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Gold touched a low of $1,320 overnight but has since rebounded and is now up $9 an ounce at $1,335 as of 7:15 am Pacific…Silver is 20 cents higher at $22.06…Copper is off 3 pennies to $3.24, under mild pressure as the growth in new housing prices in China slowed in January…there are renewed concerns about credit restrictions in the country’s huge property sector…Crude Oil is up slightly at $102.26 while the U.S. Dollar Index has added nearly one-tenth of a point to 80.34…

“Gold flooding onto the market in 2013 as a result (of large-scale ETF selling) was used to feed the voracious appetite for physical metal among consumers in India, China and numerous Asian and Middle Eastern markets,” stated the World Gold Council in its latest report…of course the question now is, as Mineweb’s Lawrence Williams pointed out in an interesting article last week, what will happen if there’s an ETF reversal this year and sales are even a net zero which would remove nearly 900 tonnes of supply off the market?…why do so many western investors and analysts not understand the importance of China’s growing appetite for Gold and the extent to which they’ve been accumulating the metal?

JP Morgan has raised its outlook on Gold, saying prices are likely to hit $1,450 by the end of the year as fundamentals have turned bullish…

In a report from www.Kitco.com, Kevin Grady, owner of Phoenix Futures and Options, said there are some fundamental reasons supporting Gold, which is why he is bullish on prices at the moment.  “We continue to see tightness in the forward markets which I feel will spill over into the futures. Although the jewelers do not appear to be buying at these levels, there continues to be a bid under the market. This leads me to believe that we may be seeing some central-bank buying.  A key factor for Gold (last) week was the release of the Federal Reserve minutes. Although the verbiage led us to believe that the current tapering plan would continue, the Gold price held up under immediate pressure. The 200-day moving average comes in around $1,305. We need to hold this area for Gold to attract new buyers,” Grady said.

Gold Stocks Still At Bargain Levels Based On Historical Readings

Despite the nearly 40% jump in the TSX Gold Index since the December multi-year low of 149, many Gold stocks remain highly attractive relative to the price of Gold – especially in situations where producers used The Scare of 2013 to cut costs and focus on the bottom line (quality of ounces) rather than simply production growth.  Below is an excellent chart highlighting this point from www.usfunds.com weekly Investor Alert…

Venture 3-Year Weekly Chart Update

The Venture, on an 11-session winning streak, is up another 3 points to 1025 as of 7:15 am Pacific…not surprisingly, the CMF indicator shows increasing accumulation this month while RSI(14) on this three-year weekly chart recently found support at 50% and is working its way higher again though it’s still below “overbought” territory…

Discovery Ventures Inc. (DVN, TSX-V) Secures Financing For WillaMax Project

Further to our recent update on Discovery Ventures (DVN, TSX-V), the company announced this morning that it has secured a $12 million senior secured term debt facility for development of its WillaMax Project in southeastern British Columbia…DVN is up half a penny at 22 cents through the first 45 minutes of trading…

TSX Venture 50

A total of 10 companies covered consistently by BMR during 2013 have made the “TSX Venture 50” for 2014, a recently-released ranking of strong performers on the Venture spanning Clean Technology, Diversified Industries, Mining, Oil & Gas and Technology & Life Sciences…these 50 companies have shown impressive results in key measures of market performance…the ranking comprises companies from each of the five industry sectors, and they were selected based on four equally weighted criteria: market capitalization growth, share price appreciation, trading volume and analyst coverage…on average, these companies delivered a return of 175% in 2013…the shares of these companies also enjoy a liquid market – a total of 2.3 billion shares traded over the course of 2013…visit the link below, and type in “TSX Venture 50” in the search box,  for a complete view of this list…

www.tmxmoney.com

Only a handful of companies who were part of the “Venture 50” for 2013 are able to claim that honor for 2014, and they include Zenyatta Ventures (ZEN, TSX-V) and Reservoir Minerals (RMC, TSX-V).

In alphabetical order, companies that BMR consistently covered last year that are in the TSX Venture Top 50 for 2014 are Azincourt Uranium Inc. (AAZ, TSX-V), Arianne Phosphate Inc. (DAN, TSX-V), Contact Exploration Inc. (CEX, TSX-V), Macro Enterprises Inc. (MCR, TSX-V), Madalena Energy Inc. (MVN, TSX-V), Mason Graphite Inc. (LLG, TSX-V), Probe Mines Ltd. (PRB, TSX-V), Reservoir Minerals, WANTED Technologies Corp. (WAN, TSX-V), Zenyatta Ventures.

