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1. Spot Gold has traded between $1,769 and $1,747 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific the yellow metal has eased off $18 an ounce to $1,747, though it’s still in a good position to post its 3rd straight weekly gain…Commerzbank: “The U.S. economy will continue to rely on massive monetary and fiscal policy support. The expansion of central bank liquidity and public debt resulting from this continues to argue for a robust demand for Gold as a safe haven and store of value”…investors are buying into Gold ETFs at the fastest pace since 2016 (inflows into Silver ETFs are even brisker right now)…that buying has produced about a 20% jump in ETF Gold holdings compared to a year ago…interestingly, based on the last 15 years of data, whenever the combined quantity of Gold inside all the Gold ETFs has increased by 20% or more year-over-year, the Gold price performed brilliantly over the ensuing 1, 3 and 5-year time frames…Silver has slipped 21 cents to $17.59…base metals are pushing higher…Copper is up a penny at $2.68, Nickel has jumped 14 cents to $5.75 while Zinc is up slightly at 93 cents…Crude Oil is 32 cents lower at $38.40 while the U.S. Dollar Index is up one-tenth of a point to 97.57…Texas has thrown its economic reopening partly into reverse in the face of a spike in Wuhan COVID-19 cases, halting plans to ease lockdown restrictions and banning elective surgeries in its 4 biggest cities to free up hospital beds…the order from Governor Greg Abbott is the clearest sign yet that states in the U.S. south and west may be forced to reimpose strict physical distancing measures just a month after giving companies the green light to resume business…Apple (AAPL, NASDAQ) closed an additional 14 U.S. retail stores today because of recent increases in COVID-19 cases, bringing the number shut after recently reopening to 32…the closings will affect stores across Florida…the decision means that 16 of Apple’s 18 stores in the state have been closed again, with just those in Jacksonville and Sarasota still open…Microsoft (MSFT, NASDAQ) unveiled a “new approach to retail” this morning, announcing it will permanently close all of its Microsoft Store retail locations…it will instead focus on its online store at Microsoft.com where customers can go for support, sales, training and more…alternative data sources that track hourly employees show the U.S. jobs recovery slowing recently, as the growth in COVID-19 cases accelerates in major cities such as Houston, Phoenix and Los Angeles…the Federal Reserve says the U.S. banking system is strong but has slapped on new restrictions to keep it that way after yesterday’s results of the annual Dodd-Frank stress test…banks must suspend share repurchase programs and keep dividend payments at current levels for Q3…“While I expect banks will continue to manage their capital actions and liquidity risk prudently, and in support of the real economy, there is material uncertainty about the trajectory for the economic recovery,” Fed Vice Chair Randall Quarles said in a statement…what kind of summer are in we in for?…Greater New York Black Lives Matter President Hawk Newsome in a Fox News interview: “If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. All right? And I could be speaking…figuratively. I could be speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation”…
2. U.S. consumer spending increased 8.2% in May, a sign that the economy is growing again, but a rise in virus infections threatens the nascent recovery…personal consumption – how much Americans spent on goods and services – increased at a record pace in May from a month earlier, the Commerce Department said this morning, in what was the biggest 1-month gain since record keeping began in 1959…the increase suggests many Americans were eager to return to the marketplace after a 2-month shutdown caused by the pandemic – and a surge in federal stimulus money…consumer spending represents more than two-thirds of U.S. GDP…the big question now is whether the growth will continue…household incomes fell 4.2% last month, as the one-time stimulus money faded…new virus infections have picked up in nearly 3 dozen states recently, a Wall Street Journal analysis showed this week, and some businesses that reopened have shut back down…
3. Left-wing politicians in Michigan have been handed a victory in the courts: Enbridge (ENB, TSX, NYSE) has been ordered to temporarily halt operations of its Line 5 Crude Oil pipeline by a Michigan judge…Circuit Court Judge James Jamo ruled against the continued operation of the conduit’s west line and prevented it from restarting the east line…the orders will remain in effect until a hearing on the state’s request for a preliminary injunction…it’s a win for radical Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel, 2 far left Oil haters, who have tried to shut down the pipeline since taking office last year…Enbridge had planned a $500 million (U.S.) project to replace the line and enclose the segment that runs under the Great Lakes in a tunnel to improve its safety…
