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Gold has traded between $1,285 and $1,297 so far today…as of 7:15 am Pacific, bullion is off $6 an ounce at $1,288…Silver is down a nickel to $19.33…Copper has slid 3 pennies to $3.12…Crude Oil has jumped $1.08 a barrel to $103.41 on new violence in Libya, while the U.S. Dollar Index is up nearly one-fifth of a point to 80.19…

Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the top Gold-backed ETF, fell by 1.79 tonnes yesterday…investors are keeping an eye on the Fed’s April policy meeting minutes due later today…while the central bank is not expected to raise rates until at least the middle of next year, market players will be keen to learn whether officials discussed the myriad issues around policy normalization…

Commodity investors have withdrawn a net $8.5 billion year-to-date, despite the first quarter being one of the strongest return periods for the sector in the past two years, Barclays stated in a research report yesterday…the biggest outflows came from the commodity index swap sector, with around $10 billion withdrawn…most of the investors in commodity index swaps are pension funds, endowments and other long-term asset managers…slightly offsetting the outflows in swaps were modest gains in exchange-traded products, Barclays said, with ETPs seeing a third consecutive month of inflows in April…Barclays said the net $8.5 billion reduction is much less than the $16 billion that came out of commodities at the same time last year. “The difference this year is that ETP investment flows have been positive rather than deeply negative as was the case in early 2013 when $18 billion of mainly Gold-backed ETP investments were liquidated,” they said.

Today’s Equity Markets

Asia

China’s Shanghai Composite gained 17 points overnight to close at 2025 while Japanese shares pared losses after the Nikkei fell to a new one-month low below the 14,000 level earlier in the session…

Europe

European shares have reversed higher in late trading overseas…

North America

After three triple digit losses in the previous five sessions, the Dow is up 126 points as of 7:15 am Pacific…the TSX has added 63 points while the Venture has gained 3 points to 973…

U.S. Dollar Index – Two Squeezes In Play

The U.S. Dollar Index has so far managed to hold critical support at 79…its direction will obviously have important consequences for Gold, and keep in mind that a falling U.S. Dollar Index historically has been bullish for the Venture…

The long-term Dollar Index trend is not very favorable with declining RSI(14) highs and a 200-day moving average (SMA) that reversed to the downside late last year and is currently providing resistance just above 80…

Below is a 24-year monthly chart that shows the “Big Picture” of a currency in decline since 2001, but Dollar “bulls” are still in abundance…there are two “squeezes” currently in play – it’ll be fascinating to see how this all unfolds…a break below 79 would bring some fear into this market…

Venture 3-Year Weekly Chart

As per one of our reader’s requests this morning, below is a re-post of John’s 3-year weekly Venture chart yesterday…note the RSI(14) uptrend line in place for almost a year now, last year’s double bottom and the breakout above the long-term downtrend line…the drop from the March high of 1050 to current levels (a test of the strong support band) is a healthy technical event and a bargain-hunting opportunity in our view…

Source Exploration Corp. (SOP, TSX-V) Update

Source Exploration (SOP, TSX-V) has some major strength behind it with Chairman David Baker (he managed and grew Goldbrook Ventures until it was ultimately sold in 2012 to its Chinese joint venture partners for approximately $100 million) and a solid geological team…in April, Source reported some stellar drill results from its Santa Cruz target at its Las Minas Project 270 km east of Mexico City, and last week the company closed a $1.2 million private placement at 12 cents per unit…

Below is a 3-year weekly SOP chart showing strong support around current levels…the stock has been consolidating after touching its highest level (15 cents) since late 2012, and the overall bullish trend remains intact given its rising moving averages and according to the ADX indicator…SOP closed at 11 cents yesterday…

Petromanas Enery Inc. (PMI, TSX-V) Update

Just over a week ago, we pointed out how Petromanas Energy (PMI, TSX-V) has been strongly supported by its rising 50-day SMA…the stock recently retreated to that level again and bargain hunters who took advantage of the opportunity are up nearly 50% with PMI climbing to 33.5 cents as of 7:15 am Pacific…Petromanas, which is targeting high-impact oil and gas resources in Europe and Australia, has been on the rebound since last summer when it bottomed at 8 cents…below is an updated 3-year weekly chart…strong buy pressure has replaced sell pressure which was dominant since mid-2012…the next measured Fib. resistance is in the high 30’s…

Edge Resources Inc. (EDE, TSX-V)

Fundamentally, there is a turnaround in Edge Resources (EDE, TSX-V) as demonstrated by the company’s May 8 news release…this is being reflected technically as well with EDE staging a confirmed breakout above a basing channel between 10 and 16 cents…volume has increased significantly which is also a bullish sign…the 16-cent area becomes new support…EDE is off 1.5 cents at 17 cents as of 7:15 am Pacific…as always, perform your own due diligence…

Note:  John, Jon and Terry do not hold share positions in PMI, SOP or EDE.