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Gold has traded between $1,183 and $1,192 so far today…as of 9:00 am Pacific, bullion is down $1 an ounce at $1,187…Silver has fallen 7 cents to $16.65 as it approaches support near the top of of a downtrend line it recently broke out from…Copper is flat at $2.77…Crude Oil is up 4 cents at $58.07 while the U.S. Dollar Index hit a 4-week high overnight but has since eased off…it’s up one-fifth of a point at 97.40 as it grapples with resistance…

The most recent COT data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission shows commercial hedgers have near a 10-year “least-hedged” extreme in Gold futures, an aggressive bet by the smart money that physical Gold is undervalued…for perspective, a similar least-hedged extreme in early July 2013 immediately preceded a more than $200, 14% jump in Gold to $1,429 by the end of August that year…

German-based Commerzbank said, in a report published yesterday, that they expect Gold prices to rise to 1,200 euros an ounce by the end of 2015, an increase of 10% from current levels around €1,091 an ounce…at the same time, the bank expects Gold in U.S. dollars to hit $1,250 by the 4th quarter, a rise of only 5% from current levels as the greenback outperforms the euro…

Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX, TSX) and Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. (IVN, TSX) both announced yesterday that they had signed separate partnership deals with Chinese mining company Zijin Mining Group Co. to help advance their respective projects in Papua New Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo…Zijin, of course, is also backing Pretium Resources‘ (PVG, TSX) high-grade Brucejack Gold Project in northwest British Columbia…

Raging Fires Reduce Alberta Oil Production

As if Alberta doesn’t have enough to worry about…the raging fire that is out of control in the northern part of the province has already shut down about 10% of Canada’s Oil sands production – roughly 230,000 barrels a day…yesterday, MEG Energy Corp. joined other producers in evacuating staff…Monday, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. cut output at its 18,000-barrel-a-day Kirby South Oil sands operation after shutting in 80,000 barrels a day of production from its Primrose facility over the weekend…Energy Cenovus Energy Inc. closed its 135,000-barrel-a-day Foster Creek operations on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range in northeastern Alberta…

Today’s Equity Markets

Asia

Markets in Shanghai and Japan eked out marginal gains overnight to hover close to fresh multi-year highs today…China’s Shanghai Composite added another 31 points to close at 4942…it has gained a staggering 142% so far this year, driven by momentum and aggressive central bank and government stimulus…

Europe

European markets finished strongly higher today after hints that Greece may have edged closer to finalizing a deal with its euro zone creditors…

North America

The Dow is up 112 points as of 9:00 am Pacific after yesterday’s sharp drop…the Dow transports, which tend to be a leading indicator, continue to be a concern…the index, which has fallen 10% from its late 2014 high, extended its recent sell-off yesterday with its 50-day moving average (SMA) falling below its 200-day SMA…

In Toronto, the TSX is up 40 points as of 9:00 am Pacific while the Venture has slipped 1 point to 691…the Venture is underpinned by solid support and an encouraging finish to the week tomorrow and Friday would not be surprising…keep an eye on David Palmer’s Probe Metals (PRB, TSX-V) which continues to inch higher…the company is sitting on nearly $20 million in cash and sports a current market cap of $14.5 million…

The Explosion In U.S. Corporate Share Buybacks

U.S. businesses, feeling heat from activist investors, are slashing long-term spending and returning billions of dollars to shareholders, a fundamental shift in the way they are deploying capital…data show a broad array of companies have been plowing more cash into dividends and stock buybacks, while spending less on investments such as new factories and research and development…

Laurence Fink, chief executive of BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, argued as much in a March 31 letter to S&P 500 CEOs. “More and more corporate leaders have responded with actions that can deliver immediate returns to shareholders, such as buybacks or dividend increases, while under-investing in innovation, skilled workforces or essential capital expenditures necessary to sustain long-term growth.”

An analysis conducted for The Wall Street Journal by S&P Capital IQ shows that companies in the S&P 500 index sharply increased their spending on dividends and buybacks to a median 36% of operating cash flow in 2013, from 18% in 2003…

Higher Taxes On The Way In Alberta

Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci, a former social worker, says the new NDP government is prepared to move quickly on the financial promises, including a corporate tax hike, made by the party during the spring provincial election campaign…Ceci, named finance minister by Premier Rachel Notley on Sunday, said the planned 2-point (20%) increase in the corporate tax rate to 12% and new higher income tax brackets for those earning $125,000 will be introduced in the NDP’s first budget this fall…it’s worth noting that this is the opposite strategy that British Columbia took when the free-enterprise Liberal-Conservative coalition under Gordon Campbell clobbered the NDP in B.C.’s 2001 elections…the B.C. economy almost immediately took off to the upside through lower corporate and personal income taxes, and hasn’t looked back since…the NDP has been kept out of power for 14 years by British Columbians for good reason…unfortunately, Albertans didn’t learn from the history of their neighbor to the west…the result will be a gradual but steadily increasing outflow of capital and brain power from Alberta, with B.C. and Saskatchewan likely benefiting the most…it’s important that investors understand that emerging trend…

Fission 3.0 Corp. (FUU, TSX-V) Update

Our last update on Fission 3.0 (FUU, TSX-V) was near the end of April when it was trading at 11.5 cents…it continues to look promising after breaking out above a downtrend line in February with buy pressure (CMF) still increasing, and RSI(14) holding key support at 50% and climbing higher…

Fission 3.0 is armed with about $5 million in cash and a strategic portfolio of uranium properties in the Athabasca Basin upon which to build shareholder value in the coming months…

FUU is up half a penny at 13 cents as of 9:00 am Pacific…

ISign Media Solutions (ISD, TSX-V) Update

It has been a while since we’ve mentioned ISign Media Solutions (ISD, TSX-V), but the company has been aggressively moving forward and John has an interesting chart to share this morning…

What’s noteworthy here is that ISD has pushed above a long-term downsloping channel on the 5-year weekly chart, with RSI(14) climbing a very definitive uptrend line…strong new support should be at 21 cents, at the top of the downsloping channel which also corresponds with the SMA-10 on this weekly chart…as always, perform your own due diligence…

ISD is off a penny-and-half at 24 cents as of 9:00 am Pacific…

VANC Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NPH, TSX-V) Update

VANC Pharmaceuticals (NPH, TSX-V) continues to encounter resistance at the Fib. 50% level (55 cents) as indicated on this 6-month daily chart…that’s the key area NPH must overcome in order to push higher…this remains a volatile play but with good volume for traders as demonstrated over just the last 6 sessions with a low of 38.5 cents and a high of 57 cents…that range defines the current support-resistance parameters…the primary trend has to be considered bullish given various positive indicators…

NPH is off 2 cents at 53 cents as of 9:00 am Pacific…

Note:  John, Terry and Jon do not hold share positions in PRB, FUU, ISD or NPH.