Gold has traded in a range between $1,302 and $1,324 so far today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, bullion is down $13 an ounce at $1,306…Silver is 32 cents lower at $21.08…Copper is off a nickel at $3.22…Crude Oil is down over $1 a barrel to $102.40 while the U.S. Dollar Index has surged half a point to 80.45…
As President Obama steps up his rhetoric about the dire consequences of not raising the debt limit, increasing numbers of Congressional Republicans are disputing that forecast, as well as the timing of when the Treasury might run out of money and the implications of a default, further complicating the negotiating situation for Obama and Speaker John Boehner who must find a way out of the impasse…
“It really is irresponsible of the President to try to scare the markets,” said Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky. “If you don’t raise your debt ceiling, all you’re saying is, ‘We’re going to be balancing our budget.’ So if you put it in those terms, all these scary terms of, ‘Oh my goodness, the world’s going to end’ – if we balance the budget, the world’s going to end? Why don’t we spend what comes in?”
“If you propose it that way,” he said of not raising the debt limit, “the American public will say that sounds like a pretty reasonable idea.”
The market’s growing uneasiness over the debt ceiling issue is being reflected not just in the recent performance of equities, but in yields for short-term Treasury bills…ones that mature in October and November have risen above 30 basis points this week, a level not seen since late 2008…risk aversion was certainly in evidence yesterday when the Treasury sold new 1-month bills at a yield of 35 basis points, a 3-fold increase from the prior week and just shy of the 2-year Treasury yield of 0.38%…
Yellen To Be Nominated As Fed President
No surprise here after President Obama’s apparent preferred choice, Larry Summers, recently withdrew his name for nomination, as Fed Vice-Chair Janet Yellen will be named later today by Obama to succeed Ben Bernanke when he steps down at the end of January…if confirmed by the Senate, which is widely expected, Yellen will become the first woman to head the central bank in its 100-year history…her views are considered to be closely aligned with those of Bernanke…
As Wall Street Journal ace reporter Jon Hilsenrath and colleague Victoria McGrane wrote this morning, “Her willingness to push boundaries to goose a listless economy reflects her intellectual heritage as a protégé of the late Nobel laureate James Tobin, a Yale University economist who advised presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Mr. Tobin’s work built upon the ideas of Depression-era economist John Maynard Keynes and supported government action to combat problems such as high unemployment and poverty.”
Over the spring and summer, the market was expecting the Fed to start tapering as early as September…of course that didn’t happen…with Yellen at the helm early next year, one cannot rule out the possibility of NO tapering until at least then, and perhaps even the unthinkable – what if economic conditions weaken – at least somewhat – and the Fed’s next move is actually to ramp UP its bond-buying program?…the Fed is in a trap that it won’t easily be able to crawl out of, and Yellen will have the difficult task of dealing with that mess…
Some market observers believe Yellen will pursue an ultra-loose monetary policy that will push beyond the current unemployment threshold of 6.5% and ultimately drive inflation higher…
Fed watchers today will be paying close attention to the publication of the September Fed minutes…given the current political stalemate in Washington, however, and economic dynamics that potentially could change significantly in the coming weeks, those minutes might be largely irrelevant…
Today’s Markets
Asian stocks cheered the news regarding Yellen and climbed higher overnight…Japan’s Nikkei average jumped 143 points to 14038 while China’s Shanghai Composite gained 14 points to close at 2212…European shares were mixed today…
After having fallen in 11 out of the past 14 sessions (860 points or 5.5%), the Dow is trying to rebound today…as of 7:00 am Pacific, it’s up 15 points…
The Dow is still prone to additional weakness which may mean a near-term test of a strong support band between 14400 and 14550 as shown in this 15-month weekly chart from John…RSI(14) divergence with price over the summer was a clue that the Index was gearing up for a correction…it found support yesterday at the rising 200-day moving average (SMA)…a temporary break below the 200-day occurred twice last year but has yet to occur so far this year…