WestKam Gold Corp. (WKG, TSX-V)

Yet another British Columbia company worthy of our readers’ due diligence is WestKam Gold Corp. (WKG, TSX-V) which closed Friday at just 4 cents…the company’s Bonaparte Gold Project covers more than 2,000 hectares of largely unexplored ground about a one hour drive north of Kamloops and approximately 40 km north of New Gold Inc.’s (NGD, TSX) New Afton mine…what’s interesting about WKG is that a 3D IP survey completed last fall extended the exploration target of a high-grade discovery Gold zone (historical drill results, for example intersected 143 g/t Au over 1.2 m and 115.5 g/t Au over 1.1 m) and also located a multi-phase intrusive structure and anomalies indicative of a large Copper-Gold porphyry intrusive…in fact, the potential for a Copper- Gold porphyry system was recognized by the B.C. Geological Survey in a 2013 report…

Technically, John’s 3-year weekly WKG chart shows a breakout above a long-term downtrend line…RSI(14) recently met resistance at 50%, so that’s a key level to watch…strong sell pressure since late last year has been declining rapidly…this could develop into a very interesting play in 2014, and it’s trading under a nickel with 49.5 million shares outstanding…

Reservoir Minerals Inc. (RMC, TSX-V)

What a success story Reservoir Minerals (RMC, TSX-V) is turning out to be, and that’s tremendous for this market…last Thursday, the company announced that it has arranged a pair of financings (non-brokered and a bought deal) at $5.75 per share for total gross proceeds of up to $33 million…this came a couple of days after RMC reported more spectacular drill results from the high sulphide epithermal resource within the Cukaru Peki Copper-Gold deposit in Serbia…hole FMTC 1338 intersected 205.6 m grading 4.81% Cu and 2.88 g/t Au for 6.54% CuEq…meanwhile, wide-spaced drilling to the east and north continue to yield long intercepts of associated porphyry-style Copper-Gold mineralization…the deposit forms part of the Timok Project, a joint venture between Reservoir and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX, NYSE)…quite simply, RMC and Freeport have a great deposit on their hands with strong upside potential to increase resources through infill drilling and the likelihood of extensions to the system…in addition, other areas of the Timok magmatic complex (100% held by Reservoir) are highly prospective for fresh discoveries…this is a winner, plain and simple, which is why we included it in our late December list of 20 companies to watch closely in 2014…

RMC broke out in December and reminds us a lot of how Richfield Ventures traded when it ran from pennies to more than $10 a share in 2011 when it was taken out by New Gold…

G-20 Meetings Call For $2 Trillion World Growth Boost

Finance leaders from the world’s biggest economies yesterday leaned on central banks and governments to help spur growth, reverting to the global economy’s playbook of recent years, in an effort to safeguard a fragile recovery…Group of 20 officials ended their summit over the weekend stating they would develop policies (Lord, help us) to lift their collective GDP by more than 2% above the trajectory implied by current policies over the coming five years.  they would look to boost world growth by more than $2 trillion over the next few years under a strategy crafted by the International Monetary Fund…according to the communiqué, the G-20 has embraced a goal to generate over $2 trillion in additional output over five years, while creating tens of millions of new jobs.

During the meetings, some developing countries complained that the Fed was moving too fast in withdrawing stimulus, but U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew shot back with some intelligent remarks:  “Emerging markets need to take steps on their own to put their fiscal house in order, to put structural reforms in place.” He added that governments had to move ahead with unpopular reforms even though they might fear inciting social unrest.  “We understand economic transitions are hard,” Mr. Lew said in reference mainly to China, which he accused of treading too slowly on reforms. “But we also know that putting off economic transitions will only make it harder.”

Today’s Markets

Asia

China’s Shanghai Composite suffered its worst single-day loss in seven weeks overnight, tumbling 37 points to close at 2077…attention turns to next week’s National People’s Congress, an annual meeting of Chinese lawmakers, for possible details on further property sector curbs…Japan’s Nikkei was down just slightly overnight…

Europe

European markets are mixed in late trading overseas…

North America

The Dow has surged 127 points through the first hour of trading to 16238…in Toronto, the TSX is up 45 points…

Did You Know? Total government debt in Canada (federal, provincial and municipal) now stands at $1.2-trillion and is higher as a percentage of GDP than the U.S. and the E.U….

Osisko Mining Corp. (OSK, TSX) Intersects 2.26 g/t Au Over 128 Metres At Kirkland Lake

Significant news out of Osisko Mining (OSK, TSX) during the trading day Friday as the company reported it has discovered “a potentially large, bulk-tonnage disseminated-Gold deposit on its 100%-owned Kirkland Lake project. This discovery, named the Canadian Kirkland zone, consists of a previously unreported type of mineralization in this world-class Gold camp. The Canadian Kirkland zone is located 750 metres south of Highway 66, approximately 6.5 km southeast of the village of King Kirkland. Mineralization comprises fine disseminated Gold and pyrite in a pinkish-grey-to-brick-red altered zone that completely replaces volcanic tuffs.”

