Gold has traded between $1,193 and $1,202 so far today…as of 8:00 am Pacific, bullion is flat at $1,198…Silver is up 17 cents at $16.05…Copper has added 4 pennies to $2.90…Crude Oil, after a volatile day yesterday when it traded in an 8% range, has rallied more than $2 a barrel to $56.25 while the U.S. Dollar Index has climbed one-fifth of a point to 89.41…
Commodity analysts at Capital Economics are among the most bullish among banks in their outlook for the Gold price in 2015…they believe that bullion still has plenty of upside as they expect prices to end 2015 around $1,300 an ounce…not only is Capital Economics expecting a solid performance by Gold in 2015, but they also see that strength accelerating during the year with prices ending 2015 around $1,400. “Indeed, given the unfavorable market conditions this year, Gold has actually held up remarkably well,” said Julian Jessop, head of commodity research at the research firm. “The downside for the Gold price from current levels is surely now limited.”
The Indian government reported today that there has been almost a 4-fold increase in seizures of smuggled Gold from April to September this year compared to the same period a year ago…
Well-respected Scotiabank economist Patricia Mohr ranks Nickel and Zinc as her top picks for investors in the metals space in 2015…they were the 3rd and 5th best performing metals this year through mid-December with gains of 19.8% and 11.6%, respectively…
Today’s Equity Markets
Asia
China’s Shanghai Composite is continuing its relentless march to the 3200 mark, the next Fib. resistance level…the Shanghai surged another 52 points overnight as investors cheered yesterday’s 400+ point gain in the Dow and the Federal Reserve’s pledge to be patient in increasing interest rates…
Japan’s Nikkei average shot up 411 points to close at 17621, a 1-and-a-half year high…the Bank of Japan kept its monetary policy steady at its final meeting of the year, as had been expected…but the central bank raised its economic assessment, citing signs of a pickup in exports…
Europe
European markets were mixed today…on the data front, German search group GfK said its consumer climate indicator, based on a survey of around 2,000 Germans, forecast a rise to 9.0 in January, from 8.7 in December…
Russia’s ruble strengthened slightly today as the Oil price steadied and the country’s finance minister said he expected the currency to rebound in early 2015…
North America
After yesterday’s powerful run, the Dow is higher again this morning but the gain is more modest at about 30 points as of 8:00 am Pacific…
The TSX, which surged 642 points or 4.7% the last 3 sessions, is up another 87 points through the first 90 minutes of trading…the Venture, meanwhile, is 5 points higher at 670…a technical reversal has been confirmed with the Venture hitting its December low intra-day Tuesday at 637…expect a solid advance into year-end…
Gold 6-Month Chart Update
Gold has lost a little bit of momentum this week with the fall below $1,200 an ounce, but so far key support has held around $1,180…overall, Gold has put in a series of higher highs and higher lows since hitting $1,130 early last month…a continuation of that trend through the end of the year would be highly encouraging…
TSX Gold Index Updated Chart
The TSX Gold Index appears to have put in a double bottom, and if that’s the case then the outlook for the Gold price has to be positive…noteworthy on John’s 6-month daily chart for the Gold Index is the bullish %K/%D cross…the 50-day moving average (SMA), currently at 151, has been providing stubborn resistance over the last month – the Gold Index could accelerate rapidly once it overcomes this hurdle…we’re bullish on producers for 2015…the weakness in Oil will help many companies in terms of cost control and reduction, while Canadian producers will continue to benefit from a low Canadian dollar…
Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX, TSX) announced yesterday that it plans to suspend its Lumwana copper mine in Zambia because of a massive royalty hike introduced by the government…the Zambian parliament passed legislation that eliminates corporate income tax but increases the royalty rate on open pit mines to 20% from 6%…Toronto-based Barrick has warned for months that this legislation, which takes effect in January, would make Lumwana unsustainable…
Richmont Mines (RIC, TSX) Update
One Canadian producer we remain particularly excited about is Richmont Mines (RIC, TSX) which has both price momentum and earnings momentum in its favor entering 2015…in addition, the company will begin extracting a game-changing 1 million ounce high-grade resource beneath existing workings at its Island Gold Mine in northern Ontario…
