A Weekly Recap of All Things Resources to Friday, May 20th

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‘That’s a Wrap’

By Rod Blake

As the mentally exhausted brokers, investors, traders and portfolio managers forced themselves to open their terminals on Monday morning they could only hope that that last week’s climactic selling action was perhaps the last of the exhaustion selling of the current market correction.

Just as Canadian businesses need foreign buyers for their items, so do Canadian securities. Case in point – Statistics Canada reported that foreign investors bought $46.9-billion of Canadian equities in March, their largest monthly purchase since April, 2020.

The way I see it – It is commonly said that when the U.S sneezes that Canada catches a cold. The same might be said for the TSX Venture Exchange when compared to the major North American indices as, while the major North American exchanges have suffered a 6-week correction of some 10-20%, the lowly Venture Exchange has just endured a sharp 3-week decline of some 25%. The question now is can the Venture Exchange shake off this cold and recapture any optimism for the remaining of the year.

Horizons ETFs – noting that “More than any other mineral today, copper is arguably the most important for fueling the future for global growth.” – launches Canada’s first copper exchange traded fund (ETF) – Horizons Copper Index ETF  ‘COPP-T’

Sighting increased demand for fertilizers – BHP Group Ltd. ‘BHP-N’ announced the giant mining company was investigating ways of accelerating development of it s $5.7-billion Jansen potash project east of Saskatoon, SK.

And sighting disruptions in Russian supply – Energy Fuels Inc. ‘UUUU-N’ & ‘EFR-T’ announced it sold a record US$2.9-million of uranium, vanadium and other rare earth metals in the 1st-quarter.

With a statement that Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem probably didn’t particularly want to hear – Statistics Canada reported that the countries Consumer Price Index rose by another 0.1% in March to a new annualized 31-year high of 6.8%.

After 3-years of huffing its chest about perceived impurity issues – China suddenly dropped its ban on the importation of Canadian canola seeds. 

And after over 3-years of bureaucratic indecision – the Canadian government – stressing   security concerns – finally puts on its ‘big boy ‘ pants and joins the other ‘Five Eyes’ partners (Australia, New Zealand, UK & US) in banning China telecommunication giants Huawei and ZTE from participating in Canada’s new 5G telecommunications /internet network.

Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. ‘ATD-T’ follows Parkland Corporation ‘PKI-T’ in announcing a 2-year plan to have 200 electric vehicle (EV) charging units at its Circle K and Couche-Tard facilities across North America.

The closely watched Baker Hughes Petroleum Rig Count reported the number of American drilling rigs rose by 14 to 728, an increase of 273 from this time last year. Up north – the number of Canadian rigs was unchanged at 88 for an increase of 30 over one year ago.

For the Week – The DJI lost 2.90% to 31,262  while the S&P 500 dropped by 3.05% to 3,901 while the NASDAQ fell by 3.82% to 11,355. North of 49 – the TSX gained 0.49% to 20,198 while the TSX Venture rose by 0.71% to 702.

Gold bullion gained 2.15% to US$1,850, as silver rose by 3.08% to US$21.76 and copper improved by 3.37% to US$4.30. Meanwhile – crude oil  rose by 2.70% to US$113.23 while natural gas gained 6.17% to US$8.09. The Canadian dollar was up by 0.57% to US$0.7792. Overall – the CRB Commodities Index gained 1.22% to 333

And Finally – We wonder if visionary Elon Musk is preserving a few of Tesla’s first Roadstar all- electric automobiles, as one-of-two 1955 Mercedes-Bens 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe the German auto company has held for all these years, just sold for a record 135-million euros.

Good luck in the week ahead….


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