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1. Spot Gold has traded between $1,731 and $1,746 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific the yellow metal is up $4 an ounce to $1,743…reflecting investor sentiment, holdings in the world’s largest Gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR Gold Trust, rose 0.5% to 1,128.40 tonnes yesterday, the highest in 7 years…continued inflows into Gold ETFs show that investors are not completely comfortable with an “unprecedented money-printing orgy” by central banks, says Commerzbank…based on Bloomberg data, yesterday was the 27th consecutive day of ETF Gold inflows, which is only 1 day less than the record streak from January and February…Spot Silver has retreated 11 cents to $18.17 but remains entrenched in a powerful uptrend…Nickel has jumped 12 cents to $5.57…Copper is up 2 pennies at $2.47 while Zinc is a penny higher at 91 cents…Crude Oil has gained 55 cents to $35.99 while the U.S. Dollar Index, under technical pressure, has retreated one-fifth of a point to 97.62…Athabasca Oil’s (ATH, TSX) bankers have cut the Oil sands producer’s credit by more than half, forcing the company to seek federal aid to survive the pandemic-induced Oil price crash…Athabasca’s banking syndicate reduced its credit facility to $42 million after a review, which represents a 65% cut from $120 million previously…the stock is trading at just 13.5 cents, a fraction of its record high near $20 in 2011…ratings agency Moody’s has slashed India’s credit rating to its lowest investment grade and says it expects South Asia’s largest economy to contract for the full fiscal year that ends in March 2021…last week, India said its economy grew 3.1% in the 3 months between January to March…economists’ estimates for growth in the current quarter have significantly worsened because of a nationwide lockdown to contain the virus outbreak that began in late March and continued until May…Reuters reports that China has asked main state firms to suspend large-scale purchases of major U.S. farm products like soybeans and pork, as U.S.-China tensions continue to build…the civil unrest erupting across America following the death of George Floyd is likely to slow the U.S. economy’s comeback from the Wuhan COVID-19 pandemic…violent protests and looting have left a trail of destruction from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles, stressing already frazzled business owners who now have to clean off graffiti, sweep up shattered glass and replace pilfered merchandise and furnishings…it’s mind boggling that certain American state governments seem to be tolerating domestic terrorism…
2. Wall Street’s powerful performance since its Corona Crash low, despite tumultuous events in the United States (a pandemic, economic upheaval and racial strife) bears some similarities to 1968…in 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy were both assassinated…North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive, and elections that year featured a highly divisive Presidential contest between Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon…protests enveloped the nation and the world, featuring the memorable raised-fist salute from John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the summer Olympic games…and, to top it off, there also was the H3N2 “Hong Kong flu” pandemic that killed nearly 100,000 Americans (H3N2 started in the U.S. in September 1968) and about a million people globally in 1968 (our response to the 2020 pandemic, shaped by the media, has been radically different)…after a 9% drop for the S&P 500 from January to March 1968, the market rallied 24% and ended with an annual gain of 7.6%…thus far in 2020, the index is still down about 5.7% year-to-date, but a 36% rally off the March low has investors thinking that another headline-defying result could be on the way…“1968 was the year that ‘shattered America’ and many tumultuous events and violence took place in that year. And despite that, the equity markets managed to perform solidly,” wrote Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors…“1968 is a reminder that stocks and world events are not always connected”…the potential of that “disconnect” is even greater in today’s world when the market is increasingly driven by dispassionate computers that run on algorithms…
3. The Dow is up 149 points as of 7:00 am Pacific…investors continue to crowd into the stay-at-home economy stocks…in Toronto, the TSX has jumped 139 points…Kirkland Lake Gold (KL, TSX, NYSE) is showing signs of breaking out above a bull flag formation on its short-term chart, suggesting we could be on the verge of another leg up in precious metals and Gold and Silver stocks…the Venture has edged up another 2 points to 566 as it guns for its 9th straight weekly advance…the Index enjoyed its best May ever with a gain of 17.4%, a 67% climb from its Corona Crash low…PyroGenesis Canada (PYR, TSX-V), on quite a run, hit a new high of $2.02 in early trading…CloudMD (DOC, CSE) has closed an oversubscribed $15 million bought deal financing…DOC warrants, with a 2-year expiry, made their debut on the CSE this morning under the symbol “DOC.WT“…Galway Metals (GWM, TSX-V) is up another 2 pennies at 48.5 cents after announcing yesterday it has intersected 38.5 m (37.9 m true width) of 6.2 g/t Au, including 373 g/t Au over 0.50 m, in hole 100 on the westernmost section of the Richard zone at the company’s Clarence Stream Project in southeastern New Brunswick…in addition, hole 101 (45 m from hole 100) cut the widest intersection yet at Clarence Stream, 85 m (76.9 m true width) grading 1.4 g/t Au…the Richard, George Murphy and Jubilee zones are all part of the same 2.5-km-long mineralized system…Endeavor Silver (EDR, TSX) has cut 1,085 g/t Ag and 3.25 g/t Au over 10 m true width in hole UCM-27 (41 oz/ton Silver equivalent) in the Santa Cruz vein on the El Curso Property at the Guanacevi mine in Durango, Mexico…
