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It’s a weak day on the commodity front…Gold is about to test its next major support level which is around $1,640 an ounce…as of 7:30 am Pacific, the yellow metal is down $22 an ounce at $1,644…Silver has fallen by more than $1 to $29.90…Copper has fallen 8 cents to $3.50…Crude Oil is down 8 cents to $89.92 while the U.S. Dollar Index continues to hover just above support at 79, down more than one-tenth of a point to 79.25 after nearly touching 79…

Due to the upcoming Christmas holidays, we’re now on an abbreviated schedule at BMR through December 31…we’ll have postings each market day as usual, but they’ll be shorter…there will be no Week In Review And A Look Ahead this weekend but this regular feature will return December 29…

U.S. Grows At Faster Pace Than Expected In Q3

The U.S. economy grew at a faster pace that previously forecast in the third quarter, while weekly jobless claims rose slightly more than expected in fresh data released this morning…the final estimate on third quarter U.S. gross domestic product was 3.1%, a government report showed…the economy had been expected to grow at a pace of 2.8% in the quarter, up from a previous estimate of 2.7%, according to Thomson Reuters consensus estimates…a separate report showed weekly jobless claims rose to 361,000 in the latest week…claims had been expected to rise to 357,000, from 343,000 the prior week…

Japan’s Central Bank Eases Monetary Policy

The Japanese central bank eased monetary policy today as it announced an increase of its asset-buying and lending program by 10 trillion yen ($118.7 billion), a widely expected move in response to intensifying pressure from incoming premier Shinzo Abe to deliver bolder steps to beat deflation…

Today’s Markets

Japan’s Nikkei average fell on profit-taking on the news from its central bank but still closed above 10000…China’s Shanghai Composite rose 6 points to 2168 as it continues to trade slightly above the top of a down trendline in place since April, 2011…European markets are flat in late trading while as of 7:30 am Pacific, the Dow is down 3 points while the Venture Exchange is off 2 points at 1175GQ…

Crude Oil Chart

Interestingly, crude oil has broken out above a symmetrical triangle and the EMA-20 is again on the rise…the top of that triangle, just below $88 a barrel, is now new support…below is an updated WTIC 6-month daily chart from John…

GoldQuest Mining (GQC, TSX-V)

GoldQuest Mining (GQC, TSX-V) came out with news this morning, announcing that it’s undertaking an IP survey covering the complete Las Tres Palmas trend and outlying areas in the company’s extensive land package, including Los Comios, Romero West, and Jengibre…this survey will investigate to a depth of approximately 500 metres which is almost twice the depth of the 2011 IP survey that identified the Romero mineralization…initial results of the current survey at Romero and north of the La Escandalosa deposit have identified deeper chargeability anomalies, where higher readings appear to correlate with sulphide mineralization…the company is mobilizing a fourth deep drill rig to test new targets along the trend beginning in January when results from the last 9 holes of the 2012 drill program are also expected…GQC is up 7 cents at 59 cents through the first hour of trading…

Discovery Ventures (DVN, TSX-V)

Discovery Ventures (DVN, TSX-V) has been a major success story during this fourth quarter with its acquisition of the Willa Gold-copper-Silver deposit in the Slocan Valley, less than 10 miles north of Rainbow Resources‘ (RBW, TSX-V) Gold Viking Property…DVN touched 43 cents last week, a Fibonacci resistance area as pointed out in John’s recent charts…it has since backed off, closing yesterday at 36.5 cents…DVN clearly has some power behind and the company recently completed (very quickly) a financing for nearly $3 million, so they mean business and we suspect the stock will continue to be a strong performer going into 2013…as always, perform your own due diligence, but we view this pullback as an opportunity with strong support on the chart between 32 and 36 cents as John outlines below…

Northern Graphite (NGC, TSX-V)

This is more of an “awareness” chart as graphite plays are starting to stir again after in part because of signs of economic recovery in China…a good example is Northern Graphite (NGC, TSX), which fell as low as 60 cents earlier this month but climbed as high as $1.07 yesterday…it’s up a few pennies to 97 cents in early trading today…Focus Graphite (FMS, TSX-V) has also been firming up, among others in this space…

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