RIC, with only 48 million shares outstanding, has virtually no debt and is sitting on cash of approximately $40 million…the company recorded adjusted net earnings of 19 cents per share through the first 9 months of this fiscal year including 10 cents per share in Q3…a repeat performance in Q4 would give RIC yearly net earnings of around 30 cents per share…
Technically, RIC is climbing an upsloping channel that should lead the stock to much higher levels in 2015…RIC represents 1 of the best opportunities in our view in the entire Gold stock sector…
RIC is off a penny at $3.56 as of 8:00 am Pacific…
Gold Bullion Development Corp. (GBB, TSX-V) Update
It’s time once again for BMR readers to pay attention to 1 of our old favorites, Gold Bullion Development Corp. (GBB, TSX-V), which is emerging as a near-term producer with a high-grade “rolling start” concept at Granada that features robust economics…
We’ll present the fundamental case for GBB next week, and we look forward to getting our boots on the ground again in the LONG Bars Zone because the upside exploration potential there remains immense…
In the meantime, a picture tells a thousand words…we’ve waited patiently for the right time to pounce on this opportunity after exiting GBB in 2011 and watching conditions go from overbought to oversold…
As you can see on this 5-year weekly chart, what has happened is that GBB broke above a long-term down trendline earlier this year, and then promptly did a normal retrace back to the trendline which (as expected) became new support…this is classic technical behavior, and all indicators now point toward a substantial push higher – consistent with improved fundamentals…
Ironically, it’s almost 5 years to the day that we first introduced GBB to our readers when it was trading around 6 cents…it became a 15-bagger within 12 months…
We see a bright 2015 for GBB…as always, perform your own due diligence but at 4 cents this is an early Christmas gift…
Garibaldi Resources Corp. (GGI, TSX-V) Update
It has been an excellent year for Garibaldi Resources (GGI, TSX-V), and there’s every reason to believe the company may add an exclamation mark to 2014 very soon – especially with a busy and successful exploration program continuing at the company’s Rodadero discovery in Sonora State…
Technically, GGI appears poised for lift-off again with the 50-day moving average (SMA) just now beginning to reverse to the upside…in addition, what we’re looking at on this 6-month daily chart is a bullish downsloping flag and a %K/%D cross with the %K rising strongly – fertile ground for the birth of a breakout…
GGI is unchanged at 19.5 cents through the first 90 minutes of trading…
North Arrow Minerals Inc. (NAR, TSX-V) Update
North Arrow Minerals (NAR, TSX-V) has held up very well over the last rocky several months for the Venture, so the path of least resistance appears to be higher…
Diamond discoveries have kick-started the junior exploration market before and could do so again…North Arrow is working on numerous Canadian diamond projects (grassroots to advanced-staged), and the Pikoo play in Saskatchewan (winter drill program coming up) looks particularly exciting in terms of fresh district-scale possibilities with NAR leading the way and well-financed…with President and CEO Ken Armstrong, and Chairman Gren Thomas, among others, NAR features a highly respected management group and board – they’ve been responsible for the discovery of many kimberlites in Canada and Africa, including of course the Diavik mine in the Northwest Territories…
Results from a 1,500-tonne bulk sample from NAR’s important Q1–4 kimberlite at its Qilalugaq Project in Nunavut are expected during the first quarter of next year (at 12.5 hectares, Q1–4 is the largest kimberlite ever found in the eastern Canadian Arctic and includes inferred resources as well as extremely rare yellow diamonds found in a sampling program)…along with drilling at Pikoo, anticipation regarding results from this bulk sample could help give North Arrow a strong speculative lift…
Below is a very interesting 7+ year monthly NAR chart from John…note the long-term support at 50 cents, the rising 500-day moving average (SMA) at 55 cents, the long-term downtrend line, the RSI(14) support, and the switch from sell pressure to buy pressure…given the technical posture here, and events on the ground, we see a strong likelihood of a major breakout in NAR (above the downtrend line) early next year…as always, perform your own due diligence…patient investors could score big here…
NAR closed at 55 cents yesterday…
Note: John and Jon both hold share positions in GGI, while Jon also holds share positions in RIC and GBB.
