stretches from Dawson Creek, B.C. to the under-construction $40 billion LNG Canada project in Kitimat, won an interlocutory court injunction against the protestors in the area and an enforcement order from the Supreme Court of British Columbia last week…the enforcement order gives the RCMP a mandate to get involved…
5. Canada Cobalt (CCW, TSX-V) has closed its deal to acquire the only facility (PolyMet Labs) in the Northern Ontario Silver-Cobalt District that combines bullion pouring, bulk sampling, commercial assaying and e-waste processing…just 90 minutes after that news came out, the stock was halted pending additional news, so it should be an interesting morning…the PolyMet deal, completed at an opportune time in the precious metals cycle, provides Canada Cobalt with multiple immediate and long-term revenue streams and other advantages as a fully integrated leader in Canada’s Silver-Cobalt heartland…the lab and mineral processing facility in the town of Cobalt, within just 50 m of a rail line and just a short distance from CCW’s Castle and Beaver properties, will also become the new home of the company’s environmentally friendly Re-2OX Process…Canada Cobalt’s newly-formed wholly-owned subsidiary, Temiskaming Testing Laboratories Inc. (“TTL“), the original name of this facility when it was launched at the height of the Silver rush in the early 1900’s, and privately-held PolyMet Resources Inc. have entered into a definitive asset purchase agreement pursuant to which CCW, through TTL, has agreed to purchase substantially all of the assets of PolyMet for approximately $340,000 in cash and 700,000 CCW shares with warrants…
6. The Dow is up 29 points through the first 30 minutes of trading as it tries to top the 29,000 level for the first time…yesterday saw record closes for the Dow, S&P 500 and NASDAQ…the TSX is down 16 points, though the Gold Index has rebounded 2 points to 252…the Venture is steady at 578…a strong new Venture support band stretches from 580 to 560…Cannabix Technologies (BLO, CSE) has been on a remarkable run this month after ending 2019 at just 36.5 cents…the stock touched $1.09 in early trading this morning…on Tuesday the company announced improvements in a critical component of the company’s FAIMS system as it continues to make headway in developing the Gold standard of marijuana breathalyzers…the Venture, already with too many listings, welcomed 12 new issuers in December compared with 4 in the previous month and 12 in December 2018…the new listings were 6 capital pool companies, 5 mining companies and 1 clean technology company…total financings raised last month increased by 75%, compared with the previous month, and were unchanged from December 2018…
7. Nickel update: Philippine Nickel production is expected to increase by over 8% a year in the next few years despite policy uncertainty that could limit project development, according to a report issued by Fitch Solutions Macro Research…“We expect Philippine production to continue rising over the coming years although high levels of policy uncertainty could constrain project development, posing downside risks to our forecasts. We forecast Nickel production to average 8.6% year-on-year growth over 2020-2028,” Fitch Solutions said in its industry trend analysis published this week…it said that the Philippines will regain its spot as the mineral’s top producer due to Indonesia’s Nickel ore export ban, which took effect this year…Indonesia hopes to accelerate the establishment of domestic smelters to capture more value than the current practice of exporting ore…the United States Geological Survey said in a report in February that Indonesia produced 560,000 tons of Nickel in 2018, taking the top spot, followed by the Philippines with 340,000 tons…
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