The TSX is up 27 points through the first 30 minutes of trading, despite the weakness in commodities, while the Venture has lost 5 points to 934…the Venture could be headed for its first 3-session losing skid since August 19-20-21 when it dipped as low as 925 (solid support with the 100-day SMA currently at 928) before rebounding…
Fission Uranium Corp. (FCU, TSX-V)
More very positive results this morning from Fission Uranium (FCU, TSX-V)…PLS13-099, the easternmost hole of the R945E Zone, intersected 144 metres of total composite mineralization including 8 m of off-scale radioactivity…this new hole represents the largest accumulation of mineralized intervals in any drill hole at PLS to date, and it extends on trend the strike length of this high-grade system to just over 1 km…on Monday, FCU announced an 11-hole, 3,700-metre expansion of the summer program to test highly prospective land-based targets to the west of the initial discovery zone (ROOE)…
FCU is up 4 cents to $1.20 as of 7:00 am Pacific…
Based on yesterday’s close of $1.16, Fission is off by more than 20% from its all-time high of $1.48 at the end of August…however, a reasonable interpretation is that it’s merely catching its breath after announcing a takeover of its JV partner (Alpha Minerals, AMW, TSX-V) and a flow-through financing at $1.50 that was expanded to $11.25 million last week…Fission is primed, in our view, for a take-out by a major at some point down the road (at a significantly higher price) and much of that money would likely flow into other juniors that are active with good prospects in the area – one of those is Aldrin Resource Corp. (ALN, TSX-V) which we’ve been mentioning since the spring when it was trading just below a dime…
Aldrin Resource Corp. (ALN, TSX-V)
Aldrin (ALN, TSX-V) enjoyed a solid day yesterday, jumping 1.5 cents to finish at 12.5 cents on volume of more than 4 million shares after the company announced it has arranged a $1 million private placement at 10 cents per share…the company also acquired a 100% interest in the 49,000-hectare Virgin Uranium Property on the south-central margin of the Athabasca basin…the company’s exploration focus over the winter will be to drill its Triple M Property adjacent to the PLS discovery…
Technically, ALN has solid support at 11 cents which was important resistance up until the end of July…ALN has fallen below its rising 100-day SMA at 12 cents for the 1st time since it resumed trading in May…
Discovery plays, from the uranium situation in Saskatchewan to North American Nickel’s (NAN, TSX-V) Maniitsoq Project in Greenland to the rapidly emerging Sheslay Valley Cu-Au porphyry district in northwest British Columbia, offer tremendous leverage even in challenging overall market conditions…
Probe Mines Ltd. (PRB, TSX-V)
Another discovery play we continue to like a lot is Probe Mines‘ (PRB, TSX-V) Borden Lake Project in northern Ontario where a robust high-grade zone is being delineated to the southeast of the original deposit…Probe has performed remarkably well in recent months, thanks to the discovery of this expanding high-grade area…keep in mind that Agnico Eagle (AEM, TSX) took a 9.99% position in the company in the spring…future take-out by AEM?…
Below is a 2.5-year weekly updated Probe chart…PRB has built solid support at the $2 level and – based on the geology at Borden – still has strong upside potential despite doubling in price since the end of May…PRB is up a penny at $2.16 through the first 30 minutes of trading…
Gold Standard Ventures (GSV, TSX-V)
Speaking of discoveries, Gold Standard Ventures (GSV, TSX-V) has bucked the market trend this week…as mentioned Monday morning, GSV came out with interesting news last week regarding its Railroad Project in Nevada…the first hole drilled by GSV at a target (Bald Mountain) 1500 metres southwest of North Bullion intercepted Gold and Copper mineralization in oxidized material – the most significant Gold oxidized mineralization found to date in the northern Railroad Project area…GSV jumped another 11 cents yesterday to close at 85 cents…it has advanced for 5 consecutive sessions, so it is prone to a slight pullback…GSV is up about 50% over just the last 7 sessions…
However, GSV’s breakout above 70 cents (now strong new support) and a downtrend line in place since last year was significant…combined with developments on the ground, this one is certainly worth watching closely in the weeks ahead…next major chart resistance is $1.20…note the bullish crossover in the ADX indicator – definitely a change in trend…as of 7:00 am Pacific, GSV is up a penny at 86 cents…
Note: John, Jon and Terry do not hold share positions in FCU, ALN, PRB or GSV.
