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Gold continues to encounter resistance right around $1,800 an ounce…the yellow metal got as high as $1,796 overnight but is now down $8 an ounce at $1,780 as of 8 am Pacific…Silver is 31 cents lower at $34.35, Copper is up a nickel at $3.52, Crude Oil has lost $1.57 to $97.42 while the U.S. Dollar Index has gained two-thirds of a point to 77.45…

None of the world’s major economies, including Canada, will escape a global economic slowdown, according to a new report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development…the OECD issued its composite leading indicator (CLI) report this morning, showing that the rate had fallen for the seventh consecutive month in September, hitting 100.4…in August the CLI was 100.9…the Paris-based organization said numbers were down across the board, and the results for many individual countries were below their long-term averages…overall the news was grim, the OECD said…”Compared to last month’s assessment, the CLIs point more strongly to slowdowns in all major economies,” the OECD said in a statement…

With so much focus on the euro zone crisis recently, Crude Oil has been quietly sneaking up to the $100 per barrel area…there are many factors driving the Oil market including tight supplies and even the possibility of conflict between Israel and Iran…Crude Oil climbed 5% last week to close at $98.99 Friday though it has backed off a bit this morning…since dipping below $80 on October 3, WTI prices have increased almost 28%, twice that of the S&P and matching the jump in the CDNX…so there has certainly been a strong correlation between oil and equities over the last few months…that’s why John has provided an updated chart for us this morning that shows that Oil is now bumping up against resistance after six consecutive weekly advances…if Oil defies the charts and keeps surging, stock markets won’t necessarily continue moving in tandem as Oil prices above $100 a barrel won’t he helpful to a fragile global economy…it’s certainly important, therefore, to keep a close eye on Oil’s direction…

The CDNX opened higher this morning, helped by Cameco’s (CCO, TSX) revised takeover bid for Hathor Exploration (HAT, TSX-V), but it’s now off 2 points at 1639 after the first hour-and-a-half of trading…Adventure Gold (AGE, TSX-V) is unchanged at 47.5 cents after opening at 49 cents…we weren’t overly impressed with last week’s update on AGE’s Meunier-144 joint venture property but what does continue to excite us is the company’s Pascalis-Colombiere Gold Property near Val d’Or…we’ll have more on Pascalis later this week…from a technical perspective, the stock is now facing resistance at its declining 100-day moving average (SMA) at 48 cents…we’ll see what happens…John’s updated AGE chart gives encouragement for both bulls and bears…

A company we continue to like for its property assets (mostly Gold, Silver and zinc) is Abcourt Mines (ABI, TSX-V), though in our view new management is required in order for Abcourt to unlock the value of those assets and increase shareholder value…the stock closed Friday at resistance at 10 cents…John updates the ABI chart below…

We’re pleased to see that GoldQuest Mining (GQC, TSX-V) has now ditched its plans to merge with Takara Resources (TKK, TSX-V)…GoldQuest is also proceeding with a 1,200 metre drill program, scheduled to begin this week, at its promising La Escandalosa Property in the Dominican Republic…GoldQuest has solid long-term potential but the stock has certainly suffered some chart damage in recent months…the 100-day SMA just below 15 cents will provide strong resistance over the short-to-medium term…as of 8 am Pacific, GQC is off half a penny at 9.5 cents…

Markets will be speculating this week on the potential outcome of the U.S. “Super Committee” meetings with that group facing a November 23 deadline to reach a deal to cut U.S. deficits by at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years… Success would send a strong signal to credit ratings agencies and global investors that the United States is taking credible steps to lighten its debt burden…failure would trigger automatic spending cuts of $1.2 trillion that would hit defense and domestic spending…the L.A. Times says the Super Committee is in a “deadlock” and at an “impasse” with the stalemate revolving around precisely the same issues that have plagued Congress all year: Republicans drawing a line in the sand against the new revenues that Democrats insist on, and Democrats writing in blood that they cannot cut entitlements without tax increases…

The yield on Italy’s bonds hit a new euro lifetime high in an auction today when the country managed to sell the full amount it wanted to raise…Italy sold 3 billion euros ($4.08 billion U.S.) worth of five-year bonds at a gross yield of 6.2%, compared with 5.3% in a similar auction in mid-October, according to Reuters data…unpopular Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi may now be gone, but huge political and economic challenges lie ahead for a technocratic government headed by former European Commissioner Mario Monti…one economist interviewed by CNBC summed it up well…”It is somewhat ironic that the Prime Minister in Italy is Monti…he was a member of the European Commission…he was one of the architects of the system that caused all the problems…why on earth would they put him in place?…it would be a semi-miracle if the solution works,” stated Roger Nightingale of RDN Associates…”In a few days’ time or a few weeks, things will go wrong again, yields will go up and the whole thing will skid into decline…it’s a foregone conclusion most of Europe is already in recession…it is relatively uncompetitive, and it is facing extra bond yields, extra interest rates which of course it can’t live with, and (it) will have slower rates of growth,” he added…

With a public debt totaling around 1.9 trillion euros ($2.6 trillion U.S.), Italy is the world’s third-largest government debtor and unlike Greece, Portugal and Ireland, it’s simply too big to be bailed out within the euro zone…

Fears of a return to recession in Europe were amplified by the morning’s main data release, which showed euro zone industrial production fell 2% in September, reversing an expansion of 1.4% in August…with PMI surveys also indicating contracting in the manufacturing sector, this morning’s numbers highlight the impact of the region’s sovereign debt crisis on the real economy with uncertainty hitting confidence among businesses and households alike…

Chancellor Angela Merkel said today that Europe must move step-by-step towards political union, calling the euro zone debt crisis the continent’s “toughest hour since World War Two”…”The challenge of our generation is to finish what we started in Europe, and that is to bring about, step by step, a political union,” Merkel told the party congress in the east German city of Leipzig…”Europe is in one of its toughest, perhaps the toughest hour since World War Two,” she said…