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1. Spot Gold has traded between $1,740 and $1,708 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific the yellow metal is off $18 an ounce at $1,715…U.S. lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a $484 billion coronavirus relief bill yesterday, funding small businesses and hospitals and pushing the total spending response to the crisis to nearly $3 trillion…this is making the 2008 financial crisis look like a tea party, and the dramatic increase in the U.S. deficit is one of the most important factors driving bullion…Standard Bank: “Gold ETPs are scaling record highs in tonnage and USD terms, but tactical positioning (in the futures market) is relatively light, leaving room for growth. For now, strong investment demand has more than offset the extreme weakness in physical demand”…Silver has retreated 19 cents to $15.06…Palladium is up $19 at $1,923…base metals are flat with Copper, Nickel and Zinc at $2.31, $5.47 and 84 cents, respectively…June WTI futures have added $1.07 a barrel to $17.57, up for a 3rd straight session following an historic rout that saw a futures contract turn negative for the first time ever…Continental Resources (CLR, NYSE), the largest Oil producer in North Dakota, has halted most of its production in the U.S. state and notified some customers it would not supply Crude…the U.S. Dollar Index is unchanged at 100.44…on the pandemic front, a new “model” by the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University in Boston shows the first infections in the U.S. came from China in early or mid-January, and that the virus went undetected because many people were not presenting symptoms (and of course China wasn’t issuing any warnings)…Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau made a big deal of his $9 billion “relief package” for students this week, one of his favored constituencies, but what about our struggling Oil and gas sector, and farmers across the country?…bottlenecks at pork slaughterhouses are creating a cash crisis for farmers, raising fears of bankruptcies at the farm level and threatening the flow of Canadian meat to grocery store coolers…the Canadian Pork Council has issued a dire warning…“We are asking the government for an emergency payment of $20 per hog so that pork producers can continue to pay bills, feed pigs and keep producing food for Canadian families,” said Rick Bergmann, chair of the council…“Without it, family farms will be lost. In turn we will continue to see disruption in the food supply chain, and increased food insecurity as supplies tighten and food becomes even more expensive”…

2. Canada is behind the economic curve again: 16 American states have already unveiled “formal reopening plans” to lift coronavirus restrictions, Vice President Mike Pence confirmed yesterday, as the country shows “promising signs of progress” on driving down the spread of the Wuhan COVID-19 virus…“At the present moment, 16 states have released formal reopening plans,” Pence said at a White House press briefing…“States are beginning to make those plans and we’re encouraged to see so many states embracing the phased approach to reopening their economies that’s contemplated in our guidelines for opening up America again”…last week, President Trump unveiled broad federal guidelines that lay out conditions for parts of the U.S. to start relaxing strict lockdown and physical distancing measures in a 3-phase approach…before entering the first phase, the guidelines say that the number of cases, positive tests and reports of flu or COVID-19-like symptoms in a state or region should be trending downward…there should also be a “robust testing program in place for at-risk healthcare workers, including emerging antibody testing,” according to the guidelines…the White House coronavirus task force will speak with all U.S. governors today to discuss the nation’s efforts to ramp up testing capacity, Pence said…he added that 35,000 national guard have been deployed across the country to support the coronavirus response, which includes boosting access to testing…Trump later added “we’re very advanced in testing,” adding that new tests will be “coming out” to improve the capacity to test as well as the nation’s ability to process the tests…

