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1. Spot Gold has traded between $1,942 and $1,967 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, Gold is up $19 an ounce at $1,965…Silver has jumped 44 cents to $27.41…base metals are relatively unchanged with Copper, Nickel and Zinc at $3.06, $6.76 and $1.09, respectively…Crude Oil is steady at $38.02 while the U.S. Dollar Index has tumbled half a point to 92.76, giving Gold and Silver a lift…the European Central Bank monetary policy decision this morning contained no surprises for investors…as expected, the ECB announced that the interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and –0.50% respectively…the ECB also maintained the current pace of its emergency stimulus measures as it continues to support the European economy devastated by the Wuhan COVID-19 pandemic…a surprisingly low inflation reading in August, the lowest since 2001, also raised questions about whether the ECB will have to do more to revamp the euro economy…ECB President Christine Lagarde reframed from making any comments on the euro’s recent rally against the greenback…weekly U.S. jobless claims were modestly worse than expected last week amid a plodding climb for the U.S. labor market from the damage inflicted by the pandemic…the U.S. Labor Department reported 884,000 first-time filings for unemployment insurance, compared to the 850,000 expected by economists surveyed by Dow Jones…continuing claims from those filing for at least 2 weeks rose from the previous week, hitting 13.385 million, an increase of 93,000 from a week ago…however, the Labor Department changed its methodology in how it seasonally adjusts the numbers, so the past 2 weeks’ totals are not directly comparable to the reports from earlier in the pandemic…reports this morning that an ambitious UK mass testing plan called “Operation Moonshot” would cost as much as 100 billion pounds…Prime Minister Boris Johnson believes the scheme could help sport and entertainment venues reopen fully and allow people to socially mix in large groups again with on-the-day tests…
2. China’s next 5-year economic plan beginning in 2021 will call for increases to its mammoth state reserves of Crude, strategic metals and farm goods, according to a Bloomberg report this morning…Beijing is keen to heed the lessons of the coronavirus crisis and deteriorating relations with the U.S. and its allies, according to officials who participated in the drafting of the plan…that means ensuring the nation’s secretive stockpiles, almost certainly among the world’s largest, are plentiful enough to withstand supply disruptions that could threaten its economy…next month, China’s top leadership will lay out its strategy for 2021-2025 that will include ramping up domestic consumption and making more critical technology at home, in a bid to insulate the world’s 2nd-largest economy from worsening geopolitical tensions and fraying supply chains…securing food supplies, fuel and materials is a precondition of greater self-reliance for the world’s biggest importer of commodities…assuaging China’s anxieties over energy and food security in particular will be a focus of the new buying program, the Bloomberg report stated…the quantities of commodities held by the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration aren’t made public, and it doesn’t report on its purchases, although details occasionally surface…last month, Bloomberg reported it had drawn up plans to buy 2,000 tons of Cobalt after the pandemic highlighted fragility around supplies of the strategic mineral that’s used in electric vehicle batteries…
3. U.S. Oil prices have slid 12% since the end of August, and on Tuesday notched their biggest 1-day drop since June…though the market has clawed back some of those declines, many say trading in the options market shows investors preparing for further drops, as pressures on Crude prices mount from forces including a slow recovery in fuel demand and November’s U.S. elections…an options-based gauge of how far traders anticipate Oil prices will swing over the next 30 days, known as implied volatility, has jumped to its highest level since late June…it hit an annualized level of 51% Tuesday, according to option-pricing tool QuikStrike, before edging lower yesterday…that is still well below the peak of 345% in April, when lockdowns and shelter-in-place restrictions threw energy markets into turmoil and the major U.S. Oil benchmark fell below $0 a barrel for the first time…but it is 21 percentage points higher than the average level of implied volatility in the final 3 months of 2019, the last full quarter before the pandemic…a separate gauge – the extra money traders are willing to pay for puts over calls – shows that option-market participants expect Oil’s next big move to be downward…
4. Wall Street is building on yesterday’s rebound in early trading…as of 7:00 am Pacific, the Dow is up 188 points…the S&P 500 posted its best day yesterday since June while the NASDAQ pulled itself out of correction territory after a sell-off for major tech stocks dragged down the market for 3 straight sessions…in Toronto, the TSX has climbed 13 points while the Venture is up 10 points at 753…Copper Mountain (CMMC, TSX), 1 of our favorite Copper plays, has hit a new 52-week high of 99 cents…B2 Gold (BTO, TSX) has successfully commissioned the mill expansion at its Fekola mine to 7.5 million tonnes per annum, approximately 1 month ahead of the scheduled completion date…Fekola continues to operate unimpeded and no operational days have been lost due to the recent political developments in Mali or the Wuhan COVID-19 pandemic…BTO is maintaining total consolidated production guidance at between 1 million and 1,055,000 ounces of Gold at total all-in-sustaining costs