Good afternoon
German Factory Orders as well as European Investor Sentiment continue to fall…
Trump is betraying the Kurds, who helped him fight ISIS…politics are dirty - but I guess they have always been!
Equity markets are grinding higher today, bonds don´t see much action - unusually, US-equities are lower . Base metals are up a little - nickel is consolidating last weeks strong peformance. LME stocks are down by another 7500t today! Looks almost as someone wants to influence the market?
China continued to buy more gold last month, and ETF holdings are still rising. The gold price, though, is trading just under 1500 US$.
Resolute - a difficult Quarter for them, even though the ehadline production number was quite good. Syama Underground, by far their most imprtant asset, is continuing to ramp up it´s fully automated mine - but seems to be not that easy ( which is not unexpected ). Ramp-up is pretty slow…partially explained by an 18-day outage of the sulphide circuit of the plant ( which processes the underground ore )…But only partially! The oxide circuit, which is processeing ore from a nearby satellite deposit, has done very well ( but has limited time to go ), as has newly aquired Mako Gold. Ravensthorp is still as difficult as it has been….So: production-wise, a very reasonable Quarter - but Syama being difficult, is not looming well for the next few Quarters. I think it´s fair t say, that it will take longer than planned to bring into full production..I still find Resolute an attractive company - but I am less positive than I have been following the last Quarter, and would wait with buying, until there is more clarity on Syama. What sounded pretty positive a few month ago, gives me reason for some caution this time around!
Have a nice evening
WS