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1. Gold has traded between $1,685 and $1,702 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific the yellow metal is up $14 an ounce at $1,698…the price differential between the Gold forward contract for short-term delivery on the Comex in New York and the Spot price in London has normalized again now that the Swiss refineries have resumed regular operations…Silver has jumped 31 cents to $15.12…base metals continue to firm with Copper up 4 cents to $2.38…Nickel is unchanged at $5.53 while Zinc has gained 2 pennies to 90 cents, its highest level in 2 months…Crude Oil has added $2.10 a barrel to $26.09…WTI is on track for its 2nd best week in history as a number of bullish factors are now supporting prices, including U.S. companies cutting production, Saudi Arabia raising its official Oil selling price, and gasoline demand improving as economies around the world reopen…the U.S. Dollar Index is up one-quarter of a point to 100.32…DBRS Morningstar is looking at pandemic scenarios that include a housing price correction in Canada of between 10% and 15% by 2022…the credit ratings agency says some mortgage holders in such a scenario would also be expected to fall behind on payments, particularly in Oil-producing provinces where the economic shock would be greater…however, house price declines are expected to be sharper in cities, such as Toronto, where there has been a “significant run-up in prices in recent years”…even in a “moderate” scenario envisioned by DBRS, home prices in Canada’s largest city would fall by 14%…U.S. weekly jobless claims were 3.2 million last week, in line with expectations but the 7th straight week of record applications thanks to government-imposed lockdowns in response to the Wuhan COVID-19 virus…in recent weeks the number of U.S. workers filing for unemployment benefits during the pandemic has dropped to about half the peak of 6.9 million touched in late March…jobless claims, though still numbering in the millions (well above the prior weekly record of 695,000 set in 1982), suggest the wave of unemployment caused by the pandemic and government lockdown measures could crest as soon as this month…still, the layoffs that already occurred are likely to cause the unemployment rate, at a 50-year low as recently as February, to jump to a record high with April’s number, due out tomorrow…economists say it could still be many months before the labor market returns to a point when U.S. employers consistently add more jobs than they subtract…and it probably will take years for the economy to fully replace the millions of jobs lost in March and April…

2. Massachusetts-based Modern Therapeutics (MRNA, NASDAQ) said today that the FDA has given it the go-ahead for a 600-person Phase 2 study for its coronvirus vaccine candidate…“The imminent Phase 2 study start is a crucial step forward as we continue to advance the clinical development of mRNA-1273, our vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement…“With the goal of starting the mRNA-1273 pivotal Phase 3 study early this summer, Moderna is now preparing to potentially have its first (Biologics License Application) approved as soon as 2021“…Moderna is finalizing protocols for a Phase 3 study expected to begin in “early summer of 2020“…Moderna is one of many companies across the globe racing to create a coronavirus vaccine…MRNA is up $4.31 a share to $53.26 as of 7:00 am Pacific…the Trump administration is pushing for rapid vaccine development through a recently announced project called Operation Warp Speed…

3. Global exchange-traded funds added another 170 metric tons of Gold to their holdings in April, taking the total to a new all-time high of 3,355 tons, the World Gold Council (WGC) reported today…assets under management also reached a new record high of $184 billion, the WGC said…this was helped not only by continued inflows but because Gold prices in U.S. dollar terms moved higher by 5.8%…the continued rise in the amount of Gold held by ETFs last month comes after the WGC’s recent report on demand trends showed that ETF holdings rose by 298 tons during the 1st quarter, which was up more than 300% from the same period last year…“Inflows have been strong and consistent in recent months, but not unprecedented,” the WGC said…“Rolling 12-month inflows of 879t just surpassed those of 2009 and 2016, while rolling 6-month inflows are less than two-thirds of the 457t of inflows in the comparable time periods of 2009 and 2016“…during April, North America was the continent with the most inflows, with these ETFs adding 144 tons…other increases included Europe, 20 tons; Asia, 2.9 tons; and other regions, 3.3 tons…U.S.-based SPDR Gold Shares was the ETF with the most inflows, adding 89.5 tons, while iShares Gold Trust added 31.2 tons, the WGC said…