More manipulation of gold and silver, interesting everytime positive news for gold and silver is going to come out the gold and silver price gets sold down before the news so it will have a lower price to go up from and stay right where JPMorgan and our crooked US Gov’t want it to stay. Before the news of the last fed minutes come out gold gets sold down 45 bucks or more, this morning with the announcement of Yellen as the next Fed Chief and whose views of loose monetary policies are in line with Bernanke and the fed minutes coming out today which I am sure will give insight into no tapering for sometime and what do we see, gold down again over 20 bucks, pure manipulation, when will it ever end, or should I say how will it ever end?
Comment by Greg — October 9, 2013 @ 6:29 am
BMR – As President Obama steps up his rhetoric about the dire consequences
of not raising the debt limit
Bert – Why call it rhetoric, when in fact, it is reality. If you Jon, my buddy,
decides not to pay your credit card payments, how will your credit company view
that ? the truth is, they close in on you., or, if in the future, BMR decides to
have a paid service & if i subscribe & some time later, decide not to pay for the
service, what do BMR do ? CUT ME OFF !!! China would love to be able to say to the
U.S. pay up or ??? If the truth is told, when we hear that one side is looking
for a way out, it tells me their argument was not valid anyway. We have to pay
our bills, whether it be on a personal basis or whether it be a Government.
Accounting is accounting ir accounting. R !
p.s. We aren’t going anywhere until this matter is settled.
Comment by Bert — October 9, 2013 @ 6:38 am
The U.S. Treasury has numerous options to keep paying the bills. And it knows this.
It could operate on a cash-flow basis, meaning it would need to have money in the bank to pay bills as they come due, like paying bills with cash instead of a credit card. The U.S. Treasury always has money coming into its accounts. So it always has some cash it can use to pay interest on bonds. That’s especially true right now because the government is partially shut down, and no cash is going out. In fact, the U.S. Treasury should have no trouble making interest payments on the bonds it has issued… According to economist Brian Westbury, the U.S. will take in more than $200 billion in tax receipts and owe just $25 billion in interest payments in October.
And nothing restricts the U.S. Treasury from prioritizing interest payments. The obligation to pay interest is set by the 1917 Second Liberty Bond Act and other laws that commanded the Treasury to pay interest on the debt.
The only way possible that the U.S. defaults on its debt is if President Obama instructs Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to default on the debt.
So if you think the markets are going to crash or soar because of the default, stop worrying. Politicians are trying to make us panic in the hopes that the financial markets will do things to help their negotiating position.
There might be some volatility ahead. But this will pass just like the last default in 2011. Don’t panic.
Comment by Greg — October 9, 2013 @ 7:45 am
Just listening to the news that families of fallen soldiers are left
to not only mourn, but without compensation for the death of those,
who fought so that others can live. Pathetic ! Whichever side is to
blame, i say shame !!! Is it possible that any Government can be so
stone dead. I expect someone to counter what i state, but i will
accept that, realizing that i will not shy away from speaking on
behalf of those, whom i don’t know, but i do know that they lost
their lives on behalf of others. I realize this is a stock musing
site, but speaking on behalf of a fallen soldier and or the families
is appropriate on any site. R !
Comment by Bert — October 9, 2013 @ 8:13 am
Greg
With all due respect, it’s not what they can do if they don’t reach an
agreement, it’s what others think they should have, could have done.
Mark my word, if they don’t reach an agreement by Oct. 17th., the markets
will plunge, including the Venture. You can see what is happening now on a
daily basis & we are not there yet. I think you may have mentioned about
Gold being manipulated, the same bunch, the money bags, will portray what
is happening as being the end of the world, they always have an agenda,
that is to scare guys like you and me, for their own benefit. Remember it’s
all about Money & don’t forget the fear & greed factor. R !