3. Common Sense Saskatchewan gets it right again: Despite the fact COVID-19 has been much less of a problem in Canada than the United States, only 1 Canadian province so far has presented a plan to begin reopening its economy: Saskatchewan will begin inching back toward some semblance of normal life on May 4, the first day of the government’s “middle path” for salvaging the economy without stoking a surge of COVID-19 infections…on that date, medical services like dentists, chiropractors and optometrists will be allowed to resume, as will boat launches and fishing, according to the Re-Open Saskatchewan plan released yesterday by conservative Premier Moe…the plan, which could be adjusted depending on the course of COVID-19 in the weeks ahead, will then follow a plodding pace for 2 weeks…only golf courses would be added to the list before the May long weekend…but May 19 is slated to bring a wave of retail activity back to Saskatchewan, as purveyors of clothing, books, electronics and much more are allowed to reopen…that would also be the day residents can get their first professional haircut since mid-March…other businesses and services will have to wait, with no word on how long…the dates for bars, restaurants, gyms, theatres, casinos, bingo halls and swimming pools are marked “to be determined”…the same goes for daycares, which will be allowed to increase per-room capacity from seven to 15 children at a still-uncertain date…schools could be among the last to reopen…Moe said classes won’t be back in session in the coming weeks, and even the fate of the 2020-21 school year will hinge on the future course of the pandemic…“That will yet be a decision to be made,” Moe said…

4. Canada’s “one size fits all” solution of widespread lockdowns, even in rural areas with no COVID-19 issues in many instances, is accelerating the economic collapse in this country, and it’s also putting Canada at a further disadvantage to its largest trading partner where one-third of U.S. states have already announced plans for phased re-starts of their economies…business groups in British Columbia released an alarming survey earlier this week warning that 4 in 10 companies that have been forced (by government) to shut down due to the pandemic believe they will not be able to reopen – those are the type of numbers government officials and their health experts seem to be ignoring…still, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry – a favorite of the left-wing mainstream media – said yesterday that B.C. would not begin to relax the most stringent pandemic restrictions until the province could not only flatten the curve of new infections, but bend it downward significantly…“Obviously I would like it to be zero (new cases) for a number of days, that is the aim, the goal, and ideally zero for many weeks,” she said…outside of the city of Vancouver, however, COVID-19 cases in most communities in British Columbia are very limited…Smithers, for example – the hub of B.C.’s exploration sector – has only 2 known cases of COVID-19, yet the same NDP restrictions that apply to Vancouver apply to Smithers and every rural area of the province…in many cases, governments’ “cures” for the COVID-19 pandemic are worse than the disease itself…this is certainly the situation in B.C. where there have been less than 2,000 reported cases…the public policy reaction is going to create an economic disaster that will take many years to fix…a more targeted approach made a lot more sense – Sweden, for example, was able to avoid implementing a lockdown…

6. Sign of the times: Target (TGT, NYSE) has seen a sharp increase in online sales, as shoppers try to limit time inside stores or avoid the trips altogether during the pandemic…since its fiscal 1st quarter began February 2, Target’s same-store sales have risen more than 7%…the gain, which compares with an increase of 1.5% in the fiscal 4th quarter, is the result of a doubling of its online sales, partially offset by declines inside its nearly 1,900 brick-and-mortar stores…in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, Target CEO Brian Cornell said the company is trying to figure out if customers’ new shopping patterns are here to stay…“We are spending a lot of time trying to understand how the pandemic is going to change the future of how American consumers shop, how they live, how they work, the things that they value,” he said…“But it’s been really hard to predict week by week”…

7. WHO (controlled by China) is at it again: The World Health Organization yesterday prematurely posted a draft summary of a China-based trial (why?) that attempted to show that Gilead Science’s (GILD, NASDAQ) remdesivir did not improve patients’ condition or reduce the pathogen’s presence in the bloodstream, precipitating a drop in equity markets…Gilead responded in an email, “We regret that the WHO prematurely posted information regarding the study, which has since been removed. The investigators in this study did not provide permission for publication of results. Furthermore, we believe the post included inappropriate characterizations of the study. Importantly, because this study was terminated early due to low enrollment, it was underpowered to enable statistically meaningful conclusions. As such, the study results are inconclusive, though trends in the data suggest a potential benefit for remdesivir, particularly among patients treated early in disease. We understand the available data have been submitted for peer-reviewed publication, which will provide more detailed information from this study in the near future. There are multiple ongoing Phase 3 studies that are designed to provide the additional data needed to determine the potential for remdesivir as a treatment for COVID-19. These studies will help inform whom to treat, when to treat and how long to treat with remdesivir. The studies are either fully enrolled for the primary analysis or on track to fully enroll in the near future”…

