BullMarketRun.com

Gold has traded between $1,315 and $1,325 so far today…as of 7:45 am Pacific, bullion is down $1 an ounce at $1,322…Silver is off 7 cents at $21.75…Copper is flat at $3.26…Crude Oil has eased 40 cents to $102.35 while the U.S. Dollar Index has dropped one-tenth of a point to 80.22…

Holdings of the largest Gold-backed ETF, SPDR Gold Trust GLD, dropped 0.7% on Wednesday from Tuesday, and the largest Silver-backed ETF, iShares Silver Trust SLV, was unaltered during the same period…

Switzerland sent more than 80% of its Gold and Silver bullion and coin exports to Asia last month, the Swiss Federal Customs Administration said today in an emailed report…it imported most from the U.K….Hong Kong was the top destination at 44% on a value basis, with India at 14%, the Bern-based customs agency said in its first breakdown of the Gold trade data since 1980…Singapore accounted for 8.6% of exports, the United Arab Emirates 7.9% and China 6.3%…China, in turn, is importing from Hong Kong…this is another example of the shift Gold holdings from west to east…

Chinese Refined Copper Imports Jump

Chinese imports of refined Copper surged around a quarter in January from the month before to their second-highest on record, as buyers brought shipments due to the Lunar New Year in February and with investors increasing spot purchases as a financing tool…customs data today showed that the world’s top consumer and producer of refined Copper imported 397,459 tonnes of refined metal in January, compared to a record 406,937 tonnes in December 2011…January imports rose 63.5% from a year ago and beat forecasts by traders and analysts who had anticipated lower arrivals in January as many factories close from the middle of that month due to the Lunar New Year holidays…

Today’s Markets

Asia

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei has snapped a six-week losing streak, posting its biggest weekly gain since in nearly three months…the Nikkei surged 416 points to close at 14866…

China’s Shanghai Composite slipped 25 points, however, to close at 2114…yesterday’s Chinese manufacturing data ran counter to numbers released in the past two weeks that showed unexpected strength in the country’s economy…Chinese foreign direct investment rose more than 16% on year in January, the country’s ministry of commerce said Tuesday…on February 12, trade data showed an unexpected surge in Chinese imports and exports last month, another sign of economic health…overall, the recent robust data from China, along with concerns of a flagging U.S. recovery, have helped Gold prices gain more than 9% this year…many investors, however, have taken the positive Chinese data with a grain of salt, acknowledging that they may be prone to distortions…the weakness in the U.S. numbers, on the other hand, has been partially blamed on frigid weather throughout much of the country in December and January…

Europe

European markets are modestly higher in late trading overseas…

North America

The Dow is up 42 points as of 7:45 am Pacific while the TSX has added 39 points…we’re devastated about this – Tim Hortons Inc (THI, TSX) has decided to pull Cold Stone Cremery from its Canadian outlets…the ending of the five-year ice cream partnership in Canada came as Tim Hortons missed analyst profit estimates in latest quarter…“While [Cold Stone] is an excellent brand and a very high-quality product offering, we have determined that the fit was not ideal with our strategy of price, value and speed in the Canadian restaurants,” chief executive officer Marc Caira told a conference call with analysts…

On the B.C. exploration scene, Pretium Resources Inc. (PVG, TSX) has arranged a $20 million flow-through financing at $8.05 and $8.80 per share… meanwhile,  Thompson Creek Metals Company Inc. (TCM, TSX) has reported that its Mt. Milligan Copper and Gold mine has achieved commercial production this week…

TSX Updated Chart

The TSX is at a critical point…as you can see in this 9-month daily chart from John, the Index is threatening to break out above an upsloping channel…it has traded within this channel since last summer…

Venture Update

The Venture, which has performed incredibly well on Fridays for the past several months, continues to gain traction above the psychologically important 1000 level…it’s up another 4 points to 1019 through the first hour of trading today…NexGen Energy Ltd. (NXE, TSX-V) continues to push higher after reporting a discovery Wednesday at its Rook 1 uranium project…it opened at 48 cents and quickly surged from there, reaching an all-time high of 65 cents in early trading…it has backed off slightly since and is up 9 cents at 56 cents as of 7:45 am Pacific…Eskay Mining Corp. (ESK, TSX-V), which we mentioned Tuesday when it was trading at 6 cents, has broken above resistance at 7.5 cents…it’s up 5.5 cents at 12.5 cents on Venture volume of 230,000 shares as of 7:45 am Pacific…

More Moves In The Sheslay Valley:  Alix Resources Corp. (AIX, TSX-V) Acquires Claims Contiguous To Northern Borders of Sheslay, Grizzly & Hat

An interesting development this morning in the Sheslay Valley area play…we thought others had the inside track on this, but upstart Alix Resources (AIX, TSX-V) has acquired strategic claims from a private company contiguous to the entire northern border of Prosper Gold Corp.’s (PGX, TSX-V) Sheslay Project, the northwestern corner of Garibaldi Resources Corp.’s (GGI, TSX-V) Grizzly Property, and the northern border of Doubleview Capital Corp.’s (DBV, TSX-V) Hat Property…a “hat trick”, so to speak, for Alix…this news just hit the wire a few moments ago…AIX is up half a penny at 3.5 cents as of 7:45 am Pacific…we’ll have a chance to report on the significance of these claims Monday…

In the meantime, below is a “big picture” view of AIX from a technical perspective with a 4-year weekly chart just produced…the ADX indicator shows a bullish overall trend, the 50-day SMA has reversed to the upside after being in decline since November, and RSI(14) is well positioned to climb higher…there is chart resistance at 5 cents…as always, perform your own due diligence…

Probe Mines Ltd. (PRB, TSX-V)

Probe Mines (PRB, TSX-V) has eased off a bit from its recent all-time high of $3.40…any pullbacks in PRB since the second quarter of last year have consistency proven to be buying opportunities…earlier this week, the company reported more excellent drill results from its Borden Lake Gold Project in northern Ontario…holes BL14-582, 583, 584 and 586 are of particular importance as they demonstrate increasing grades at shallow depths (220 to 250 metres) within the northwest end of the HGZ (sections 950mSE to 1100mSE) and indicate that the HGZ is still improving within its known strike length…

Below is an updated 2.5-year weekly chart from John…there was a confirmed breakout recently above Fib. resistance at $2.99, so that area should now provide strong support…PRB is off a nickel at $3.10 through the first 75 minutes of trading…

Sante Fe Metals Corp. (SFM, TSX-V)

Pinetree Capital (PNP, TSX-V) has been been forced to liquidate some of its holdings recently to raise cash levels, and rumor has it that Sante Fe Metals (SFM, TSX-V) was one of the victims of Pinetree selling in recent days…technically, on the daily chart, SFM has become quite oversold and in the fact the RSI(2) shows extreme oversold conditions…as a result, bargain hunters may wish to take a look at SFM as we believe it will recover as the company prepares for another drill program at its Sully Project in southeast British Columbia…SFM is focusing on two large-scale, vertical and parallel sedimentary exhalative (sedex) targets…both the east and west targets are located within the broad four-kilometre-by-three-kilometre Sully gravity anomaly that has been the focus of exploration drilling to date…the name of the property is derived from the world-class Sullivan mine sedex deposit, located at Kimberley, 27 km west of Sully…

Below is a “big picture” 3-year weekly SFM chart from John…critical support at 3 cents held this week despite the dumping of shares which our research shows is likely over…

Mason Graphite Ltd. (LLG, TSX-V) Updated Chart

Note: John and Jon hold share positions in GGI, DBV and AIX.  Jon also holds a share position in PGX.