Good afternoon
Trump is getting on everybodies toes - and many are asking not "if", but "when" we will be relieved of him. Gold is very volatile, with a nice upward-bias - at least so far. But as I am writing, it´s fighting with the 200-day moving average again, which it strongly broke to the upside only yesterday ( 200 day at 1244 US$. Hopefully, we are only testing the break-out!
In any case - and that´s new - the gold price seems to react to political uncertainty ion the US - and helped by a weaker $, which is trending down for the same reasons. Fundamentally, Europe is doing better with the month - optimism is increasing.
US labor market numbers today have been positive, and might have played their part in turning base metals today, which looked very sick at lunch time, only to edge higehr ever since, and being down by about 0,5% now at 6 pm European time.
But at least, we have some news today:
Crusader - have received a takeover from Stratex International, a London-based company. STI is proposing to pay - subject to due diligence - 6.6 of it´s own shares, which would be the equivalent of 9.9pence or 17.3ct/share Crusader. STI has two assets - perhaps three: They have 12 mill A$ in cash / a surprisingly strong share register, with Blackrock as 16% shareholder / probably a good MD, Marcus Engelbrecht. He has been a previous CFO of Oceana Gold, before he managed Archipelago, which brought a gold mine into production in Indonesia, and was taken over for 250 Mill Pound, if Bloomberg records are correct. So IF this thing goes through ( so far, we just of a Haeds of Agreement ), Crusader shareholders would get a premium, and would own 81% of a company, which has 12 mill in cash. I think that would be a very positive outcome!
Perseus - update today on their Yaoure Gold Project. PRU have finished 33.000m of resource definition drilling, and a furtehr 12.000m of trial grade control drilling in the two planned pits..63% of assays have been received so far. Drilling of the planned CMA pit has generally confirmed previous expectations, while drilling of the Yaoure pit is indicating that mineralisation will be more constrained - and some of it shyowing some Pyrite ( not good for recvovery! ) - than expected by the previous owner. The market had been expecting this, and hence, has also been expecting, that not all resources as disclosed prior to the takeover, are actually there. No surprise here. I will speak top the company tmorrow and find out a little more. The new resource estimate will come out in August - I am expecting a 10-20 lower resource. The feasibility study will come out by the end of this year.
I think this update has little market relevance.
have a nice evening
WS