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1. Spot Gold has traded between $1,734 and $1,714 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific the yellow metal is unchanged at $1,723…astute investors continue to buy any dips…Commerzbank’s latest comments on Gold: “The massive increase in liquidity by not only the Fed but other central banks pumping much money into the market is helping Gold. We see Gold rising towards $1,800 in the 2nd half of the year driven by the massive increase in liquidity by the central banks which should lead to currency devaluation”…Silver has jumped 18 cents to $17.55…base metals are pushing higher on bullish economic news and reports of a Trump infrastructure plan to be rolled out soon…Copper, Nickel and Zinc are at $2.61, $5.85 and 91 cents, respectively…Cobalt is off slightly at $13.15…Crude Oil has climbed $1.71 a barrel to $38.83 while the U.S. Dollar Index is up one-fifth of a point at 96.90…Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to announce today that the Canada Emergency Response Benefit program (CERB) will be extended until the end of the summer…yesterday, Trudeau signalled the announcement was on the horizon, saying that the government was “working on a solution to extend the benefit for people who can’t return to work yet”…the problem with CERB, businesses are saying, is that it has actually created a disincentive for many people to return to work – they can earn more money just staying a home, taking the summer off…socialism is wonderful, isn’t it?…the global economy is on track for a more significant contraction than the International Monetary Fund estimated back in April, the institution’s chief economist said this morning…“For the first time since the Great Depression, both advanced and emerging market economies will be in recession in 2020. The forthcoming June World Economic Outlook Update is likely to show negative growth rates even worse than previously estimated,” Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s chief economist, said in a blog post…Wall Street isn’t so pessimistic…

2. Renewed shopping drove a record 17.7% increase in U.S. retail sales in May, though total spending remained below levels before the Wuhan COVID-19 virus struck America…May’s jump in retail spending marked the biggest monthly increase in records dating back to 1992, and followed the largest monthly drop on record in April, a revised 14.7% seasonally adjusted decline, the Commerce Department said this morning…retail sales totalled $486 billion in May, just 10% below February’s $527 billion…May’s increase followed 3 straight months of declining retail sales, and offered an additional sign that the worst of the economic shock from the pandemic occurred in late March and April when widespread shutdowns to contain the virus were in place across the country…Americans increased their outlays across the board in May…the report showed particularly hard-hit retail categories during the coronavirus, such as apparel and furniture sales, posted strong gains last month, with sales at clothing stores rising 188% from the prior month and furniture sales jumping 89.7%…online sales continued to gain…the U.S. consumer drives about two-thirds of GDP…

3. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned moments ago about “significant uncertainty” regarding the pace of the U.S. economic recovery and said small businesses and lower-income and minority Americans are particularly at risk…during the first day of his semiannual testimony before Congress, Powell told the Senate banking committee that while some indicators have shown improvement, there’s still a long way to go as the economy regains its footing from the coronavirus pandemic…“The levels of output and employment remain far below their pre-pandemic levels, and significant uncertainty remains about the timing and strength of the recovery,” he said in prepared remarks…“Much of that economic uncertainty comes from uncertainty about the path of the disease and the effects of measures to contain it. Until the public is confident that the disease is contained, a full recovery is unlikely”…Powell’s comments could give Gold another boost today while tempering some of the early morning enthusiasm on Wall Street…

4. Investors have rarely been this flush with cash, and that bodes well for continued strength this summer in the equity markets…grappling with the most economic uncertainty in decades and volatility on Wall Street, many investors have rushed into money-market funds…assets in the funds recently swelled to about $4.6 trillion, the highest level on record, according to data from Refinitiv Lipper going back to 1992…it is a “pantry-loading and survival” mentality, said Peter Crane, founder of Crane Data, which tracks the industry…“It’s blown the lid off the previous record high”…assets in money-market funds are one, but not the only, measure of cash holdings, and investors have socked away cash in other places, too…other measures, like bank deposits, are also at a high…analysts attribute the flight to cash to the pandemic, which spurred an immediate rush out of stocks, bonds and commodities…meanwhile, stimulus checks sent to millions of Americans as part of the economic rescue package helped add to the heap…

5. Tesla (TSLA, NASDAQ) will buy cobalt from Glencore, the world’s biggest miner of the metal, as the carmaker looks to avoid a future supply squeeze on the key battery metal, according to reports this morning…the contract will help Tesla shore up its Cobalt supply for new plants in China and Germany…the opening of Tesla’s so-called gigafactory in China this year has helped propel its shares to a record, as investors turn bullish on Elon Musk’s ambition to transform the company into a global mass-market automaker…while there’s enough Cobalt supply for now, demand is expected to surge in the coming years as Tesla expands in China and Europe and Volkswagen AG to BMW AG roll out fleets of electric vehicles…warnings about long-term shortages caused Cobalt prices to spike in 2017 and 2018, prompting Musk to work on reducing Tesla’s reliance on the metal…even so, the accord signals that the metal will remain key to the company’s expansion over the next few years…

6. The Dow has surged 759 points through the first 30 minutes of trading, buoyed by much better-than-expected retail numbers and reports that the Trump administration will soon roll out a $1 trillion infrastructure proposal…in Toronto, the TSX is up 312 points while the Venture has added 7 points to 566 as it works through a resistance band that continues into the upper 580’s…North American infrastructure play Cematrix (CVX, TSX-V) is up 3 pennies at 55 cents after retreating to its 20-day SMA…Great Bear Resources (GBR, TSX-V) has hit the $15 level for the first time in early trading…it’s up $1 at $14.97 as of 7:00 am Pacific…momentum continues to push Tudor Gold (TUD, TSX-V), Artemis Gold (ARTG, TSX-V) and Else Nutrition (BABY, TSX-V) higher…Canada Silver Cobalt (CCW, TSX-V) has closed a $1.2 million private placement at 60 cents (flow-through) while also commencing a series of wedge holes into a new exceptionally high-grade vein discovered 95 m below the Robinson Zone at Castle East…wedge holes, aided by a custom-built downhole camera used in this Camp for the first time, proved extremely effective last winter in helping to delineate an initial 7.6 million Inferred ounces of Silver in 2 areas of the Robinson Zone at an average grade of 250 oz/ton in the most significant grassroots Silver discovery in Northern Ontario in half a century…CCW moved up 6 cents on the news yesterday as it attempts to conquer resistance in the mid-50’s…Gatekeeper Systems (GSI, TSX-V) has hit a new multi-year high of 29 cents this morning…Gatekeeper is a leading provider of intelligent video solutions designed to provide a safer transportation environment for children, passengers, and public safety personnel on multiple transportation modes…the company uses AI, video analytics and mobile data collectors to inter-connect public transit assets as part of intelligent transportation systems for Smart City initiatives…KABN Systems (KABN, CSE) announced this morning that it has entered into an agreement to integrate its Liquid Avatar platform with Disrupted Logic Interactive’s (DLI) ctalyst platform to enhance the experience of on-line and e-sports gamers…informative article on KABN in this morning’s Financial Post – How Digital Data Is Making E-Commerce Smarter…

7. One in 4 chief executives in Alberta are concerned their businesses might not survive the economic collapse triggered by COVID-19, according to a new survey…Alberta is Canada’s largest Oil and gas producing province and is widely expected to record the sharpest economic contraction and drop in employment this year, following the triple threat of an anti-West far left federal government, the pandemic-induced business closures and weak Oil prices…the Business Council of Alberta published a survey of its members yesterday that showed 26% of respondents didn’t know if their “organization will survive this crisis until a vaccine is widely available or we otherwise reach herd immunity”…

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