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1. Spot Gold has traded between $1,716 and $1,729 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific the yellow metal is up $9 an ounce at $1,723…all eyes will be on the Fed later today as the central bank wraps up its 2-day meeting and reveals its first forecasts for the economy and interest rates since late last year…the Fed skipped making projections in March just as the pandemic forced the abrupt shutdown of the economy…investors will be searching for clues about its “dovishness”, its willingness to keep interest rates ultra-low and inject additional stimulus…the Fed, which has already delivered epic amounts of support, still has plenty of ammunition in its arsenal, according to Chairman Jerome Powell, though investors have stopped pricing in the possibility that the central bank will adopt negative interest rates…TDS on Gold: “Can you hear the stampede of bulls on the horizon? Those selling Gold in response to risk-on could be missing the forest through the trees – the Fed will maintain its uber-easy policy for the foreseeable future, and may even utilize more tools (such as yield-curve control) to support yields amid massive Treasury issuances”…real interest rates, which are adjusted for inflation, are likely to remain “suppressed” for the foreseeable future, TDS added…all of this means that “macro drivers will continue to drive capital to seek shelter in the yellow metal”…Spot Silver has jumped 34 cents to $17.90…base metals continue to strengthen…Copper is up 5 cents at $2.63, pushing through its 200-day SMA…Nickel has jumped 5 cents to $5.84 while Zinc is steady at 91 cents…Crude Oil is off 78 cents at $38.16 a barrel while the struggling U.S. Dollar Index, gripped in oversold conditions, is down more than one-tenth of a point at 96.18…Mexico’s socialist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador continues to battle with the private sector on energy policy…Lopez Obrador has allowed officials to call into question contracts worth billions of dollars signed by companies from Canada, the United States and Europe under the previous administration, setting up a potentially messy legal scrap (and ultimately an exodus of business)…Lopez Obrador is also complaining about some Canadian mining firms allegedly “behind on their tax payments“…if that’s the case, they’re being taxed too much and that’s not good…the U.S. Labor Department reported this morning that its Consumer Price Index fell 0.1% in May, after a 0.8% rise in April…the data was weaker than consensus forecasts as economists were expecting to see no change in inflation…stripping out volatile food and energy prices, core inflation also dropped more than expected, falling 0.1% in last month…
2. Big restaurant companies with eateries in a number of states are struggling to navigate a thicket of rules as they seek to reopen dining rooms closed by the coronavirus pandemic…one of their biggest challenges, they say, is parsing the sometimes conflicting, sometimes minute guidelines set out by governments and chain owners…McDonald’s franchisees must follow a 59-page guide the chain created for reopening, while Arby’s, the roast-beef sandwich chain owned by private-equity-backed Inspire Brands, issued a 96-page guide to franchisees last month, according to a copy viewed by The Wall Street Journal…large franchisees have been engines of growth for many of the largest U.S. restaurant brands, but the rules for reopening are testing their businesses…while they have bigger operations and financial reserves than independent restaurants, the money spent to make stores ready to reopen comes out of their pockets…figuring out what, exactly, is allowable – and when – has been a headache, they say…everyone in the restaurant sector is facing challenges…ironically, though, this has never been a better time to visit your favourite dining establishments – they’re not as busy, they’re clean and sanitized like never before, and owners are focused on delivering the best experience possible to recapture business…
3. The global economy will suffer the biggest peace-time downturn in a century before it emerges next year from a coronavirus-inflicted recession, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said today…updating its outlook, the OECD forecast the global economy would contract 6% this year before bouncing back with 5.2% growth in 2021 – providing the outbreak is kept under control…however, the Paris-based policy forum said an equally possible scenario of a 2nd wave of contagion this year could see the global economy contract 7.6% before growing only 2.8% next year…“By the end of 2021, the loss of income exceeds that of any previous recession over the last 100 years outside wartime, with dire and long-lasting consequences for people, firms and governments,” OECD chief economist Laurence Boone wrote in an introduction to the refreshed outlook…the U.S economy is seen contracting 7.3% this year before growing 4.1% next year…in the event of a 2nd outbreak, the U.S. recession would reach 8.5% this year and the economy would grow only 1.9% in 2021, the OECD said….the Canadian economy is expected to decline 8% in 2020 and recover to 3.9% growth in 2021…a 2nd wave of infection this year would cause the economy to shrink 9.4% and grow only 1.5% in 2021…
4. Tesla (TSLA, NASDAQ) has rallied above its record closing high, and touched the $1,000 per share mark in early trading today, after data showing sales in China rebounded in May…car sales in China rose last month for the first time in almost a year and Teslas were the top selling new-energy vehicles with more than 11,000 units sold, according to the China Passenger Car Association…the electric-vehicle maker’s shares have jumped this week, surpassing February’s all-time high closing price…registrations of Tesla vehicles in China rose to a record in March after the company resumed production at its Shanghai plant that was temporarily idled because of the Wuhan COVID-19 pandemic…in April, registrations of Tesla vehicles fell to 4,633, compared with 12,710 the month before…the California-based company has cut prices in China twice in the past 2 months amid rising competition…
