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Gold is trying to bounce back after falling as low as $1,261 yesterday, just slightly above the October 15 intra-day low…as of 7:15 am Pacific, bullion is up $6 an ounce at $1,272…Silver is down 7 cents at $20.64…Copper has fallen 6 pennies to $3.16 on increased supply concerns…Crude Oil is up 63 cents at $93.67 while the U.S. Dollar Index is higher at 81.26…

The U.S. Mint said yesterday that Silver coin sales year-to-date reached a record 40.175 million ounces, surpassing the previous record set in 2011…this month alone, sales have already topped 1 million ounces…in October, the Mint sold 3.087 million ounces of Silver…according to the agency’s data, demand has been firm throughout the year with January the best month when 7.5 million ounces were sold…improving industrial demand, strong investment demand in Silver coins and exchange-traded funds, and Indian consumers’ substitution to Silver from Gold should combine to provide strong price support for Silver, according to Andrew Leyland, manager of precious metal demand at Thomson Reuters GFMS…

Meanwhile, the U.S. Mint Gold sales have started to pick up after a lackluster August and September…during those two months the Mint sold 23,000 and 26,000 ounces of Gold, respectively…in October, the Mint sold 97,000 ounces of the yellow metal and another 24,000 ounces during the first full week of November…

Today’s Markets

The Dow is off 67 points through the first 45 minutes of trading…the U.S. is leading the way in a global economic recovery and there should be little question about its ability to fulfill its debt obligations, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told CNBC Asia in an interview today…“What we learned a few weeks ago is that it (the budget battle) did get to the 11th hour, but at the 11th hour, there was a broad bipartisan consensus to be where the U.S. has always been. We stand by our obligations and the full faith and credit of the U.S. cannot be called into question,” he added…Lew said the U.S. economy had proved resilient and was bouncing back…

The TSX has shed just 5 points as of 7:15 am Pacific while the Venture is off 2 points at 924…

Asia

Asian markets were lower overnight…Japan’s Nikkei average was off slightly but China’s Shanghai Composite slipped 39 points or 1.8% to finish at 2088…investors were underwhelmed with early details, or the lack thereof, from the Community Party’s 4-day Third Plenum meeting which concluded yesterday…Chinese state media released a communique summarizing the results of the meeting last night…the document was heavy on rather vague promises to give markets a “decisive” role in allocating economic resources and pursue judicial reform, but short on details (more information is likely to emerge next week when a much longer version of the leaders’ deliberations is expected)…the Wall Street Journal’s Russell Leigh Moses wrote this morning that the Third Plenum was a “Clear win for technocrats in the Chinese leadership – Premier Li Keqiang and his allies – who wanted to tweak, rather than transform, existing policies and approaches…administrative reform, eliminating agencies and bureaus they believe to be superfluous, making decisions more efficient – but not seeking to overturn the leading role of the state – this was the Technocratic Template, and it won the four days of the plenum”…

Europe – UK Gets Encouraging Employment News

European shares were lower today as euro zone industrial production numbers came in below expectations…meanwhile, unemployment in the UK has fallen to 7.6% of the workforce – its lowest since May 2009, in a strong set of jobs data that underlined the pace of recovery…the rate was down 0.2 percentage points on the previous quarter, the Office for National Statistics said…in its latest quarterly forecasts, published today, the Monetary Policy Committee has forecast a 50/50 chance of hitting its 7% unemployment threshold in the 4th quarter of 2014, a huge change from its August forecast that unemployment was likely to remain above the threshold until summer 2016…the MPC maintained its stance, though, that monetary policy was on hold for a long time yet…“There is a long way to go before the aftermath of the financial crisis has cleared and economic conditions normalize….that underpins the MPC’s intention to maintain the exceptionally stimulative stance of monetary policy until there has been a substantial reduction in the degree of economic slack”…

Barisan Gold Corp. (BG, TSX-V)

