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Gold has traded between $1,315 and $1,325 so far today…as of 10:00 am Pacific, bullion is up $4 an ounce at $1,320 as the Fed begins its 2-day meeting…the Fed may try to play more games tomorrow by suggesting that September is a “live” meeting, or they’ll simply show again that all they’re certain about is their uncertainty…Silver is up 8 cents at $19.58…Copper is flat at $2.23…Crude Oil is 20 cents lower at $42.93 while the U.S. Dollar Index is off one-tenth of a point at 97.17…

Holdings of the world’s largest Gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR Gold Shares, fell 0.46% to 958.69 tonnes yesterday…

A surge in Western investment helped offset sliding Asian demand for Gold in Q2, GFMS analysts at Thomson Reuters said today, as they hiked their Gold price forecast for the year in response to jitters over the global economic outlook…top consumer China’s net Gold imports via Hong Kong fell 38.5% in June, data showed today, but Gold exports from China to Hong Kong reached a 6-month high of 12.2 tons in June which contributed to lower net imports…

Zinc, used in part to rustproof steel, has jumped 40% this year to become the best-performing industrial metal…it has gained on concerns about shortages, while steel prices have improved as policy makers around the world pledged to back growth…Lead, on the other hand, has added just 2.9% and trades at the biggest discount to Zinc in 9 years…while Zinc has benefited from steel’s rebound, mine closures and output cutbacks, Lead appears to be more adequately supplied…that’s because of more recycled material in China, the biggest user and producer, as old metal from used car batteries comes back to the market…it’s happening as demand from electric bicycles, a big reason for Lead rallies in the past 2 decades, is slowing, according to a report last month from Societe Generale SA…

Some stronger-than-expected U.S. economic data was released this morning, but the significance is limited…the U.S. Conference Board said that its Consumer Sentiment index fell to a reading of 97.3 in July, following June’s reading of 98.0…however, economists were expecting to see a bigger decline in consumer confidence with consensus forecasts calling for a reading of 95.6 in June…meanwhile, sales of new single-family homes rose by 3.5% in June to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 592,000 homes, up from May’s revised sales rate of 572,000 units…

Radical U.S. Group Targets Energy East

The Financial Post reported this morning how the big U.S. “green” group that led the assault against Keystone XL is firing its opening salvo today against Energy East, joining an already-crowded field of opponents and proving Alberta’s and Canada’s climate change plans are failing to moderate anti-pipeline campaigns…Canada is up against ideologues who quite simply hate Oil, and others who are determined to line their pockets by advancing the “climate change” agenda, and they’re not going to let up simply because of Justin Trudeau’s “sunny ways” or the fact there’s a socialist government now running Alberta…

Crude Oil Update

Record Crude output from OPEC, a glut of refined products, and signs of more drilling activity in the U.S. in the face of low Oil prices have added to concerns about excess supply…

U.S. drillers added Oil rigs for a 4th consecutive week, data from Oilfield services firm Baker Hughes showed on Friday…the decline in U.S. output has been key to balancing a market weighed by excess supply for 2 years…

Inputs on the speculative side have certainly been more bearish than bullish recently…however, we’re once again going to take the contrarian approach…we’re batting 100% on ETF trades – read about our latest move (related to Oil) in this morning’s report…

In Today’s Morning Musings…

1. Breakouts in certain Lithium stocks…

2. Sprott Natural Resource Symposium kicks off in Vancouver – BMR is there…

3. ETF trade as Crude Oil falls to an important target price…

4. U.S. dollar bull trap?…

5. Canopy Growth (CGC, TSX) graduates from the Venture to the TSX – chart update…

Plus more…click here to read the rest of today’s Morning Musings, and all BMR exclusive content, by taking advantage of our July Special, or login with your username and password.