BullMarketRun.com

Gold has traded in a range between $1,619 and $1,629 so far today…as of 5:40 am Pacific, the yellow metal is up $2 an ounce at $1,624…Silver is ahead by 8 cents at $28.27…Copper has gained pennies to $3.44…Crude Oil is 38 cents higher at $90.16 while the U.S. Dollar Index is off one-tenth of a point at 82.69…

Silver Breakout

Silver appears to be in the early stages of a breakout, an event we’ve been predicting at BMR recently given the look of the chart and an extremely bullish COT structure with commercial traders reducing their short positions to record or near-record lows…Silver broke above its daily SMA-50 yesterday for the first time in more than four months…John is looking for confirmation of that move today, followed by a challenge of the next major area of resistance which is $29…as we’ve been mentioning, an historical opportunity has quite possibly opened up in Silver which could be a powerful “Wave 5” move…we’d have to see Silver bust through the $32 area in order to confirm that a “Wave 5” scenario is under way…below is a 6-month daily chart for Silver, and notice how RSI(14) is showing increasing momentum after breaking through resistance at the 50 level…the trend has turned bullish and buying pressure has picked up considerably…

Silver Stock Opportunities

Over the coming days, we’ll be providing charts and additional information on 10 Silver plays that are worthy of our readers’ due diligence…topping the list, not surprisingly, is BMR favorite Rainbow Resources (RBW, TSX-V) which has an excellent discovery opportunity at its International Property in the West Kootenay region of southeast British Columbia…the exploration target is a high-grade, near-surface deposit…a drill permit is expected any day now from the Ministry of Mines which will be followed by mobilization of the rig…Rainbow, which also has a Gold-Silver property in Nevada it’ll be drilling this year, has a powerful-looking chart which suggests a major breakout is looming in the August/September period…RBW is just the second British Columbia exploration story we’ve covered in a major way over the last three years – the first one was Richfield Ventures which became a 10-bagger for some of our readers as it made a major Gold-Silver discovery in the Blackwater District of central British Columbia and got taken out last year by New Gold Inc. (NGD, TSX-V) at around $10 per share…

Two other B.C. plays have made it onto our Silver list – RJK Explorations (RJX.A, TSX-V), exploring at Blackwater, and Hulda Silver (HDA, TSX-V) which is completing construction of a 200-tonne per day mill near Merritt for mining its Treasure Mountain deposit…the other seven Silver stocks are Alliance Mining (ALM, TSX-V), Puma Exploration (PUM, TSX-V), Wildcat Silver (WS, TSX), Arian Silver (AGQ, TSX-V), Orko Silver (OK, TSX-V), and producers Great Panther Silver (GPR, TSX) and Alexco Resources (AXR, TSX)…we’ll be starting with charts on the above situations tomorrow…

GoldQuest Mining (GQC, TSX-V)

While it’s still very early in the drilling game at Romero, GoldQuest Mining’s (GQC, TSX-V) world class hole reported yesterday (a 25-metre step-out to the east of its discovery hole) should convince investors that GQC has a potential monster-sized deposit on its hands and now’s not the time to be giving up your shares, especially if Gold and Silver strengthen considerably in the weeks ahead as we believe they will…below is an updated GQC chart from John with a new Fibonacci level after the stock blasted higher yesterday on volume of 5.3 million in just one hour and 15 minutes of trading after the halt was lifted…GoldQuest has also just announced this morning a $10 million private placement at $1.25 per share (no warrants) in an agreement with Dundee Securities on behalf of a syndicate of underwriters…the big money has wasted no time in jumping in after yesterday’s spectacular results…

TSX Gold Index

While Gold is doing well, and has broken above its down trendline, the TSX Gold Index still has some work to do to overcome its down trendline in place since June…patience is the name of the game here…

Today’s Markets

Asian markets were mostly higher overnight, though China continues to struggle as the Shanghai Composite slid 6 more points to close at 2104…European shares are mixed this morning while U.S. stock index futures are pointing toward a flat to slightly positive open on Wall Street…

CRB Index

Strength in the CRB Index gives us hope that the Venture Exchange will soon come to life…below is a 6-month daily chart of the CRB Index which shows a very obvious double bottom and increasing momentum…

Federal Reserve, ECB Face Crucial Tests This Week

Amid amid heightened expectations that they are moving toward new actions to tackle the fragile global economy, the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank each face critical tests this week…the two-day FMOC meeting begins today while the the ECB meets Thursday, a week after Mario Draghi lifted expectations when he said the central bank would do “whatever it takes” to preserve the euro, within its mandate to keep inflation low…anticipation of such moves has spurred markets in the past, but they have deflated again afterward amid renewed sentiment that the fundamental problems in U.S. and European economies remain too deep-seated for central banks to fix…fueling investor skepticism now is the sentiment that the central banks are moving largely alone…leaders of both central banks, warning that monetary policy has its limits, are pressing elected politicians to do more to reduce uncertainty and bolster growth…

The Wall Street journal reported this morning that one of several options the ECB has is to purchase corporate or other private-sector securities – it can do so legally while the Fed generally, can’t…that would cleanse European bank balance sheets and make it easier for them to lend to small and medium-size businesses…and it would be a way for Draghi to take action without buying government bonds…

Euro Zone Unemployment Increases

Over 100,000 more people lost their jobs in the euro zone in June, pushing the region’s unemployment total to a record and adding pressure on the ECB  to take action at its monthly rate decision Thursday…the number of unemployed people in the currency bloc rose by 123,000 to 17.8 million in June, the highest level since records for the 17 nations were first compiled in 1995, the region’s statistics agency Eurostat said this morning…that meant 11.2% of the workforce was unemployed – the joint highest on record, after the estimate for May’s jobless rate was increased to 11.2% from 11.1%…

China Reaffirms Fiscal, Monetary Plans

China will step up policy fine-tuning in the third and fourth quarters of this year to support economic growth, although there are signs of stabilization in the economy, according to comments made by Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao in round table discussions with business leaders and academics as reported today by the official Xinhua news agency…Wen affirmed the government’s resolve to maintain its long-standing controls on the property sector, while the government will take steps to improve the domestic environment and diversify its export market…Hu was also quoted as saying that China would increase fiscal and monetary policy support to the economy in the second half of the year…the comments are broadly in line with official pro-growth statements made in the wake of first half GDP data which showed the economy in the second quarter of 2012 had expanded at its slowest pace in more than three years…

South Korea, Taiwan Slow Down

Signs of economic weakness are emerging out of Asian tigers South Korea and Taiwan as the slowdown in key trading partner China takes a toll on the export-driven nations…the mainland is the biggest export destination for South Korea and Taiwan, accounting for 24 and 27%, respectively, of overall shipments…Taiwan’s economy unexpectedly contracted in the second quarter by 0.2% from the same period a year earlier…the country’s government yesterday cut its annual growth forecast to 2.1% from 3% as export growth forecast was slashed to 0.1% from 2.7%…in South Korea, industrial output in June contracted by 0.4% from May – the first month-on-month shrinkage in three months…