Gold, Parrots and Canoes

Morning Miners!

It is 6:00 AM sharp. The Colonel gave the coffee pot a good clean this weekend and cups are on the hooks. Grab a cup and let's squirt some ether in Monday's engine.

My sweetheart of 31 years, Mariana Titus, has taken many photographs of Eureka and its folks since the early 1980s. Many of you live in her albums and it is always fun to bring them out over the holidays for memories and story telling. I have been featuring Mariana's photos in the Report for some time now and ran across one that has me puzzled. This morning's headline image was taken somewhere in town but I can't for the life of me figure where this nook n' cranny lies. The bottles no doubt have a story of their own, can you help the ole Colonel solve the mystery?


Before we get into a week packed with Federal Reserve meetings and fickle markets, I thought you might enjoy some easy reading on your break. There is a fun Website called "Eyewitness to History" that carries an interesting account of the California gold rush. Here are the links:

Eyewitness to History

The California Gold Rush, 1849

There is a letter written by S. Shufelt to his cousin in 1850 from the California gold fields. His perilous journey there from the Catskills of New York is as interesting as his account of early mining. Suffering a touch of gold fever he boarded a steamer to Panama and upon arriving had to face the perilous overland crossing to the Pacific (no canal in those days buckaroos!). His group of adventurers employed local Indians to canoe them through the jungles filled with parrots and monkeys, with several dying along the way.

He eventually makes it to California and finds the camps filled with all manner of sin and wickedness...wait, I'm not going to spoil his tale! Have a good read, pardner. As tough as it gets these days, it ain't as tough as them days!

Looks like a roughie-toughie for commodities this morning. I've reduced my gold and Barrick positions; remember the old adage, "No one ever went broke taking profit." Could be a little bumpy up ahead but we'll keep her in 2-Wheel Drive for now. Stability remains the word for nickel and molybdenum prices after recent declines and that's encouraging:


Enough talk, let's walk the walk:

4-WD is OFF (the VIX or "fear index" is low, what's this?)

Yellow light is ON for possible adverse regulation/legislation (mercury emissions)

Otherwise, all lights are green on the Eureka Outlook Dashboard (upper right, what's this?)

Oil is down $2.73 in early trading to $69.76 (November contract); Gold is down $10.4 to $999.9 (December contract, most active); Silver is down $0.350 to $16.715 (December contract); Copper is down $.0015 to $2.7835 (December contract); Molybdenum holds staedy at $14.75.

The DOW is down 84.12 points to 9736.08; the S&P 500, down 9.60 points to 1058.70. The miners are getting clobbered:

Barrick (ABX) $36.17 down 2.38%
Newmont (NEM) $44.16 down 1.78%
General Moly (Eureka Moly, LLC) (GMO) $3.20 up 2.44%
Freeport McMoran (FCX) $69.50 down 0.91% (a bellwether mining stock spanning gold, copper & molybdenum)

Steel stocks have the sniffles, (a "tell" for General Moly):

Nucor (NUE) $48.89 down 1.63% - domestic steel manufacturing
ArcelorMittal (MT) $38.86 up 4.05% - global steel producer
POSCO (PKX) $105.70 down 0.31% - South Korean integrated steel producer

The Eureka Miner's Grubstake Portfolio is down 1.96% to $1,205,855.00(what is this?).

Cheers,

Colonel Possum

Headline Photograph by Mariana Titus