4. Two leading Oil price reporting agencies separately launched new U.S. Crude benchmarks today as part of an effort to rival the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures contract…the move from S&P Global Platts and Argus Media comes as both agencies seek to break away from the traditional landlocked system, just over 2 months after U.S. Crude futures plunged into negative territory for the first time in history…S&P Global Platts said its new benchmark for U.S. Crude, called Platts American GulfCoast Select (AGS), would reflect the value of waterborne light sweet Crude supplied from the Permian Basin in west Texas and New Mexico on major pipelines to the Gulf…Argus’ new outright daily Crude price assessment, Argus AGS, is also designed to reflect the growing importance of the U.S. Gulf Coast as a major export hub and to address ongoing market concerns about the landlocked WTI Crude benchmark…
5. The Dow is off 293 points as of 7:00 am Pacific following the release of the Fed’s bank stress test results and disappointing quarterly numbers out of Nike (NKE, NYSE)…COVID-19 concerns are also top of mind, along with Joe Biden’s rising poll numbers…in Toronto, the TSX has slipped 82 points…the Gold Index, enjoying a strong week, has retreated 5 points to 327…the Venture continues to outpace all markets and is up 4 more points at 600, hitting a new 52-week high in early trading…this week’s big winner – Vizsla Resources (VZLA, TSX-V) – is up another 4 cents at 86 cents…Vizsla delivered 2 hot holes earlier this week in a new high-grade discovery at its Panuco Silver-Gold Project in Mexico…drilling continues…as reported Wednesday, another hole in progress has intersected veins 60 m north of NP-20–03 (2 separate high-grade sections) beneath the old Napolean mine…Amex Exploration (AMX, TSX-V) has jumped another 19 cents to $2.59 following yesterday’s news of more high-grade Gold intercepts at depth in the High-Grade Zone at Perron, in addition to 2 pending holes with “abundant visible Gold“…Galway Resources (GWM, TSX-V) is trading at a new all-time high of 68 cents after closing a $17.35 million financing yesterday…Eric Sprott took nearly 20% of it…Freegold Ventures (FVL, TSX) surged past the $1 level yesterday as the drill turns at Golden Summit in Alaska…FVL has eased off 2 pennies in early trading to $1.10…PureGold (PGM, TSX-V) has hit a new high of $1.70 in early trading…the company says it remains on schedule to pour its first Gold at Red Lake in Q4…
6. Garibaldi Resources (GGI, TSX-V) has commenced its 2020 drill program at Nickel Mountain with the first holes targeting a large borehole EM conductor on the eastern side of the Lower Discovery Zone…those conductive plates almost always represent massive sulphides…2020 exploration will be focused along a highly prospective 2-km-long east-southeast trending corridor interpreted to be a significant magmatic pathway for the E&L Intrusion…meanwhile, a surface EM survey has revealed a high priority distinct EM anomaly 250 m southwest of the Northwest Zone massive sulphide outcrop (this is also encouraging for Metallis Resources – MTS, TSX-V – with its K9 Nickel target about 2 km southwest of the E&L)…Jeremy Hanson, Garibaldi VP-Exploration, stated: “We are excited to start our 2020 exploration season after a very productive winter analyzing data and generating targets. We have several high priority drilling targets along trend of the E&L system that will be tested at the beginning of our drilling campaign, including mineralized chambers discovered at the end of 2019, surface EM anomalies and BHEM anomalies. Over the winter we also developed a detailed list of geochemical, geophysical and geological field targets across the rest of the property that we are eager to prospect with boots on the ground. Building out the scale of this discovery is our goal over the coming months”…BHEM on drill hole EL-19–72 displays a large north trending and mostly untested conductive plate extending off the eastern side of the LDZ where the massive sulphide lens is thickening to the north as evidenced by one of the final drill holes last year, EL-19–82…it featured 9.83 m grading 7.2% Ni, 3.6% Cu and 4.8 g/t Pt-Pd-Au within 32.75 m @ 2.7% Ni and 1.6% Cu (135.25 m to 168 m)…GGI is up 2 cents at 74 cents through the first 30 minutes of trading…
7. As of May 25, 81% of known COVID-19 deaths in Canada were long-term care residents – almost double the OECD average, according to a new report, with most of those in Ontario and Quebec…the report, from CIHI, highlights ways Canada started at a disadvantage – fewer nurses, older residents and less coherent regulation – compared to other countries…however, Ontario and Quebec’s failure to set up safeguards at the outset of the health crisis – failing to mandate PPE, isolate infected residents or perform broad testing – seemed to doom the long-term care industry, the report said…the CIHI report categorized 16 countries by how quickly they responded to the crisis…countries that were slow to act – Canada, France, Norway, Spain, the U.S. and Britain – reported a higher proportion of deaths in care homes…other countries, such as Hungary and the Netherlands, had fewer than 20% of COVID-19 deaths in care homes…
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Nice opportunity here for Gold and Gold stocks to show some “safe haven” status relative to the indices.
Comment by Daniel — June 26, 2020 @ 8:30 am
“Drills” turn, I was a little curious about that with Ggi, sounds good, the whole GT starting to warm up..maybe you can answer this for me jon,AUX, is the stock split done already? Just wondering if the amount of shares I buy now would change… that question was thrown at me and couldn’t answer it, not sure. Thx.
Comment by Laddy — June 26, 2020 @ 2:14 pm