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

1. Spot Gold has traded between $1,709 and $1,742 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific the yellow metal is up $23 an ounce at $1,737…Gold pushed to fresh daily highs after the release of new weekly jobless claims followed by very weak preliminary U.S. manufacturing and service sector sentiment data…meanwhile, sales of new U.S. single-family homes dropped by the most in more than 6.5 years in March and further declines are likely as the Wuhan COVID-19 pandemic batters the economy and throws millions of Americans out of work…global ETFs have now accumulated Gold for 23 business days in a row…Silver has jumped 21 cents to $15.29…inflows into Silver-backed ETFs have totalled 714 metric tons so far in April, a rise of 3.5%, according to Bloomberg data…since the beginning of the year, inflows into Silver ETFs are 2,021 tons (+10.7%), which corresponds to just under a month of global Silver mine production, Commerzbank says…“Holdings are thus at a record high of almost 21,000 tons. For the whole of last year, inflows amounted to a good 2,570 tons, which was itself a high figure (the largest inflows in 10 years). ETF buying interest has thus risen sharply again this year”…Copper and Nickel are up slightly at $2.31 and $5.44, respectively, while Zinc is off a penny at 84 cents…June WTI futures have rebounded $3.13 a barrel to $16.91 while the U.S. Dollar Index is up slightly at 100.44…manufacturing and services activity in the UK has contracted at a rate “vastly exceeding that seen even during the global financial crisis” as a large portion of the economy has been shut down due to the pandemic…a series of closely watched surveys, also released today, illustrated the severity of the crash in activity across Europe, as lockdowns stifle businesses…French and German business activity fell to record lows, in readings that suggest the region faces a severe economic downturn…

2. Millions of Americans sought unemployment benefits last week in a continuation of a historic labor-market decline triggered by the pandemic and lockdown measures…4.4 million Americans applied for jobless benefits in the week ended April 18, the Labor Department reported this morning…jobless claims, which are laid-off workers’ applications for unemployment-insurance payments, had reached 5.2 million a week earlier…since the pandemic led to widespread shutdowns in mid-March, workers have filed more than 26 million unemployment insurance claims, wiping out all the job gains since the Great Recession…some economists say unemployment claims likely peaked in late March when they reached nearly 7 million…most states recorded a declining number of new claimants last week…however, a fresh surge of claims in future weeks in possible as workers who were previously unable to file because of backlogged state systems are counted, and as states begin to accept applications from people who are newly eligible under a $2 trillion stimulus package, such as independent contractors and self-employed individuals…

3. After donating $20 million in March, China is giving another $30 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) in what essentially amounts to a “payoff” by the CCP…while the Trudeau government remains silent about the behaviour of China and the WHO, Australia’s Prime Minister announced today that the country says it will push for an international investigation into the WHO’s response to the pandemic at next month’s annual meeting of the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization…the Trump administration has already declared that it intends to cancel all U.S. funding of the WHO…Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says the province has successfully flattened the curve of COVID-19 infections and will outline a plan today to gradually reopen some sectors of the economy beginning next month…Moe used a televised address last night to caution that the process will be slow and methodical…“Over the next several weeks, we will gradually be turning up the light once again on Saskatchewan’s economy”…previously a poster child for its efficient handling of the pandemic, Singapore is now back in the spotlight as it struggles to contain a new outbreak among a section of its population – migrant workers…the number of Wuhan COVID-19 cases in the city-state has spiked in the past few weeks, from about 1,000 cumulative cases on April 1 to more than 10,000 today…most of the newly infected patients are foreign migrant workers residing in crowded dormitories, who hail from countries including India and Bangladesh…Indonesia continues to see an acceleration of COVID-19 cases and is tightening up measures to prevent further spread…