4. Skeena Resources (SKE, TSX-V) has appointed Shane Williams as its new chief operating officer, effective today…Williams has over 20 years of experience in the mining/Oil and gas industry specifically related to the development, construction, and operations of large-scale resource projects…he has a history of leading teams to successfully bring projects into commercial operation safely, under budget and ahead of schedule…his extensive and international project development experience has been gathered through his active involvement in all stages of the mine project development life cycle…prior to joining Skeena, Williams was the Vice President of Operations and Capital Projects at Eldorado Gold (ELD, TSX; EGO, NYSE) for 6 years where he led the team that successfully brought the Lamaque Gold Project from Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) to commercial operation in just 18 months…he also served as Project Director for Eldorado for their Greek assets and was responsible for the development of both the Skouries and Olympias projects which together had a capex of over $1 billion (U.S.)…Williams has extensive open-pit development experience from his time working with Rio Tinto at the Iron Ore Company of Canada and at Kaunis Iron in Northern Sweden where he, as Project Director, was responsible for the successful staged development of this large, open-pit iron ore operation from early exploration into commercial operation over a rapid 3.5 year period…Skeena CEO Walter Coles Jr. commented, “We’re excited to welcome Shane to the Skeena management team. His engineering and project development experience will be key, as Skeena moves into the next phase of development at Eskay Creek. Shane has led the development of several major open-pit mining projects from concept through to production. We look forward to Shane’s leadership as we aggressively advance Eskay Creek”…SKE is in breakout mode, up 3 pennies at $1.29…
5. Probe Metals (PRB, TSX-V) has drilled 8.9 g/t Au over 10.8 m in hole CO-139 along the Courvan Gold Trend at its Val d’Or East Project…CO-139 and results from 11 other drill holes reported this morning continue to show expansion and high-grade Gold mineralization along the Courvan Trend…ongoing summer drilling will focus on resource expansion surrounding higher-grade zones…David Palmer, President and CEO of Probe, states, “Results from the winter drilling program continue to show strong expansion of Gold mineralization at numerous sites across the project. These latest intercepts from Courvan show thick, high-grade mineralization located along trend of our current Gold zones and represent some of the best results from the property to date. Our focus now will be to follow up on the very successful winter drilling program on the Courvan and Monique properties and continue our expansion, infill and regional programs. Although we did experience a delay due to the recent business closures we don’t foresee any impact on our exploration program for 2020“…
6. Non-profit anti-mining groups are using COVID-19 as another excuse to attack Canada’s mining sector: A new report by an international coalition of non-profit groups have sharply criticized the mining industry for supposedly “spreading the coronavirus into remote communities, both in Canada and abroad”…the report, titled ‘Voices on the Ground’ and published today, accuses mining companies from all over the world of prioritizing profit over worker safety by continuing to operate during the pandemic, and failing to take adequate safety precautions after outbreaks were discovered, sometimes with fatal results…“We said from the beginning that any mine operating at full capacity is presenting risks to workers,” said Kirsten Francescone, Latin American coordinator of MiningWatch Canada, one of the radical non-profit groups that authored the report…Francescone added, “It’s not just workers at risk … it’s communities that have no access to any kind of medicare or resources, where people have pre-existing conditions. We’re talking about already vulnerable populations”…Francescone claims there are 69 mines globally with “outbreaks”, of which one-third are operated by companies with headquarters in Canada…she called it “emblematic” of a lack of leadership in the Canadian mining industry…
7. Some investors are placing bets that the stock market could have a massive sell-off following November’s U.S. elections, and some analysts say it’s because of the fear of Democrats winning the Presidency and both houses of Congress (a highly unlikely scenario in our view, but the threat can’t be totally dismissed)…the price of puts, or options that predict a negative outcome, for the S&P 500 have been rising in price for November into December…analysts say it’s early in the year for those types of trades around the November 3 election…“Obviously, it’s early. However what the options market was beginning to indicate …was the potential for a clean sweep in November,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial…analysts at BCA Research say the stock market is underestimating how negative a Biden victory would be for investing…“If the Democrats gain control of the Senate alongside a Biden victory, as our Geopolitical Strategy Service projects, financial markets may have to begin discounting a future materially less friendly regulatory and tax policy”…
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