between $780 and $820 (U.S.) per ounce…Gatekeeper Systems (GSI, TSX-V) is up 9 cents at 89 cents in early trading…the company announced after the close yesterday that it has increased the size of its recently announced financing at $1 per share from $5 million to $6 million…the company intends to use a portion of the funds from the financing to accelerate sales and delivery of its intelligent temperature sensing systems (ITSS) designed to efficiently measure the body temperature of students while boarding a school bus or entering schools…Doug Dyment, CEO of Gatekeeper, commented: “There is increasing interest from our school district customers for the use of ITSS as a solution to meet the various State authority guidelines relating to the safe reopening of public schools. For more than a decade we have delivered innovative technology-based solutions to over 3,000 school district customers to improve the safety of the 25 million school children who ride 500,000 school buses daily in the U.S. alone. We are in constant dialogue with our school district customers to offer helpful solutions as they manage through this pandemic, and we are proud to launch ITSS as the industry’s best intelligent temperature sensing solution for school buses and transit authorities”…
5. Great Bear Resources (GBR, TSX-V) has cut 32.3 g/t Au over 8.2 m, within 37.7 m grading 8.1 g/t, toward the centre of the LP Fault Zone in drill hole BR-156 (411 m to 448.7 m) at its Dixie Project at Red Lake…drilling continues to define Gold mineralization on 50-m centres along 5 km of strike length of the LP Fault, to a vertical depth of approximately 500 m…all of the 161 LP Fault drill holes completed to date have successfully intersected the structure and Gold mineralization…50 m to the northwest of BR-156, new drill hole BR-164 intersected the along-strike continuation of the same mineralization including 5.2 g/t Au over 78.75 m…this included 2 high-strain zones assaying 68.4 g/t Gold over 3.25 m and 60.3 g/t Au over 2.15 m…the drill hole also included an additional interval of 11.1 g/t Gold over 3.85 m below those intervals…Great Bear continues to advance its geological model of the LP Fault Zone as it defines and refines controls to high-grade Gold domains…higher-grade Gold domains are localized within high-strain and higher vein density corridors…both of these styles of high-grade Gold occur within the larger envelope of Gold mineralization in felsic and metasedimentary host rocks…Chris Taylor, Great Bear President and CEO, commented: “With increasing drill density on 50-m centres, continuity of Gold mineralization at the LP Fault is readily apparent in plan and section view. We’ve provided an updated plan map and long section in this release, showing the same intercept grade projections in both images for the first time. Our geological team continues to model the high-strain and deformed quartz vein zones, which host the majority of the high-grade Gold within the LP Fault. We expect to be able to release the results of this work over the coming weeks. This will provide our current comprehensive interpretation of Gold grade distribution characteristics within the LP Fault and will be an important step towards completion of our initial maiden resource”…
6. Unusual for a porphyry system: Imperial Metals (III, TSX) has intersected 166 m grading 3 g/t Au and 1.5% Copper from 806 m down the hole at Red Chris, further validating the East Zone high-grade pod…the broader interval in RC634 featured 394 m grading 1.6 g/t Au and 0.86% Cu starting at 650 m…Newcrest (NCM, ASX) is the operator of the Red Chris JV with a 70% interest…2 drill programs are active, with 8 diamond drills in operation…the East zone resource definition program is designed to obtain geological, geotechnical and metallurgical data to support future studies for underground block cave mining…the brownfields exploration program is searching for additional zones of higher-grade mineralization within the Red Chris porphyry corridor…a total of 67,690 m of drilling has been completed since Newcrest acquired its interest in the JV in August 2019…it’s on track to commence an underground decline into the East zone by the end of 2020 or early 2021…the 10 follow-up infill holes added to further define the high-grade pod in the vicinity of high-grade intervals intercepted in RC09-350 and RC611 are now complete…results from these holes continue to confirm the continuity of discrete high-grade pods of mineralization…
7. Amazon (AMZN, NASDAQ) is adding 33,000 new corporate jobs, the tech giant announced in a bog post this morning…the corporate job additions come ahead ahead of the tech giant’s first virtual “Career Day” on September 16, which will give job seekers of all levels and interests the opportunity to attend live-streamed discussions and interviews with industry leaders, according to the event website…“COVID-19 continues to affect millions of people across the country, and people are eager for the opportunity to get back to work,” stated Beth Galetti, Amazon’s Senior VP, Human Resources…“We’ve created more jobs in the U.S. over the past decade than any other company – and we are continuing to hire people from all backgrounds and at all skill levels”...Galetti added that the company is mobilizing “more than 1,000 experienced recruiters and HR professionals to help job seekers across the country learn about opportunities at Amazon and elsewhere”…those recruiters will be assigned to meet with 20,000 event attendees to offer one-on-one career advice, according to the event website….Amazon currently has 33,000 openings for jobs that include Amazon’s smart home device, Alexa; Amazon Web Services (AWS); and Operations Technology and Prime Video…
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