4. U.S. meat supply tightens: Tyson Foods (TSN, NYSE) is shuttering 2 pork processing plants, including its largest in the United States, after employees tested positive for COVID-19, further tightening meat supplies after other major slaughterhouse shutdowns…the closures are limiting the amount of meat the U.S. can produce during the outbreak and adding stress on farmers who are losing markets for their pigs…lockdowns that aim to stop the spread of the virus have also prevented farmers around the globe from delivering food products to consumers…millions of laborers cannot get to fields for harvesting and planting, and there are too few truckers to keep goods moving…Tyson Foods, the largest U.S. meat supplier, said it will indefinitely suspend operations at its largest pork plant in Waterloo, Iowa, after operating at reduced capacity…meanwhile, a Cargill plant in High River, Alberta, that produces nearly 40% of Canada’s beef was shut down this week after being linked to more than 450 COVID-19 cases and 1 death…

6. Sign of the times: Target (TGT, NYSE) has seen a sharp increase in online sales, as shoppers try to limit time inside stores or avoid the trips altogether during the pandemic…since its fiscal 1st quarter began February 2, Target’s same-store sales have risen more than 7%…the gain, which compares with an increase of 1.5% in the fiscal 4th quarter, is the result of a doubling of its online sales, partially offset by declines inside its nearly 1,900 brick-and-mortar stores…in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, Target CEO Brian Cornell said the company is trying to figure out if customers’ new shopping patterns are here to stay…“We are spending a lot of time trying to understand how the pandemic is going to change the future of how American consumers shop, how they live, how they work, the things that they value,” he said…“But it’s been really hard to predict week by week”…

7. Sweden’s success in tackling Wuhan COVID-19 with no lockdown: Its neighbors closed borders, schools, bars and businesses as the pandemic swept through Europe, but Sweden went against the grain by keeping public life as unrestricted as possible…the strategy – aimed at allowing some exposure to the virus in order to build immunity among the general population while protecting high-risk groups like the elderly – has been controversial…however, the country’s chief epidemiologist said the strategy appears to be working and that “herd immunity” could be reached in the capital Stockholm in a matter of weeks…“In major parts of Sweden, around Stockholm, we have reached a plateau (in new cases) and we’re already seeing the effect of herd immunity and in a few weeks’ time we’ll see even more of the effects of that. And in the rest of the country, the situation is stable,” Dr. Anders Tegnell, chief epidemiologist at Sweden’s Public Health Agency, told CNBC…herd immunity among a population, usually achieved through vaccination, is reached when around 60% of citizens are deemed immune…without a vaccine for the coronavirus, however, scientists are looking at whether exposure to and recovery from COVID-19 leads to long-term immunity…reinfections of coronavirus have been reported…Tegnell said sampling and modeling data indicated that 20% of Stockholm’s population is already immune to the virus, and that “in a few weeks’ time we might reach herd immunity and we believe that is why we’re seeing a slow decline in cases, in spite of sampling (testing for the coronavirus) more and more. Unfortunately the mortality rate is high due to the introduction (of the virus) in elderly care homes and we are investigating the cause of that,” he said…the major part of Sweden’s 15,322 confirmed cases are in Stockholm and its surrounding areas, with very small incidences of the virus in the rest of Sweden – a country of around 10 million that has a low population density outside its urban hubs…the number of cases in Sweden is almost double that in neighboring Denmark (it has 8,108 cases and has reported 370 deaths) and Finland (with just over 4,000 cases and 141 deaths) that imposed strict lockdown measures…since their populations are each about 5 million – half of Sweden’s – the rates are about the same, although the comparison could be skewed by testing numbers in each country…

Most Popular Recent BMR Posts

Rapid Response!

How This Pandemic Will Ultimately Help Copper

Wuhan COVID-19 Virus Update

The Cost Of Doing Business With China (The CCP)

“Silver Lining”: Innovative Vancouver Company Provides Help During Crisis

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Smithers Shakes Off Turmoil For A Major 3-Day Event Connecting Hockey And The Resource Sector

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