Guns-A-Blazin', Oil & Gold-A-Risin'

Morning Miners!

It is 6:17 AM and TGIF! The coffee is hot and we have an exciting Eureka Fourth of July celebration to look forward to next week. Today, The Report introduces a "Eureka Upcoming Events" section located beneath the "Rancher's Corner" to your right. We're kicking things off with Joe Swanson's Wild West Show, "Guns-A-Blazin". Pardners, this is a good'un! Bullets will start whizzin' at noon and 2 PM to make this an extra special Fourth. Send in more events and the Colonel will post them.

(BBC/AFP Image, 6/26/09)

Speaking of guns-a-blazin':

"Oil prices rose above $71 a barrel Friday as renewed attacks on oil facilities in Nigeria raised supply concerns and as the dollar slipped further against the euro, drawing investors into commodities." (WSJ, 6/26/09)

Here come the bad ole good days again; London spot gold broke $948 after lunch London time. Although both gold and oil are now pulling back we are reminded how sensitive the markets are to geo-political as well as global recovery woes:

"Nigerian militants said they attacked a Royal Dutch Shell wellhead in the southern Delta state in response to a government operation against them, hours after the nation's president offered them amnesty in exchange for laying down their arms.

The militant Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta has been battling for a larger share of the country's oil revenues.

'One way or another, Nigerian disruptions should lead to an acceleration in the reduction of ... crude oil stock,' said Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland.

Oil was also boosted by a drop in the value of the dollar, against which it typically trades inversely. Commodities like oil and gold are used by investors as a hedge against inflation and dollar weakness." (WSJ, 6/26/09)

One more item to support the "Love the Treasurys, hate the dollar" sentiment that has become the rallying cry of investors lately:

"Treasury prices soared as strong demand for the government's $27 billion seven-year-bond auction completed the Treasury Department's hat trick in a week of record supply.

'One thing is quite clear," said Dan Greenhaus, strategist at Miller Tabak & Co. 'The Treasury is having relatively few, if any, issues selling its debt.'" (WSJ, 6/26/09)

Maybe gold will pick the UP elevator sooner than the Colonel thought given all this week's news. Nuts, I'll stick with my predictions:

Gold will see $880 before Thanksgiving

Gold will break $1050 before Christmas

Enough blazin' prognostication, let's walk the walk:

Oil is down $0.66 to $69.567 in early trading (August contract); Gold is up $5.6 to $945.1 (August contract); Silver is up $0.185 to $14.190 (July contract); Copper is up $0.0090 to $2.3105(July contract); Molybdenum is steady-eddy at $10.58.

The DOW is down 36.73 points to 8435.67; the S&P 500, down 3.28 points to 916.98. The miners are mixed:

Barrick (ABX) $35.57 up 0.88%
Newmont (NEM) $42.83 down 0.58%
General Moly (Eureka Moly, LLC) (GMO) $2.40 up 0.84%
Freeport McMoran (FCX) $50.83 up 0.16% (a bellwether mining stock spanning gold, copper & molybdenum)

Steel stocks are up (a "tell" for General Moly):

Nucor (NUE) $45.73 up 2.28% - domestic steel manufacturing
ArcelorMittal (MT) $33.51 up 0.60% - global steel producer
POSCO (PKX) $82.56 up 0.27%- South Korean integrated steel producer

The Eureka Miner's Grubstake Portfolio update is unavailable for technical reasons this morning. Maybe it got hit by one of Joe Swanson's whizzin' bullets!

Cheers,

Colonel Possum