Comment by Bert — October 9, 2013 @ 8:37 am
Bert,
your exactly right
that is why what you posted above IMO is all propaganda about families not recieving benefits. I do not believe any of that for one second. This current administration will do and say anything to get their agenda done.. FEAR
Comment by Greg — October 9, 2013 @ 9:59 am
Bert
It is a shame the families of fallen soldiers are left like that, that being said it is interesting how most everything the the government has closed has been to more or less annoy the public. They are not paying those families to get sympathy and to stir emotions of people only. The programs that they have stopped are a drop in the ocean compared to the what is still running. In the area I live, they closed a scenic road, i have driven on it many times and have never seen a government employee. There is no gates and museums or anything else like that, just a road. They did find the money to bring in the barricades to close the road????
Comment by jimmy — October 9, 2013 @ 10:21 am
NAN Halted pending news! Hope it is good
Comment by Greg — October 9, 2013 @ 12:04 pm
I believe NAN caught the sellers off guard today. Most investors thought the release would be after the long weekend. The share price drifted lower today on light volume but gained a little before the halt. Management very good at not leaking info. Hope we see spectacular results.
Comment by Dan — October 9, 2013 @ 1:17 pm
And they also halted VMS. That is also a positive.
Comment by Dan — October 9, 2013 @ 1:18 pm
Important, a BMR request
Hi Folks
PLEASE forward this request to Stockcharts.
BMR needs your help again….we need Stockcharts to add WRR.V to their database.
On their website they have a special form for requesting a symbol. Here is how to get it.
1. Go to stockcharts.com and you get the “Home” page.
2. Enter WRR.V in the Symbol box in the top right hand corner.
3. On the next page find “Request a Symbol” and click on it.
4. You should get a form to request the new symbol.
5. Make sure the Symbol you enter is WRR.V and don’t forget to add in your email address in the required box.
6. Click on submit.
Many thanks
Comment by John (BMR) — October 9, 2013 @ 3:55 pm
Jon
did my part for wrr.v
Comment by Greg — October 9, 2013 @ 5:12 pm
Done …straightforward and painless. Noticed Barkerville,Bgm resumed trading today, after months and months.
Comment by Greg J. — October 9, 2013 @ 5:14 pm
Done
Comment by Martin — October 9, 2013 @ 5:39 pm
Garibaldi just did some facefilt to their home page (rolling pict of their project)
Comment by Martin — October 9, 2013 @ 5:54 pm
Gotta give credit to the CEO of GGI, he is very consistent in talking about building shareholder value, there is a video on their website where he speaks short but informative… and of course he is the largest shareholder too…
Comment by Greg — October 9, 2013 @ 6:35 pm
RBW insider purchased 300,000 shares at .05, as per prospectus exemption.
Comment by Alexandre — October 10, 2013 @ 6:47 am
Hi Jon,
Regarding Prosper Gold, I have red that field exploration is possible up to november at SV, let say they would come up with some good result with their 3 last holes, would they continue drilling during the winter season?
Comment by Martin — October 10, 2013 @ 7:46 am
Martin, they will not be drilling during the winter regardless of the results. A camp has to be set up and Peter has personaly told me that no winter program will occur but they will be full steam ahead in the spring. Now, as Jon has aluded, they might be looking at another property that might be drill ready.
Comment by Paul — October 10, 2013 @ 8:47 am
Ok thanks Paul
Comment by Martin — October 10, 2013 @ 11:04 am
I did a large post on this in the comments section about a week ago, Martin, have a look at – Paul is correct…PGX has a lot of data to review – not just from drilling – and hopefully a “glory” hole coming as early as next week…my instincts tell me things are about to heat up on the entire Sheslay Valley front, from the Grizzly to the Sheslay to even the Hat…
Comment by Jon - BMR — October 10, 2013 @ 11:06 am