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Gold has traded between $1,233 and $1,258 so far today…as of 4:45 am Pacific, bullion is down $16 an ounce at $1,236 as it gives up some more of its gains after Tuesday’s strong move…Silver is off 60 cents at $19.70…Copper is unchanged at $3.27…Crude Oil is up 24 cents at $97.68 while the U.S. Dollar Index is flat at 79.91…

“The aggressive increase in short positions over the last five weeks combined with thinning liquidity conditions as we head closer to the year-end holiday season meant that the market had become vulnerable to being squeezed higher,” commented UBS analyst Joni Teves.  Tuesday’s move “reflected uneasy shorts giving up positions, and stops getting triggered to further amplify the move.”

As John’s chart showed yesterday, Gold has a resistance band between $1,260 and $1,280 to deal with…very strong support has been built at and just above $1,200…next week’s FMOC meeting will go a long way toward determining if Gold can put in a year-end rally that will cut some of this year’s losses with bullion set for its first annual decline in 13 years…

South Korean news agencies are reporting that North Korea, in the grips of a major economic crisis, is selling “large amounts” of Gold to China…as Mineweb’s Lawrence Williams stated in an article yesterday, “As such sales, if they are happening as reported, are likely to be government to government, then this could be another indicator that China is building reserves without reporting this to the IMF.”

Today’s Markets

Asian markets were lower overnight, though China’s Shanghai Composite recovered from its lows of the day to finish down by just a point at 2203…Japan’s Nikkei fell 173 points or 1.1% to close at 15342…

European shares are down modestly in late trading overseas…

Stock index futures in New York as of 4:45 am Pacific are pointing toward a slightly lower open on Wall Street after the Dow tumbled 130 points yesterday, its biggest single-day drop in over a month…

TSX Updated Chart

The TSX, with a nearly 200-point drop yesterday, closed below its still-rising 50-day moving average (SMA) for just the second time since July…below is an interesting 4-year weekly chart from John…note how the TSX has corrected to the 61.8% Fib. retracement level as well as an uptrend line established over the last several months…there is superb technical support between the Fib. 50% and 61.8% retracement levels (12774 and 13134, respectively)…

Venture Updated Chart

The Venture closed below 900 yesterday for the first time since July, but this should be the final week of significant tax-loss selling which should set up a much better second half of the month as we have suggested…it’s important to note that the 2-year downtrend line, which the Venture finally broke above in October, is now providing support…all indications from a technical standpoint are that the late June low of 859 is not about to be breached…below is John’s updated 3-year weekly chart…

Madalena Energy Inc. (MVN, TSX-V) Update

As we speculated, weakness late last month in Madalena Energy (MVN, TSX-V) was an excellent opportunity brought about by a $9.2 million bought-deal financing at 47 cents a share…MVN, which is developing significant assets in the Paddle River area of west-central Alberta as well as Argentina, has quickly reversed to the upside and closed at 59 cents yesterday, just a penny below its 52-week high…MVN looks strong entering 2014, and below is a 2.5-year weekly chart with Fib. resistance levels…as always, perform your own due diligence…

Garibaldi Resources Corp. (GGI, TSX-V) Update

Very interesting news from Garibaldi Resources (GGI, TSX-V) after the market closed yesterday as the company reported impressive channel sampling results from La Patilla and the start of a first-ever diamond drilling program at that Gold property in Sinaloa State, Mexico…grab samples are mere “pin-pricks” and don’t necessarily mean a whole lot; channel samples are an entirely different matter and give representative grades and widths across structure…the level of detail provided by GGI on La Patilla, if one examines the geology and drill hole location maps released yesterday, suggests this property does indeed have excellent potential for hosting a modest near-surface deposit…what’s also revealing is that GGI has already cut a deal (prior to drilling) with the local community regarding possible extraction at La Patilla…

GGI is commencing drilling immediately with the drill map showing three proposed holes into the heart of the Murcielago breccia where channel sampling returned intervals grading 28.4 g/t Au over 1.3 m, 7.5 g/t Au over 6.4 m, 6.2 g/t Au over 3.3 m, and 5.8 g/t Au over 7.9 m…those kind of numbers are an excellent indication that this breccia has some robustness to it…if mineralization holds together at depth, then GGI is off to the races…how this breccia and the La Patilla vein system contiguous to the southeast are possibly related will be interesting to determine…nine drill hole locations have been plotted over this vein system hosted in rhyolite and underlain by andesite…strong mineralization could occur at the the altered contact between the rhyolite and the andesite…

Between La Patilla and assays pending for the 17th hole completed at the Locust target at the Tonichi Project, GGI has two significant near-term potential catalysts in Mexico plus news to come regarding the Grizzly Property in northwest B.C. – just the Grizzly itself is enough to give GGI a big lift in 2014…

Unlike many Venture companies at the moment, GGI is not standing still – it is making things happen on the ground, and is showing a determination to build shareholder value…

We’ll have more on La Patilla Monday as we further digest the detailed information released late yesterday…

Mason Graphite Inc. (LLG, TSX-V) Update

Strong day yesterday for Mason Graphite (LLG, TSX-V) which finally broke above critical resistance around 50 cents…below is a 2+ year weekly chart from John…

Note: John and Jon both hold share positions in GGI.