In a delayed reaction to recent drill results – 262 m of 1% CuEq but in Indonesia – Barisan Gold Corp. (BG, TSX-V) took off strongly to the upside yesterday as it nearly doubled on total volume of 1.3 million shares (all exchanges) to close at 18 cents…it’s surging higher again this morning as well…as of 7:15 am Pacific, BG is up another 13 cents to 31 cents (in the immediate vicinity of a Fib. target)…

Last week, Barisan reported impressive assay results for hole UTD-003 at its Upper Tengkereng prospect, located in the province of Aceh, Indonesia…porphyry mineralization was intersected from 18 metres to the end of the hole at 922 m…

Incidentally – and we state this to point out how a porphyry system can become much richer in grade at depth – the first mineralized intercept in this hole drilled by Barisan returned 0.23 g/t Au and 0.17% Cu over 114 m (18 m to 132 m) and was almost identical in Au-Cu grades and length near-surface to the one announced last week by Garibaldi Resources (GGI, TSX-V) at its Locust target in Mexico (104.6 m of 0.24 g/t Au and 0.16% Cu from 57 to 161.6 m)…GGI is now going deeper into that system with MAR-13-03 being drilled from the valley floor (anything can happen when you drill, and that’s a reason some fireworks are possible from GGI in the near future)…

Barisan hit 1% CuEq between 428 m and 690 m…the entire hole returned 904 metres grading 0.41 g/t Au and 0.25% Cu (0.50% CuEq)…Alex Granger, CEO of Barisan Gold stated,  “We have validated one of the highest-grade porphyry discoveries anywhere in the world of the past decade. There are very few new porphyry discoveries that have returned intercepts of 1 per cent copper equivalent over more than 250 metres. This is even more impressive by the fact that we have not yet drilled down to the potassic zone and associated bornite mineralization of the Upper Tengkereng porphyry system where higher grades are usually intersected. The grades we are intersecting higher up in this system are higher than those that other recent discoveries have found in bornite-rich mineralization within potassic zones.”

Barisan’s 4th hole is now in progress…below is a 2+year chart from John…note the 32-cent Fib. target…this one will be volatile…

Kootenay Silver Inc. (KTN, TSX-V) Drills 218 AgEq Over 45 Metres At Promontorio

Kootenay Silver (KTN, TSX-V), which we mentioned last month when it was trading in the 60’s, is up 4 cents at 78 cents in early trading today after announcing more positive assay results from its continuing multiphase drill and resource expansion program at its flagship Promontorio Silver Project in Sonora State, Mexico, immediately south of GGI’s Tonichi Project…

Zenyatta Ventures (ZEN, TSX-V)

Zenyatta Ventures (ZEN, TSX-V) is looking much healthier technically after holding critical support at the $2 level…below is an updated ZEN chart from John…as of 7:15 am Pacific, ZEN is up a penny at $2.74…

Global Cobalt Corp. (GCO, TSX-V)

Global Cobalt (GCO, TSX-V) continues to gain traction with its Karakul Cobalt Project in Russia (the pro mining Republic of Altai) where drilling continues…GCO had been consolidating within a pennant for a couple of weeks before breaking out yesterday with the stock climbing 6 cents to close at 21 cents on total volume (all exchanges) of 2.5 million shares (this breakout requires confirmation today as outlined in John’s chart below)…there’s no question GCO is “in play” given what’s happening on the ground and how the stock has been trading since waking up a few weeks ago…GCO is off half a penny at 20.5 cents through the first 45 minutes of trading…

West High Yield Resources (WHY, TSX-V) and NuLegacy Gold Corp. (NUG, TSX-V)

West High Yield Resources (WHY, TSX-V) and NuLegacy Gold Corp. (NUG, TSX-V) are both worthy of our readers’ due diligence – could be very interesting plays in 2014 – and they have also caught the eye of John in terms of their recent bullish chart patterns…we’ll have more on both of these later this week…

NuLegacy Gold Corp. (NUG, TSX-V)

Note: John, Terry and Jon do not hold share positions in BG, KTN, ZEN, GCO, WHY or NUG.