jon re GBB.v
as at June 30,2014 the financials stated they had 152K cash and 257 mill shares o/s
what are their prospects of raising more cash without doing a rollback
thanks
Comment by ChartTrader — December 19, 2014 @ 9:26 am
GBB – with a 2 million dollar working capital deficit, and a lawsuit for almost 800k possibly owed to Genivar?
Comment by leo — December 19, 2014 @ 9:36 am
Leo, we followed this story very closely as you know in 2009 and 2010; GENIVAR won’t get a nickel from GBB, if anything GBB deserves something from GENIVAR; secondly, when we first put GBB forward in late 2009 it also had a working capital deficit. So that’s not an issue. They now happen to have a multi-million ounce resource and once a mining certificate is in hand, expected shortly, watch things turn around in a hurry. We see a bargain here at 4 cents, all things considered. There’s an old saying – buy low, sell high. You make money on stocks when you buy at a discount, at “wholesale” as opposed to “retail” so to speak, plain and simple. In this case, GBB is following the typical life cycle of a junior mining stock – explodes on discovery and initial euphoria, tails off until the production stage, then runs up higher again. That will happen here.
Comment by Jon - BMR — December 19, 2014 @ 9:42 am
Funny you mentioned NAR, I bought some Wednesday with some of my VRY winnings. I talked with Nick for about 30 minutes. Very interesting story on this one.
Comment by dave — December 19, 2014 @ 10:32 am
It’s a great play, Dave. And the people involved, in the diamond business they’re the cream of the crop.
Comment by Jon - BMR — December 19, 2014 @ 10:40 am
Yes, full results out in March. Very interesting story and great management.
Comment by dave — December 19, 2014 @ 11:01 am
What is going on with R? So many shares changed hands…. Any news?
Comment by Theodore — December 19, 2014 @ 5:50 pm
hoping for xmas news from ggi
Comment by BRIAN — December 19, 2014 @ 11:37 pm
My gut feeling, Brian, is that GGI will want to close out the calendar year on a strong note and clean up 2014 business, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see news before and immediately after Christmas leading up to year-end to position everything for the beginning of what should be a terrific 2015 for this company. That’s my Christmas wish, anyway.
Comment by Jon - BMR — December 20, 2014 @ 8:16 am
Theodore, Friday afternoon was triple witching, so we saw HUGE volume on the TSX/Venture. I believe a large fund was re-balancing
as R was not the only stock that saw huge volume. Same thing happened to TGZ, LSG, SBB, PRU etc etc. Most of these were actually sold
down quite hard and in my opinion are quite a good tax loss buys (ie R @ .44 to .46, SBB @ .28 – .30, PRU at .18 to .20). Cheers.
Comment by anonymous001 — December 20, 2014 @ 8:20 am
Hello brother, i have read your old pieces on abcourt mines care to discuss ? on today
Comment by moe — December 20, 2014 @ 5:24 pm
Moe, Abcourt looks promising at current levels in my view. They’ve been gradually ramping up production at the Elder Mine which has nice grades. I’ve been on that property, at that mine, and they’ve done what they said they were going to do on the production front. On the market side, there’s more Renaud can do and that part has frustrated investors for quite some time. However, patience should be rewarded here given the fundamentals.
Comment by Jon - BMR — December 20, 2014 @ 5:44 pm