5. The Dow’s 6-session winning streak was snapped yesterday but the NASDAQ managed to push above 10,000, albeit briefly, for the first time ever, and it’s slightly above 10,000 in early trading today…the Dow is off 139 points as of 7:00 am Pacific…the U.S. 12-month forward price-to-earnings now stands just shy of 23 times, in its 96th percentile based on data starting in 1985 and only surpassed at the peak of the tech bubble in the late 1990s, according Oxford Economics…however, these are extraordinary times…most “expert” analysts are making the mistake of telling the market what they think it’s supposed to be doing right now, instead of listening to Mr. Market…in Toronto, the TSX has slipped 66 points…Bombardier (BBD.B, TSX) is facing the boot from Canada’s main index…Bombardier’s share price (62 cents in early trading today) has been below $1 since early March, potentially making it ineligible to stay in the S&P/TSX Composite Index and in turn the S&P/TSX 60 Index of large companies…a departure from the index could hurt demand for Bombardier’s shares as ETFs drop the stock…the Venture is up 2 points at 567…Artemis Gold (ARTG, TSX-V) keeps charging higher, up 55 cents at $2.89, after announcing yesterday that it has signed an asset purchase agreement with New Gold (NGD, TSX) to acquire the Blackwater Gold Project in central British Columbia (9.5 million ounces, Measured and Indicated)…Artemis will pay New Gold $190 million in cash comprising $140 million upon closing of the transaction and $50 million payable 12 months following closing…KABN Systems (KABN, CSE) started trading on the CSE this morning after successfully completing its RTO of Torino Power including a $2.2 million raise at 15 cents a share…KABN is a Canadian FinTech company that specializes in continuous online identity verification, management and monetization and is currently in development to launch a digital banking and financial services platform…with the evolving macroenvironment and the increasing amount of time spent online, digital identity is becoming more important as users look to work, play, educate, game and shop virtually and will need to protect, manage and control the use of their digital identity…KABN, which has only 65.7 million shares outstanding, is trading at 20.5 cents as of 7:00 am Pacific…Haywood Securities analyst Geordie Mark has started coverage of Fiore Gold (F, TSX-V), one of our favorite Gold plays we first highlighted for subscribers when it was trading in the 40’s…“Fiore is on the cusp of a new phase of its organic growth plan having now bedded down incremental production expansion at the Pan Gold Mine in Nevada, and together with mine and near mine exploration discovery looks well positioned to extend Pan’s operating life. With the projected start of the Goldrock mine, only five miles away, in early 2023, we see the company growing to a dual asset 110,000 ounce Gold per annum producer over the nearer term”, Mark wrote…
6. Uranium play Baselode Energy (FIND, TSX-V) made its Venture debut this morning…the company has less than 29 million shares outstanding with only 9.8 million shares in the float…CEO James Sykes is a renowned uranium exploration geologist who has been involved in the discovery of over 550 million pounds Uranium in the Athabasca Basin…most notably, he was integral in the discovery of NexGen Energy’s (NXE, TSX) Arrow deposit…Baselode will be focused on discovering high-grade, basement-hosted, near-surface uranium deposits in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin, host of the world’s highest-grade Uranium deposits with average grades in the basin showing ~3.9% U3O8 compared to the rest of the world average of ~0.15% U3O8…the Athabasca Basin accounts for 15% of global Uranium production…Baselode says it will release details on its assets, exploration plans and timelines in the coming days…
7. The President of Silicon Valley medical technology company Arrayit (ARYC, OTC) was charged yesterday with misleading investors by falsely claiming the company had developed a government-approved blood test for COVID-19, the first criminal securities fraud prosecution related to the pandemic… Arrayit President Mark Schena was charged with one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud after authorities said his company billed Medicare $69 million for coronavirus and unnecessary allergy tests…Schena touted that the company based in Sunnyvale had the only laboratory in the world that offered “revolutionary microarray technology” that allowed it to test for allergies and the coronavirus with the same finger-stick test kit, prosecutors said…beginning in 2018 and through February 2020, Schena and other employees allegedly paid bribes to recruiters and doctors to run an allergy screening test for 120 allergens ranging from stinging insects to food allergens on every patient, authorities said…as the COVID-19 pandemic began to escalate, Schena instructed patient recruiters and clinics to add its test for the coronavirus, prosecutors said…he also is accused of publishing false claims on social media and in company emails to investors about Arrayit’s ability to provide accurate, fast, reliable and cheap coronavirus tests in compliance with state and federal regulations…Schena told investigators he thought developing a test for the coronavirus based on his allergy test would be simple, “like a pastry chef” who switches from selling “strawberry pies” to selling “rhubarb and strawberry pies“…Arrayit never disclosed that the Food and Drug Administration informed it on April 17 that its COVID-19 test was not at an acceptable level of performance, federal prosecutors said…the company also claimed partnerships with Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and public institutions, without disclosing they were either trivial or did not exist, federal prosecutors said…Arrayit’s stock price, albeit in the pennies, more than doubled by mid-March even as the broader market was crashing…“The allure of cheap reliable alternatives to today’s standard blood tests panels has captured the imagination of the health care industry, making such alternatives a prime subject for fraudsters,” said U.S. Attorney David L. Anderson of the Northern District of California…
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Just have to say it: SONA BOOOOM!
Comment by Foz1971 — June 10, 2020 @ 1:27 pm
Looks like it was gas and not water poured on, now maybe we’ll start getting some news flow from a lot of these plays, would be about time already.!!
Comment by Laddy — June 10, 2020 @ 1:47 pm