A Weekly Recap of All Things Resources to Friday, March 28th, 2025
‘That’s a Wrap’
By Rod Blake
As the brokers, investors, fund and portfolio managers who mainly participated in American Index Funds closed down their terminals last Friday, March 21st – there a collective sense of relief in that – for the first week in the past five – the major American indexes of Dow 30, S&P 500 and NASDAQ had shown a positive return. Could it be that downward threat of tariffs was now built into the market and these indexes can now resume their march to greater heights? Meanwhile, for resource investors – the three market leading commodities of gold bullion (+16%), silver (+15%) and copper (+25%) with their gains to date in 2025 – showed signs of peaking last Friday. Could it be time to lock in seasonal profits?
The way I see it – The recent 4-week downturns of 7%, 10% and 14% for the Dow 30, S&P 500 and NASDAQ were not excessive for indexes that have enjoyed relentless respective gains of 40%, 48% and 49% gains since October, 2023. The key now will be – have these high flying markets digested all of the bad Trump induced negativism or is this merely a dead cat bounce going into a long overdue bear market.
As for gold, silver and copper – These bellwether commodities are entering their traditional spring – summer season of weakness so a short term selloff is warranted. The key now will be – can they stay above their respective 2024 seasonal lows of US$2,300, US$29, & US$4. If these levels hold then the multi-year pattern of higher lows and higher highs is still in place, which may indicate a very buoyant second half of 2025.
BYD Company Ltd. ‘BYDDF-OTC’ shares’ rose by $2.61 or 5.12% to close at US$53.54 after the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer reported global 2024 sales surged by 29% to US$107-billion on deliveries of 4.27million units. For comparison – Tesla’s ‘TSLA-Q’ 2024 sales were 1.76-million units.
Meanwhile – Lithium continued having trouble finding a bid as the key battery mineral fell to close at a new 2½-year low of US$10,199 a tonne.
MAG Silver Corp. ‘MAG-T & N.A’ stock price gained $1.325 or 5.85% to close at $23.98 after the Vancouver, BC based miner introduced a cash flow linked dividend policy targeting about 30% of the revenues from the company’s flagship Juanicipio Mine in Mexico.
This as the price of silver rose to close at a new 17-month high of US$34.39 a troy ounce (t oz).
Copper rose to close at a new all-time high of US$5.20 a pound (lb).
Which no doubt encouraged speculators to push the stock price of Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. ‘NDM-T & N.A’ up to a new 4½-year closing high of $1.69 and –
Taseko Mines Ltd. ‘TKO-T’ & ‘TGB-N.A’ shares’ to close at a new 1½-year high of $3.58.
Committing to the future of copper – Hudbay Minerals Inc. ‘HBM-T & N’ announced the Toronto, ON based miner had agreed to purchase Mitsubishi Materials Corporation’s 25% in the Copper Mountain Mine near Princeton, BC in a cash and payment deal valued at some US$44.25-million.
Veren Inc. ‘VRN-T & N’ shares’ rose to a new 7-month closing high of $9.67.
The influential Baker Hughes Petroleum Rig Count reported the number of active American drilling rigs fell by 1-rig over the week to 592, down by 29-rigs from this time last year. Up north – the number of Canadian active rigs fell by 17-rigs during the week to 163, up by 12-rigs from one year ago.
Lumber rose to a new 5-month closing high of US$685 per 1,000 board feet (mbf).
Extreme high grade uranium assays are few and far between so I took notice when NexGen Energy Ltd. ‘NXE-T & N’ reported its drill hole RK-25-232 from the company’s Patterson Corridor East (PCE) area in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin returned a “best ever” 3.9 metres (m) of >61,000 counts per second (cps) spectrometer reading.
Westshore Terminals Investment Corp. ‘WTE-T’ stock rose to a new 11-month closing high of $25.99.
New Found Gold Corp. ‘NFG-V’ shares fell by $0.66 or 29.33% to a new 4½-year closing low of $1.59 after Vancouver, BC based mineral developer’s initial Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for the company’s Queensway Gold Project in Newfoundland & Labrador failed to meet the streets expectations.
This as the price of gold bullion rose to a new all-time closing high of US$3,086 a troy oz (t oz).
Which encouraged investors to bid the closing share price of Kinross Gold Corp. ‘K-T’ & ‘KGC-N’ up to a new 14¼-year high of $17.88.
And gold bellwether company Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. ‘AEM-T & N’ closed at a new all-time high of $154.34.
Going the other way – the stock price of B2Gold Corporation ‘BTO-T’ & ‘BTG-N.A’ fell by $0.39 or 8.59% to close at $4.15 after the Vancouver, BC based miner’s updated Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for the company’s Goose Project in northern Canada’s Nunavut failed to live up to the streets’ expectations.
Silver and natural gas showed the greatest commodity gains over the week, while uranium and lithium fell the most.
After a give and take week of trading – all of the North American equity markets turned turtle going into the weekend.
For the Week – the DJI lost 0.96% to 41,584, while the S&P 500 fell 1.53% to 5,581, and the NASDAQ dropped 2.59% to 17,323. In Canada – the TSX fell 0.84% to 24,759 and the TSX Venture lost 0.63% to 634.
The CBOE Volatility Index or VIX gained 12.30% to 21.65.
With currencies – the Canadian dollar gained 0.17% to US$0.6983, while the U.S. Dollar Index ‘DXY’ fell 0.09% to 104.04.
With commodities – gold bullion gained 2.12% to US$3,086, while silver rose 3.21% to US$34.09, as copper gained 0.20% to US$5.09, and lithium lost 0.37% to US$10,199. Crude oil gained 1.16% to US$69.05, while natural gas rose 3.03% to US$4.08, and uranium lost 1.76% to US$64.35. With soft commodities – lumber gained 0.44% to US$678.
Overall – the CRB Commodities Index was unchanged at 373.