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1. Gold has traded between $1,321 and $1,329 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is down $2 an ounce at $1,323…Silver is flat at $16.25…base metals have strengthened…Copper has added 5 cents to $3.05…Nickel has jumped 11 cents to $6.02 while Zinc has added 2 pennies to $1.51…Cobalt is steady at $42.75…Crude Oil is up 15 cents at 61.53…this week marked the launch of the Shanghai Crude Oil futures contract which has lost about 10% since it first opened on Monday…however, it’s the first onshore Chinese commodity contract that allows direct trading by foreign investors and is denominated in RMB (yuan), indirectly promoting the use of the Chinese currency…the U.S. Dollar Index is off one-tenth of a point at 89.97…

2. Barrick Gold’s (ABX, TSX) visionary founder Peter Munk passed away yesterday at the age of 90…Munk, whose amazing career in the resource sector began humbly with a small underground mine in Ontario, racked up an impressive series of accomplishments in everything from custom stereos to tropical resorts but he’ll always be most known for Barrick Gold which he founded in 1983…Barrick’s biggest break came in 1986 when Munk bought an under-performing mine in Nevada called Goldstrike, which was then producing 40,000 ounces of Gold a year…before long, the mine was producing more than 2 million ounces a year and remains one of the company’s core mines…by 2006 Barrick would establish itself as the world’s biggest Gold producers after gobbling up Placer Dome for $10.4 billion (U.S.)…

3. The S&P 500 is headed for its first quarterly loss since 2015 after investor worries about rising rates, trade tensions and the health of the technology sector ended an extended period of calm…entering the final trading session of March, the S&P 500 is currently down 2.6% for the first 3 months of the year which means a 9-quarter winning streak is likely about to be snapped…meanwhile, Q1 earnings per share for the S&P 500 are projected to rise 16.6%, according to CFRA Research, and 2018 earnings estimates for the tech sector, a current focus of market worry, have continued to move higher in the past month, according to FactSet…the S&P 500 now trades at 16.3 times forward earnings, cheaper than where it started the year…elsewhere in the equity markets for Q1, the Dow is off 4%, the TSX has slid 6.4% while the Venture has retreated 7.9%…overseas, Stoxx Europe 600 is on track to end 4.8% lower, Japan’s Nikkei has fallen 7.1% while the U.K.’s FTSE 100 is off 8.2%…

4.  In its continued bid to bring innovation to the precious metals sector, one of the world’s biggest Gold miners has embraced a new blockchain-based digital exchange…Goldcorp (G, TSX; GG, NYSE) announced today that it has placed 3,000 ounces of Gold, valued at $4 million, in Tradewind Inc.’s newly launched digital market, VaultChain…Tradewind described the investment as the “genesis block”, the first block in a blockchain, representing a tremendous milestone for the technology and the sector.  “Goldcorp will be able to sell Gold directly to dealers and banks using the Tradewind platform, expanding access to a new market structure and a highly efficient, electronic pricing and liquidity venue,” the company said in a news release…David Garofola, President and CEO of Goldcorp, stated:  “We are excited to be an investor in Tradewind and participate in the launch of VaultChain, a cutting-edge technology that integrates physical Gold into a blockchain.  We believe physical Gold stored on a blockchain will increase the utility of the commodity and, ultimately, drive value in the price of Gold.  We are thrilled to be an early adopter of this 21st century platform and deposit its first bar of Gold.”  Garofalo added that blockchain technology and the new VaultChain exchange has the potential to revolutionize the Gold market in the same way exchange-traded products did more than 10 years ago…

5. Alberta Opposition Leader Jason Kenney has lashed out at Premier Notley, Prime Minister Trudeau and pipeline protestors:  “This thing’s not over,” warned Kenney, despite a recent pro-pipeline court ruling.  “I wish the premier would stop doing a victory lap every time there’s a small tactical win.  She reminds me of George Bush standing on the aircraft carrier with the Mission Accomplished sign behind him.  The enemies of progress, the radical environmentalists, are ramping up for a war in the woods.  What they’re doing at the Kinder Morgan site in Burnaby is what they plan to do along the entire pipeline route.  Where’s the strategy to deal with a war in the woods scenario?  Where is the Prime Minister’s leadership, the guarantee the rule of law will be enforced?  These radicals, they’re injuring police officers, they’ve got members of Parliament being arrested.  This is before an inch of pipeline is in the ground.” (source: Calgary Sun).  Trudeau, by the way, is in Vancouver next week for a $1,000-a-plate dinner…will he stand up for the pipeline or remain silent?????…meanwhile, B.C. Premier John Horgan is quietly encouraging protestors.  “What I do know is that there is a crisis in British Columbia right now with respect to the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline.  This is not a threat by me.  This is self-evident by the number of people who are collecting on Burnaby Mountain every day to express their disappointment over the federal government’s decision to proceed.” (source: Globe and Mail)…

6. The Dow is up 105 points as of 7:00 am Pacific…we’ll see if it can snap out of a recent pattern of starting the trading session strong, only to experience a sell-off in the final hour or two…in Toronto, the TSX has climbed 83 points while the Venture has rebounded 6 points to 791 after its first close below 800 since early December…the current board of directors of Colorado Resources (CXO, TSX-V) is panicking and grasping at straws ahead of a proxy vote next month that gives shareholders an opportunity to DRAIN THE SWAMP…newly-appointed President and CEO Robert Shaw stated in a news release yesterday, “Following the termination of the Damara transaction, the company under my leadership is contemplating expanding and significantly improving its property portfolio in northwestern British Columbia.  The Damara deal is a missed opportunity and is no longer being considered.”  The Damara deal was a missed opportunity for Larry Nagy’s Damara, not Colorado, and yesterday’s news from Shaw, Nagy & Company further supported the case for shareholders to vote the YELLOW proxy for Adam Travis with the comment that the current board is “contemplating expanding and significantly improving its property portfolio in northwest B.C.”…CXO already has a massive property package with exceptional potential that it must focus on and do better with…

7. Tesla shares are on pace for their worst-ever monthly performance as the electric car company faces a spate of recent issues…Tesla stock is down 24.9% in March, the worst month for the stock since the company went public in 2010 and the worst quarter since Q4 in 2014…recent declines have come on the back of a federal investigation into a fatal car crash involving a Tesla vehicle in California earlier this month…in response, Tesla has said it was assisting with investigations, although it has also defended its Autopilot technology…Moody’s recent downgrade of its corporate family rating on Tesla has also weighed on the stock…the agency downgraded the company’s credit ratings Tuesday and changed its outlook to negative from stable, citing “significant shortfall” in the Model 3 production rate and a tight financial situation…those concerns were echoed by Morgan Stanley which highlighted in a recent note that the company had to accelerate its Model 3 production if it wanted to raise funds at an attractive price…Telsa shares closed down nearly 8% yesterday, some 30% off a record high touched in September last year…

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