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1. Gold has traded between $1,398 and $1,408 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is up $3 an ounce at $1,401…Nickel has jumped 7 cents to $5.69…Copper has added 2 cents to $2.67 while Zinc has slipped another 2 pennies to $1.08…Zinc prices have recently come under pressure from expectations of rising supply and the likelihood of a 2nd half balanced market or surplus…Crude Oil is up 56 cents to $58.07 while the U.S. Dollar Index is relatively flat at 97.33…new bank loans in China are expected to have picked up to a 5-month high in June, a Reuters poll shows, as Beijing kept ample liquidity in the financial system to support the slowing economy and offset growing U.S. trade pressure…the central bank also stepped up cash injections last month to calm nerves after regulators seized a troubled regional bank, which sparked worries of financial contagion and briefly drove some short-term lending rates to record highs…voters in Greece have come to their senses, throwing out socialist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras after a tumultuous 4 years in office as the country struggled through a crippling financial crisis…another example of how socialism never works (many young people in Canada and the United States don’t seem to have learned that lesson yet)…Conservative opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis comfortably won Greece’s parliamentary elections yesterday…the 51 year-old Mitsotakis vowed to abide by his campaign pledges to cut taxes, attract investment and improve the job market…“Greeks deserve better and the time has come for us to prove it,” he said…
2. After Friday’s better-than-expected U.S. jobs report, all eyes will be on Fed Chairman Jereme Powell this week when he has the opportunity to reinforce market expectations for a late July rate cut, or rein them in…Powell testifies before the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday and at the Senate Banking Committee Thursday as he answers questions on the economy and Fed policy…Friday’s report exceeded economists’ expectations, but with an accompanying –11,000 in revisions, the job gains were nothing to derail the Fed’s anticipated cut July 31…after that meeting, the Fed doesn’t gather again until September 17–18…Friday’s jobs data led some traders to reassess how sharply the central bank might lower key lending rates…bets of a 50 basis point cut have plunged to 1.8%, from about 20% a week ago, according to CME Group’s FedWatch program…
3. The binge in central bank Gold buying continues…the People’s Bank of China has added another 10.3 tonnes of the precious metal to its holdings…Commerzbank pointed out that the Chinese central bank has now added to its Gold reserves every month since December…“During this period, it has bought a good 85 tonnes of Gold in total,” Commerzbank noted…“One reason is likely to be the trade dispute with the U.S., which has prompted China to reduce its dollar holdings and U.S. Treasuries of late”…15% of the world’s Gold demand last year came from came from central banks, which collectively bought 651.5 tonnes, according to World Gold Council data…these were the most central bank purchases in roughly half a century…then in the 1st quarter of this year, global official Gold purchases totalled 145.5 tonnes, a 68% increase compared to the same period in 2018…2019 so far has been a strong year for central bank Gold buying with a number of macroeconomic headwinds driving the need to diversify away from the U.S. dollar…this comes after news last week that Poland has become the top holder of Gold in central Europe by more than doubling its holdings…
4. BlackRock has downgraded its global growth outlook for the 2nd half, and while it still sees a good environment for U.S. stocks, it no longer favors emerging market equities…the outlook has weakened as a direct result of geopolitical and trade frictions, but that has also increased the potential for easier policy by central banks, including the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank…for that reason, the outlook for U.S. stocks remains positive, and the firm upgrades European stocks from negative to neutral…emerging market stocks were lowered from overweight to neutral, but it upgraded emerging market debt…“Our view on China has become less positive, and as a result, the rebound we were expecting in Europe is not in the cards anymore. It’s a downgrade in the broader global picture, and it’s driven by the European and China view,” said Jean Boivin, head of the BlackRock Investment Institute…
5. The Dow has slipped 135 points through the first 30 minutes of trading while the S&P 500 and NASDAQ are also both under mild pressure after last week’s new record highs…a downgrade on Apple has hurt the broader tech sector this morning…an analyst at Rosenblatt Securities said Apple stock will “face fundamental deterioration” over the next 6 to 12 months as the company’s iPhone sales disappoint and growth in other products slows down…in Toronto, the TSX is 77 points lower with the Gold Index steady at 219…strong support at 211…the Venture has added a point to 587…Martello Technologies (MTLO, TSX-V) is the Venture volume leader again this morning…Bruce Linton, turfed from Canopy Growth (WEED, TSX; CGC, NYSE) last week, wants to do some big things with Martello and suddenly has more time on his hands…Martello tripled in price on huge volume Wednesday-Thursday-Friday, and climbed as high as 67 cents in early trading this morning…the long-term chart shows quite a bit more room to the upside on a confirmed breakout through the mid-50’s…“Anybody who’s dumb enough to launch a new cannabis company in Canada, I don’t know what they’re doing, they should have been at it 6 years ago. Canada is done,” Linton told Bloomberg TV…“You’re going to end up with a few winners and a whole bunch of people who wonder why they started”…hence, money from the cannabis space has been slowly working its way into the resource sector in recent months, accumulating a range of undervalued plays in anticipation of a strong rebound at some point during this 2nd half of 2019…
6. “We made errors in judgement”: Cannabis producer CannTrust Holdings (TRST, TSX) says customers may experience temporary shortages after Health Canada found that its greenhouse facility in Pelham, Ontario, is non-compliant with regulations…the regulator found that cannabis had been grown in 5 unlicensed rooms between October and March of this year during which time CannTrust (Can’tTrust, Health Canada is finding out) was applying for licences and that inaccurate information was provided to the regulator by CannTrust employees…the rooms received licences in April…the company says that Health Canada has placed a hold on about 5,200 kg of dried cannabis that was harvested in the previously unlicensed rooms in Pelham, until it deems that the company is compliant with regulations…CannTrust has also put a voluntary hold on approximately 7,500 kg of dried cannabis at its Vaughan manufacturing facility that was produced in the previously unlicensed rooms…“We have made many changes to make this right with Health Canada,” stated CEO Peter Aceto…“We made errors in judgement, but the lessons we have learned here will serve us well moving forward”…
7. The TSX posted a 16% gain in the first 6 months of 2019, its best performance in the 1st half of a year in more than a decade (the Venture was up 5%)…the biggest successes were stocks that proved to be munificent growth stories, takeover candidates and hedges to the U.S.-China trade dispute…the losers were led by the struggling energy sector…among the winners is Shopify (SHOP, TSX)…the e-commerce giant is not yet profitable and does not expect to be until 2020, but it has convinced investors of its value by meeting sales targets in 16 consecutive quarters and continuing to surpass revenue expectations…in April, Shopify introduced a new point-of-sale system which includes a tap-and-chip reader that will allow it to enter the brick-and-mortar space…2 months later, the company revealed plans to open a network of fulfilment centres that would be powered by machine learning, resulting in another spike in the stock…in the 1st half of 2019, Shopify’s shares were up by more than 113%…
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I’m in the mood for a humdinger…
Comment by flyinthruu — July 8, 2019 @ 12:16 pm
flyingthruu… any particular stock in mind? Maybe CCW? It never seems to be happen when you are waiting for it to happen. It’s like the old saying that “a watched pot never boils”.
Comment by Danny — July 8, 2019 @ 5:18 pm
Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping for…using Jon’s words tho….
Comment by flyinthruu — July 8, 2019 @ 6:35 pm