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Gold has come under mild pressure on this final day of the trading week, down $14 an ounce at $1,218 as of 9:00 am Pacific after a high earlier this morning of $1,241…Silver has slipped 37 cents to $14.73…Copper has jumped 4 cents to $2.14…Crude Oil is 34 cents higher at $33.41 after hitting a 7-week high earlier in the day, while the U.S. Dollar Index has surged two-thirds of a point to 98.13 where it’s up against significant resistance…

U.S. economic growth slowed in the 4th quarter, but not as sharply as initially thought, with businesses less aggressive in their efforts to reduce unwanted inventory, which could hurt output in the first 3 months of 2016…GDP increased at a 1% annual rate instead of the previously reported 0.7% pace, the Commerce Department reported this morning in its 2nd GDP estimate…economists polled by Reuters had expected that Q4 GDP would be revised down to as little as 0.4%…the economy grew 2% in Q3…

A slew of U.S. economic data came out this morning with equity markets turning lower after consumer sentiment for February came in below expectations at 91.7, down from 92.0 in January…

Holdings in Gold-backed exchange-traded products rose 2.4 metric tons to 1,678.6 tons through yesterday, the highest in a year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg…

Investment money has been flowing back into commodity assets again in 2016, led by inflows into Oil and Gold, Barclays reports…this comes after 2015 was the 3rd consecutive year of net outflows from commodity assets…the bank’s data shows that exchange-traded products have become the single largest category of commodity investment…commodity-linked ETPs posted a net inflow of $5 billion in January alone…

The main destinations for those flows have been Oil and Gold ETPs, with each receiving about $2.7 billion, according to Barclays.  “First, Oil prices in the low $30’s are viewed as cheap by many investors.  With most analysts forecasting a rebound in Oil prices over 2016, it is perhaps not surprising that investors have been persuaded to take out exposure, especially as current prices are similar to those that bottomed out during the financial crisis in early 2009. Second, poor U.S. data have pushed forward market estimates of the next Fed rate hike, and which has lead to a period of dollar weakness. Combined with an uptick in concerns about the health of financial markets and institutions, this has created a bid for Gold as a safe haven,” Barclays stated…

Goldcorp (G, TSX) is down sharply this morning (more than 10%) after the company announced that it has slashed its dividend and lowered its production guidance for the next 3 years as it tries to maintain a strong balance sheet and faces unexpected problems at an Ontario project…the Vancouver-based mining giant also moved from a monthly dividend of 2 cents U.S. a share to a quarterly dividend at the same level, effectively reducing the annual payout by two-thirds…Goldcorp said this lowered dividend still offers a “competitive” yield, while allowing the company to invest in its growth projects…meanwhile, Goldcorp has removed its Cochenour Project in the Red Lake district from its production guidance for the next 3 years and said Cochenour is re-entering the “advanced exploration” phase due to unexpected geologic issues underground that have delayed development…

In today’s Morning Musings…

1.  Confirmed breakout in Crude Oil above a downtrend line going back to November…

2.  A look at Metanor Resources (MTO, TSX-V) after a high-volume week…

3.  Kiska Metals (KSK, TSX-V) shows new life…

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