Outcrop is very poor in this area…Sean Roosen, President and CEO of Osisko, stated, “This is the first of what we expect could be one of many discoveries made using our bulk-tonnage model in the Kirkland camp. The discovery was based on compilation work and our 2013 exploration work in the camp, the first time that Kirkland has seen a district-wide approach to identify bulk-tonnage targets. We have identified a number of additional areas that will be the subject of intensive exploration in the coming year and hope to build on the success of this first discovery.”

Osisko will immediately implement a broad-scale drill program to test an area measuring 2,300 metres by 1,300 metres that covers the Canadian Kirkland and Commodore Kirkland zones, as well as other previously drilled zones in the immediate area that have been historically associated with pink syenites and trachytes, currently interpreted as being part of the same felsite hydrothermal system. The southern limit of the area of interest is the Cadillac/Larder Lake fault, located approximately 200 m south of the Canadian Kirkland zone…

Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. (SBB, TSX)

Arctic resource development will continue to accelerate in the years ahead, thanks in part to the encouragement of local and federal governments…one company sitting on a rich Gold deposit in Nunavut – one of the highest grade development assets in the Americas not owned by a producer – is Sabina Gold and Silver (SBB, TSX) with its Back River Project just 75 km from tide water at Bathurst Inlet…Back River will be a high-grade open-pit and underground operation, and a positive Pre-Feasibility Study was released last October…

Meanwhile, 45 km west of Back River is the Silver-rich Hackett River VMS deposit…in 2011, Sabina sold Hackett River to Xstrata Zinc Canada in exchange for $50 million in cash and the retention of a significant Silver royalty on future production…based on Sabina’s 2009 PEA on Hackett River, the royalty would deliver to Sabina approximately 2.7 million ounces of Silver annually for 16 years…

So the fundamentals with this company are quite compelling…technically, what’s interesting with SBB is that the stock has formed a cup with handle reversal pattern and has broken out above a downtrend line in place for all of 2013…

John has two interesting charts – the first one is an 18-month weekly while the second one is an 11-year monthly…without question, there is a significant turnaround underway in Sabina…

SBB Long-Term Chart (11-Year Monthly)

Macro Enterprises Inc. (MCR, TSX-V) Update

We first alerted our readers to Macro Enterprises (MCR, TSX-V) nine months ago when it was trading around $3 a share…technically overbought conditions emerged when the stock hit an all-time high of $7.35 in October, then a consolidation process started that took MCR down to its 200-day SMA just above $5 a share earlier this month…on December 20, we stated:  “The current chart is showing some weakness, so a further pullback to important support (such as the 200-day SMA) – if that should occur – would represent another outstanding investor opportunity with this situation in our view.  The Macro story is very simple – it’s a construction and maintenance service provider to the energy and resource industries in B.C. and Alberta.  Through the first nine months of its fiscal year ending September 30, Macro recorded net income of nearly $25 million or 91 cents per share.  It’s particularly busy at the moment in the Fort McMurray area.  Pipeline and facility construction, and pipeline repair work, can be quite profitable and there appears to be no shortage of potential contracts for MCR at the moment.”

Macro has found its groove again and the stock has pushed above the downtrend line that formed in December as you can see in this 9-month daily chart from John.  It’s not often you find a Venture company with this kind of revenue and profit growth which is why it’s part of the TSX Venture 50…

Silver Update & Charts

Strong investment demand for Silver drove global sales of one-ounce Silver bullion coins to an all-time record high in 2013, while early indications suggest that investors’ interest in acquiring Silver coins is healthy in the opening weeks of 2014…the U.S. Mint sold 42,675,000 American Eagle Silver Bullion coins in 2013, 26% more than the 33,700,000 coins sold in 2012, hitting a new single-year record for the most purchased since the U.S. Mint began producing the one-ounce Silver coin in 1986 (the Canadian Silver Maple Leaf saw a 60% increase)…and the buying continues…already this year, over 6,500,000 American Eagle Silver Bullion coins have been sold…

Technically, the short-term Silver chart (8-month daily) shows a modestly overbought RSI(14) at 70% and a band of resistance between $22 and $23 while strong support exists between $20.50 and $21.45…the 200-day SMA has been cleared (now support) and appears to be gearing up for a reversal to the upside…the trading range for now appears to be between $20.50 and $23…

Long-Term Silver Chart

RSI(2) on the Silver long-term chart (11-year monthly) is often a very reliable indicator of near-term moves, and what it’s telling us now is that Silver still has room to move higher in the immediate future but temporarily overbought conditions would likely emerge and this would be followed by some consolidation before the next leg up…sell pressure has been dominant since early last year but is clearly weakening…if and when Silver breaks above the downtrend line, watch out…

Note: Jon holds a share position in WKG.