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1. Spot Gold has traded between $1,763 and $1,777 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific the yellow metal is unchanged at $1,772 an ounce…Gold is on track for its 3rd straight monthly gain and biggest quarterly rise in over 4 years…indicative of sentiment, SPDR Gold Trust holdings climbed 0.3% to 1,178.90 tonnes on Friday, while speculators increased their bullish positions in COMEX Gold and Silver contracts in the week to June 23…on the technical side, Spot Gold is poised to break out above the top of a 3-month horizontal channel at $1,775…Silver has slipped a dime to $17.70…base metals continue their upward trend…supply disruption in top producer Chile, solid demand in top consumer China, dwindling stockpiles, and bullish chart technicals have driven Copper prices to a new 5-month high…the red metal is up 3 pennies at $2.72…Copper is up more than 35% since its Corona Crash low around $2 a pound when it touched a long-term uptrend line…Nickel is 3 cents higher at $5.75 while Zinc has added a penny to 93 cents…Crude Oil has added 15 cents to $38.64 while the U.S. Dollar Index is off one-tenth of a point to 97.35…a liberal Michigan judge’s decision to shut a key Enbridge (ENB, TSX, NYSE) Oil pipeline running across North America could send gasoline and diesel prices soaring in Ontario and Quebec and refineries scrambling to secure Oil supplies…Wuhan COVID-19 cases cases remained high over the weekend in the U.S., while parts of the country pulled back re-openings and some faced strains on hospital and testing capacity…nearly 39,000 cases were recorded nationwide yesterday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University…it was the 2nd straight decrease after Friday’s record of 45,255 new infections but still above April highs…the recent acceleration in infection numbers in the U.S. is not yet leading to a marked rise in fatalities…world-wide, reported COVID-19 infections have topped 10.1 million, with more than a half million deaths…the U.S. accounts for about a quarter of each figure, though certain countries are grossly under-reporting…pending U.S. home sales spiked a stunning 44.3% in May compared with April, according to the National Association of Realtors in fresh data released this morning…that beat expectations of a 15% rise…sales were still 5.1% lower compared with May 2019…the recovery of economic sentiment in the euro zone intensified in June after a modest pick-up in May, with improvements across all sectors and a much more buoyant sense of future business, European Commission data showed today…

2. Gilead Sciences (GILD, NASDAQ) announced this morning the pricing for its COVID-19 treatment remdesivir, saying it will cost $3,120 for a typical U.S. patient with commercial insurance…the company announced its pricing plans in preparation for it to begin charging for the drug in July…Gilead has been donating doses to the U.S. government for distribution since it received emergency use authorization in May…the majority of patients treated with remdesivir will receive a 5-day treatment course using 6 vials of remdesivir, the company said…that would bring the government cost to $2,340 for patients on the 5-day treatment and $3,120 for commercially insured patients…while there are still no COVID-19 treatments approved by the Food and Drug Administration, scientists have found some success in hastening the recovery time of severe patients by using remdesivir…given the potential to reduce costs for hospitals and to save lives, Gilead said its price of $390 per vial is “well below” the drug’s value…Gilead Chairman and CEO Daniel O’Day stated in a news release this morning, “Taking the example of the United States, earlier hospital discharge would result in hospital savings of approximately $12,000 per patient. Even just considering these immediate savings to the healthcare system alone, we can see the potential value that remdesivir provides. This is before we factor in the direct benefit to those patients who may have a shorter stay in the hospital”…GILD is up $1.44 a share at $76.01 through the first 30 minutes of trading…

3. Chesapeake Energy (CHK, NYSE), a symbol of America’s extraordinary shale gas fortunes, has filed for bankruptcy, becoming one of the biggest victims of a spectacular collapse in energy demand from the virus-induced global lockdown…the Oklahoma City-based company filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas yesterday, listing assets and liabilities in the range of $10 billion (U.S.) and $50 billion (U.S.), and more than 100,000 creditors…the company also entered into an agreement to eliminate about $7 billion (U.S.) in debt and secure $925 million in debtor-in-possession financing…about a decade ago, Chesapeake was a $37.5 billion giant at the forefront of the fracking revolution that transformed the North American Oil and gas industry…“We are fundamentally resetting Chesapeake’s capital structure and business to address our legacy financial weaknesses and capitalize on our substantial operational strengths,” CEO Doug Lawler said in a statement…to a certain extent Chesapeake has been a victim of its own success, and that of its peers, at extracting huge volumes of gas from previously hard-to-exploit shale basins…while that turned the U.S. into a global supplier of the fuel to rival any other, it also contributed to a glut that weighed on prices…Natural Gas futures in New York traded last week at a 25-year low… fracking also turned the U.S. into the world’s largest producer of Crude as well as a major exporter…however, the global pandemic created a collapse in Oil prices and an uncertain future for many companies in the sector…

