Morning Briefing: The Pivot Arrives and Precious Metals Fly
Welcome to Mining Stock Daily. I’m Trevor Hall.
Today is Thursday, December 14th
Gold and silver traded sideways overnight, marking time until the FOMC released its latest policy statement. The wait was well worth it as the Fed threw in the towel on responsible monetary policy and signaled, at a minimum, a pivot on its interest rate policy from pseudo-hawkish to full-bore dovish. Both monetary metals spiked higher initially, with gold jumping $24 to $2019 per ounce and silver leaping 50 cents to $23.45 per ounce. From there the yellow metal sprinted to $2043, where it settled in the afternoon, up 2.4% from Tuesday. Silver ran up another 66 cents to settle at $24.11, up nearly 5% from Tuesday.
The mining stocks, not wanting to miss the party, ran circles around both the monetary metals and the general stock market. Both the Amex Gold Bugs Index and the GDX shot up over 6% while the silver producer stocks were up anywhere from 8 to 12%. The Mining Stock Journal said that, given the Fed has better access to real economic data than investors and given that it knows Wednesday's policy shift would trigger a spectacular move higher in the precious sector, the hidden issues in the financial system must be more severe than is commonly assumed because Wednesday's policy shift is equivalent to the Fed hitting its knees and praying.
We will get to the news from the miners and explorers in a moment, but first a word about today’s sponsor.
This episode of Mining Stock Daily is brought to you by… Arizona Sonoran Copper
Arizona Sonoran Copper Company (ASCU:TSX) is focused on developing its brownfield copper project on private land in Arizona, a tier 1 location. The Cactus Mine Project is located less than an hour's drive from the Phoenix International airport via highway i-10, and with grid power and the Union Pacific Rail line situated at the base of the Cactus Project main road. With permitted water access, a streamlined permitting framework and infrastructure already in place, ASCU's Cactus Mine Project is a lower risk copper development project in the infrastructure-rich heartland of Arizona.
And here’s what you need to know this morning….
i-80 GOLD announced high-grade results from the ongoing 2023 underground drill program targeting the upper part of the South Pacific Zone or SPZ at its Granite Creek Property in Nevada. Drilling is focused on the delineation and expansion of mineralization within the SPZ and the conversion of some of the deposit to Measured and Indicated resource classification. The SPZ is expected to become the primary zone for mining once developed in 2024. Highlight included 5.7m @ 16.9 g/t Au in hole 19. Granite Creek is proximal to Nevada Gold Mines' Turquoise Ridge and Twin Creeks mines. i-80 GOLD (TSX: IAU) (NYSE: IAUX) news release
Foran Mining reported assays from its 2023 drill program at the Tesla Zone at its McIlvenna Bay Complex in Saskatchewan. A step-out hole intersected Tesla mineralization 200m down-dip and 120m along strike of the nearest intersection and returned 4.5m grading 3.98% CuEq, 24.3m of 2.48% CuEq. A scissor hole was also drilled obliquely in the down-dip direction to add confidence to the interpreted geometry of Tesla mineralization. That hole returned 49.6m of 3.19% CuEq. The Tesla Zone was significantly expanded during the 2023 program and has been defined by 19 holes over an 870m strike length and at least 300m down dip , while it remains open in all directions. (TSX: FOM) (OTCQX: FMCXF) News Release
Seabridge Gold says they have discovered a new porphyry mineral system at its Snip North target on the Iskut property in British Columbia. The discovery consists of the intact, well-preserved upper parts of a copper-gold porphyry which identifies as an intermediate sulfidation epithermal occurrence. Work continues, using the drill hole data to vector towards the large intrusive source for the pervasive mineralization found to date. The company says the trend has similar characteristics to the one that hosts a cluster of porphyry systems at the KSM project. (TSX: SEA) (NYSE: SA) News Release
Vista Gold entered into a Royalty Agreement with Wheaton Precious Metals for its Mt Todd gold project in Australia. Vista will receive US$20 million in three installments for a 1% gross revenue royalty and a Right of First Refusal on any royalties, streams or pre-pays pertaining to Mt Todd. The 1% Royalty rate applies if project objectives are completed by April 2028, if not, it will increase annually at up to 0.13% to a maximum 2%. The rate can each be reduced upon a change of control of Vista prior to April 2028 or payment to Wheaton of the applicable Royalty associated with Vista delivering 3.47Moz to a third party. Vista Gold (NYSE American and TSX: VGZ) news release
Enduro Metals announced its intention to complete a $3 million non-brokered private placement and 10:1 share consolidation. The Company has secured a lead order for 30M Units for proceeds of C$1.2 million from an entity controlled by Rob McEwen. Post share consolidation, the company will then have just over 24M shares issued and outstanding. (TSXV: ENDR) (OTCQB: ENDMF) News Release
Mundoro Capital (TSXV: MUN) (OTCQB: MUNMF) filed a Notice of Intent to make a Normal Course Issuer Bid to purchase for cancellation up to 5.2M shares of its 194.5M Shares outstanding, some 5% of the total, or about C$900,000-worth at its current share price. News release
What is up with all these non-revenue generating exploration companies announcing NCIBs? Today, Mundoro Capital, last week TRU Precious Metals, in October O3 Mining, since when it has announced a private placement! How is giving away hard to replace shareholder funds a good strategy?
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