BullMarketRun.com

Gold has bounced around again today between a high of $1,606 and a low of $1,582 an ounce on a day of general commodity weakness…as of 6:05 am Pacific, the yellow metal is down $19 an ounce at $1,588…Silver is off 48 cents at $27.64…Copper is 4 cents lower at $3.35…Crude Oil has declined another 94 cents to $80.51 while the U.S. Dollar Index is up one-fifth of a point at 81.73…

Spain’s borrowing costs hit a new euro era high at a debt auction this morning, a few hours before it’s expected to shed light on the dire state of its weaker banks and possibly make a formal request for European Union funds to rescue them…

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits was little changed last week, according to government data this morning that suggested the labor market was struggling to regain momentum…the four-week moving average for new claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends, increased 3,500 to 386,250 – the highest level since early December…

China’s factory sector contracted for an eighth straight month in June, with export orders and prices turning in their weakest showing since early 2009, a private-sector survey showed this morning…Chinese consumers, however, are still in strong shape…Some 15% of 20,000 households recently polled plan to buy a vehicle in the next three months, the highest since that survey began in 1999…

The Federal Reserve acted as expected yesterday, extending Operation Twist through the remainder of the year and confirming that the fed funds rate will remain near zero through 2014…Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed is ready to act more aggressively if necessary, meaning he has kept some power dry in the event the euro zone crisis deepens or U.S economic activity in the weeks and months ahead is weaker than expected due to global and domestic influences…

Today’s Markets

Japan’s Nikkei average broke above 8,800 for the first time in five weeks today…European shares are mixed this morning while stock index futures in New York as of 6:05 am Pacific are pointing toward a flat open…

TSX Gold Index

John has an interesting 10-year chart this morning that compares the TSX Gold Index with the price of Gold…as you can see below, the plunge in the TSX Gold Index to a low of 266 May 16 was indeed historic…only during one other period – late 2008 – have Gold equities been so oversold relative to the price of Gold, and 2008 of course represented an incredible buying opportunity…the Gold Index has out-performed the metal significantly over the past 5 weeks, gaining 22%…given historical patterns, we believe what the Gold stocks are telling us at the moment is that the Gold market remains healthy and the long-term trend is still bullish…

Lumina Copper (LCC, TSX-V)

Lumina Copper (LCC, TSX-V), a potential takeover candidate with its world class Cu-Au-Mo deposit in northwestern Argentina, has climbed 40% over the past week since a yearly low of $7.26 intra-day last Thursday…LCC closed yesterday at $10.20…notice in John’s updated chart how LCC has broken above a downtrend line…not surprisingly, there has also been a significant change in buying pressure…expect considerable near-term technical resistance between approximately $11 and $12 but this doesn’t take into account Lumina’s strong fundamentals and a potential takeover…

Northern Graphite (NGC, TSX-V)

Northern Graphite’s (NGC, TSX) 20-day moving average (SMA) is now rising for the first time since April with the stock finding support near its 200-day SMA…both volume and buying pressure need to increase, however, for NGC to push through resistance at $1.80…

Note: John, Jon and Terry do not hold positions in LCC or NGC.