4. The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that banks have pulled back sharply on lending to American consumers during this ongoing pandemic…1 reason – they can’t tell who is creditworthy anymore…millions of Americans are out of work and behind on their debts…but, in many cases, the missed payments aren’t reflected in their credit scores, nor are they uniformly recorded on borrowers’ credit reports…the confusion stems from a provision in the government’s COVID-19 stimulus package…the law says lenders that allow borrowers to defer their debt payments can’t report these payments as late to credit-reporting companies…from March 1 through the end of May, Americans deferred debt payments on more than 100 million accounts, according to credit-reporting firm TransUnion, a sign of widespread financial distress…lenders that are having a tough time spotting risky loan applicants are approving fewer borrowers for credit cards, auto loans and other consumer debt…they are also hunting for new data sets that could indicate who is in financial trouble and how much they need to set aside to cover soured loans…the Federal Reserve last week said the biggest U.S. banks could be saddled with as much as $780 billion in loan losses in a prolonged downturn…

5. Azimut Exploration (AZM, TSX-V) has expanded its drill program at Elmer in the James Bay region of Quebec to 10,000 m from the originally planned 6,000 m based on “initial core examination”…the extra drilling will allow geologists to further assess the main target (ELM-1) and other previously identified targets, with initial assays pending…2 rigs have so far completed 5,610 m in 26 holes to test the lateral and depth continuity of the Patwon Gold discovery…2 holes (255 m) have tested other parts of the ELM-1 target, and 4 holes (534 m) have been drilled into the ELM-2 and ELM-3 targets…significant quartz veining and pyrite (finely to coarsely disseminated pyrite, semi-massive to massive pyrite stringers) has been observed in drill core along with significant associated alteration (pervasive silica, sericite, chlorite, tourmaline and carbonates)…native Gold grains are also present…5 main target areas (ELM-1 to ELM-5) are located within a highly prospective corridor 2.5 km x 1 km wide, open at both ends…the target areas are mostly defined by IP anomalies along several subparallel axes, for a cumulative length of at least 7 km…as a 1st phase, the current program aims to assess the Gold potential from surface to a vertical depth of 200 m…AZM hit a new multi-year high in early trading of $2.77 after a 16.4% jump last week…

6. The Dow has rebounded 223 points as of 7:00 am Pacific…in Toronto, the TSX has added 60 points with the Gold Index up 1 point at 336…the  Venture continues to outpace all markets and is up 5 more points to a new 52-week high of 604…Freegold Ventures (FVL, TSX), PureGold Mining (PGM, TSX-V) and Amex Exploration (AMX, TSX-V) hit new highs of $1.46, $1.80 and $2.58, respectively, in early trading…Vizsla Resources (VZLA, TSX-V) and Galway Resources (GWM, TSX-V), 2 other high-grade Gold plays, with Vizsla also hitting high-grade Silver in Mexico, are also looking strong to begin the new week…Auramex Resource (AUX, TSX-V) has received approval from the Venture Exchange to consolidate all of its outstanding shares on a 5 old for 1 new basis, effective tomorrow…the company will then have 11.6 million shares outstanding as it completes hard dollar and flow-through financings to raise approximately $6 million in advance of a major drill program targeting high-grade Gold at a former producer in the Stewart Camp…AUX is steady at 6.5 cents…a 2nd drill has been mobilized to Clean Air Metals’ (AIR, TSX-V) Escape Lake Project near Thunder Bay…Phase 1 and 2 drilling at Escape Lake continues with a minimum total of 20,000 m of drilling going forward…1 drill continues to be focused on the southern portion of the Escape Lake mineralized zone conducting step-out holes testing possible lateral and along strike extensions to the south and east…the 2nd drill has mobilized to the northern portion of the Escape Lake mineralized zone and will be helping complete Phase 1 planned holes and step-out holes to the north to follow the postulated trend of the mineralized magma conduit on the Phase 2 drilling layout…

7. Bullish contrarian signs?…nearly 70% of asset managers expect that a 20% correction in U.S. equity markets is more likely than a 20% move higher in stocks, according to Citigroup’s quarterly survey…since the last survey in March, the managers have also shifted their view of who will win the White House…62% of asset managers are now predicting that former Vice President Joe Biden will win, a sharp reversal from December when 70% expected President Trump would win…views on who would win were split evenly in March…the 140 fund managers polled by Citi say they are holding more of their portfolios in cash, despite the stock market rebound…median cash holdings are 10%, flat with March, but twice the level of June 2019 and double the historical average…

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