BullMarketRun.com

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 $1,340 and $1,349 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is off $6 an ounce at $1,343…Silver has retreated 18 cents to $17.20…on the base metal front, the big story continues to be Nickel which has climbed another 17 cents to $6.28 after pushing above the key $6 level last week for the first time in nearly 3 years…significantly, Nickel has pushed through a long-term chart downtrend line going back to 2011…it’s up 40% since June, aided by expectations of rising demand for the metal related to the electric vehicle revolution…Copper is steady at $3.20…Zinc has hit a new decade high of $1.63 while Cobalt is up slightly at $36.40, just 20 cents below its best level in almost a decade…Crude Oil is 58 cents lower at $65.56 while the U.S. Dollar Index has rebounded one-quarter of a point to 89.25…last week’s drop below the key 90 area is not a good sign for the greenback, however…

2. U.S. consumer spending rose solidly in December as demand for goods and services increased, but the move came at the expense of savings which dropped to a 10-year low…the Commerce Department reported this morning that consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, increased 0.4% last month, matching expectations, after an upwardly revised 0.8% increase in November…meanwhile, the lack of inflationary pressures in the economy continues to frustrate the Fed which meets again tomorrow and Wednesday…the central bank’s preferred measure of inflation, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, has come in at 1.7% for 2017 after December’s figures were released this morning…that’s down from November’s 1.8% reading and stubbornly remains below the Fed’s 2% target rate…

3. Aphria (APH, TSX) announced this morning that it would buy rival Nuuvera (NUU, TSX-V) for $826 million to expand globally, ahead of Canada’s proposed legalization of recreational weed by mid-2018…the move comes days after the marijuana industry saw its biggest deal ever when Aurora Cannabis said it would buy CanniMed (CMED, TSX) for $1.1 billion…medical marijuana is already legal in Canada, of course, but the sector is expected to get a boost from exports as many other countries move closer to legalization…Aphria will leverage Nuuvera’s network in countries like Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and Uruguay to create an international footprint, the companies said…APH is down modestly on the news, off 76 cents at $19.40, while NUU is up $1 at $8.00 as of 7:00 am Pacific…

4. U.S. equity markets are off slightly in early trading following more record highs last week…the S&P 500 has closed at new record highs 14 times during the past 18 trading days, the most number of record highs in a month since 1955…the benchmark index is also on track for one of its strongest January performances ever and its best since 1989…last week it also hit its longest period in history without a 5% correction…in Toronto, the TSX has slipped 65 points through the first 30 minutes of trading while the Venture is flat at 891…Mountain Province Diamonds (MPVD, TSX) is acquiring Venture-listed Kennady Diamonds (KDI, TSX-V) which has jumped 53 cents to $3.28…Kennady shareholders will receive 0.975 of a Mountain Province common share for each Kennady common share, representing the equivalent of $3.46 per Kennady share based on the last closing price of Mountain Province…Dr. Rory O. Moore, President and CEO of Kennady, stated: “We are excited that our shareholders have the opportunity to benefit from the near-term cash flow of the world-class Gahcho Kue mine while retaining exposure to the significant exploration upside on the current Kennady assets”…Canada Zinc (CZX, TSX-V) has updated its NI-43–101 resource estimate for its Cardiac deposit in northeast British Columbia…Indicated resources have increased by 3 million tonnes to 22.7 million tonnes grading 8.3% Zn, 1.6% Pb and 14.1 g/t Ag…that’s a 15% increase in tonnage and a slight increase in grade compared to the previous estimate in 2016…Inferred resources have dropped to 7.5 million tonnes from 8 million tonnes…Orla Mining (OLA, TSX-V) has announced a $25 million bought deal at $1.75 per unit…Goldcorp and Agnico Eagle have indicated that they intend to subscribe for units in order to maintain their current ownership positions of approximately 19.9% and 9.9%, respectively…

5. A.I.S. Resources (AIS, TSX-V), an emerging Lithium producer in Argentina, announced this morning that a just-completed geophysics program (TEM, transient electromagnetic survey) has detected potential aquifers in what correlates to sand-rich units at shallow depths of 10 meters, 20 meters and 100 meters at each of the company’s 4 concessions at its Chiron Project in the heart of the Pocitos Salar in Salta…extremely low resistivity (0.4–1.0 ohm-m) at each of 19 data points covering the 27 sq. km package suggests the potential for Lithium-rich brines…Chiron’s concessions appear to be the preferred areas in the salar for brine saturated sequences, based on seismic data, and will be drill tested shortly (in February) with an 8-hole, 3,200-m program…Phil Thomas, Chief Operating Officer and exploration director for AIS., stated: “This initial seismic data from Chiron based on the TEM geophysics strongly supports our case for acquiring these strategic concessions. Together with our Guayatayoc Project to the northwest in Jujuy province, where we’ve made excellent progress with our pilot plant production chemistry, A.I.S. is on track for a breakthrough year as an emerging new producer in the Lithium brine space in Argentina.”

6. Orca Gold (ORG, TSX-V) has increased Indicated resources by 24% (588,000 ounces) while adding 368,000 ounces of Inferred resources to its updated model (new NI-43–101 mineral resource estimate) for its Galat Sufar South (GSS) and Wadi Doum deposits in Sudan…together they comprise an Indicated resource of 72.7 million tonnes grading 1.3 g/t Au (3.05 million ounces) at a cut-off grade of 0.60 g/t and an Inferred resource of 19.8 million tonnes grading 1.2 g/t, using the same cut-off, for 750,000 ounces…the new estimate is based on 98,754 meters of drilling in 688 holes…Richard Clark, CEO of Orca Gold, stated,  “The recent drilling at GSS has successfully increased the Indicated resource at GSS. The conversion of Inferred resources and the addition of new resources at GSS supports continued drilling to expand the scope of this exceptional deposit even further. Our resource expansion program will also extend to the Wadi Doum deposit with an objective to increase the tonnage of higher grade material that will be mined in the early years of production. We look forward to further announcements based on ongoing drilling culminating in the delivery of the Feasibility Study in early Q2 2018.”

7. NexGen Energy (NXE, TSX) has commenced its winter 2018 drill program at its 100%-owned Rook I Property in the Athabasca basin, Saskatchewan…the program will consist of approximately 25,000 m using 8 drill rigs and has several key objectives…at the Arrow deposit, drilling will focus on further A3 high-grade zone definition, targeting the large untested areas surrounding the A1 to A5 shears, potential extensions of the shears particularly to the northeast, and definition of newly discovered high-grade mineralization northwest of the A1 shear …at South Arrow, drilling will continue to focus on defining the extent of Uranium mineralization in all directions…further, highly ranked geophysical targets on the Arrow, South Arrow and Mirror conductors will be targeted after encouraging results from geophysical surveys conducted predominantly in 2016 and 2017…

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