4. Justin Trudeau keeps insisting that Canadians should “stay at home unless absolutely necessary” (don’t work and collect CERB money, of course, which is very un-Canadian, actually) in order to “keep safe” during this pandemic, but science is putting that advice into serious question…it was revealed yesterday, during New York Governor Cuomo’s daily briefing, that new COVID-19 hospitalizations in New York state are from people who were staying home and not venturing much outside, a “shocking” finding, Cuomo admitted…the preliminary data was from 100 New York hospitals involving about 1,000 patients…it shows that 66% of new admissions were from people who had largely been sheltering at home…the next highest source of admissions was from nursing homes, 18%…“This is a surprise: Overwhelmingly, the people were at home,” Cuomo stated…“We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation, but actually no, because these people were literally at home”…nearly 84% of the hospitalized cases were people who were not commuting to work through car services, personal cars, public transit or walking…a majority of those people were either retired or unemployed…overall, some 73% of the admissions were people over age 51…information shows that those who are hospitalized are predominantly from the downstate area in or around New York City, are not working or traveling and are not essential employees…he also said a majority of the cases in New York City are minorities, with nearly half being African American or Hispanic…

5. The under-explored and prospective area immediately west of Timmins continues to produce interesting Gold results…Melikor Resources (MKR, TSX-V) is up significantly in early trading after announcing that drill hole CAR-20–05 at its Carscallen Gold Project intersected 25.7 g/t Au over 6 m from 357 to 363 m, including 205 g/t over 0.7 m,, within mafic metavolcanics approximately 35 m below the granodiorite contact and 350 m vertically below surface…this hole has helped to confirm the current interpretation of a significant Gold-bearing epigenetic system (minerals forming later than the rocks enclosing it) that continues below the granodiorite and into the mafic metavolcanics below as further verified by an earlier (2012) intercept of 51.9 g/t Au over 3.7 m…meanwhile, CAR-20–04 cut 4.2 g/t Au over 4 m from 334 m to 338 m including 15.8 g/t Au over 1 m…this intercept occurred within the granodiorite approximately 325 m vertically below surface and further validates the interpretation…notably, this hole also cut 8.7% Copper and 33.9 g/t Silver over 0.5 m from 545 to 545.5 m…speculatively, this could represent a Copper feeder system vectoring to a VMS environment…assays are pending for a 3rd drill hole…the 47 sq. km Carscallen Gold Project lies within the township of Carscallen, approximately 25 km southwest of the city of Timmins, north of GFG Resources‘ (GFG, TSX-V) recent high-grade Gold discovery but not on the same trend…

6. The Dow is up 330 points lower through the first 30 minutes of trading…in Toronto, the TSX is 149 points higher while the Venture has added 3 points to 481…Freegold Ventures (FVL, TSX), which reported an outstanding drill result yesterday, is up 4.5 cents at 21.5 cents after a wild session yesterday…the company has announced a $5 million hard dollar financing at 17 cents per share (half warrant good for 2 years at 28 cents) that includes $2 million from Eric Sprott…Shopify (SHOP, TSX, NYSE) has passed Royal Bank (RY, TSX, NYSE) to become the most valuable public company in Canada, after it reported Q1 earnings and investors got a good look at how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the business…the key takeaway from the earnings numbers was that Shopify remains an essential service for the million merchants that use the company’s e-commerce platform, and CEO Tobi Lutke emphasized that point speaking to analysts on the earnings call yesterday…Canadian Tire (CTC.A, TSX) reported a loss in its latest quarter as sales fell due to the steps taken to slow the spread of COVID-19, including the temporary closure of its SportChek and Mark’s stores…retail sales for the quarter were nearly $2.76 billion, down from $2.83 billion in the same quarter a year earlier…on a normalized basis, Canadian Tire says it lost 13 cents per share for the quarter compared with a normalized profit of $1.12 per share in the 1st quarter of 2019…

7. GoGold (GGD, TSX-V) announced this morning that its operations generated $1.9 million (U.S.) of cash flow, net of general and administrative expenses, in Q1…“Parral had another record production quarter, which covered corporate general and administrative expenses and the majority of our exploration expenditures at Los Ricos,” stated CEO Brad Langille, President and CEO…“With our $19.1 million cash balance and the cash flow from our Parral operation, we are well positioned to execute on our Los Ricos Project”…GGD’s revenue for the quarter was $8.6 million (U.S.) on record production of 600,697 Silver equivalent ounces, an increase of 42% from prior year, at a realized Silver price per ounce of $15.19…all-in-sustaining costs were $15.10…the company has $19.1 million (U.S.) in cash, thanks in part to a large raise at 75 cents completed just prior to the “Corona Crash”…GGD is up a penny at 77 cents in early trading…

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