Gold added about five bucks to its price from the time that trading began in the Far East Thursday…and the London a.m. gold fix. Then from there, it gave back seven dollars going into the p.m. gold fix…and after that, it gained over eight dollars until half past lunchtime in New York. Then a really serious seller showed up taking nine bucks off the price between then and the close of electronic trading in New York. It was pretty choppy trading all around…and it was obvious that every rally ran into serious resistance. The same could be said for silver. But according to the usual New York gold commentator [who is not Dennis Gartman, by the way], volume in gold was heavy…estimated at 140,658 contracts…”which involved a 21.6% surge in the last half-hour. The presence of such determined buyers and sellers during the floor session is unusual.”

Wednesday’s open interest in

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Most people think of warrants as being associated primarily with micro/nano cap i.e. junior gold and silver mining companies but that is not entirely the case. Of the 35 companies offering warrants of 24 or more months duration (of which there are 47 in total) 6 are large-cap commodity based companies (2 gold mining companies; 2 royalty companies; 1 oil and gas company; and 1 molybdenum miner). Below is a description of each of these companies and the performance of their stock and associated warrants week-ending July 10th.

Silver Wheaton Corp. (SLW) is a silver focused royalty company with nine long-term purchase agreements with companies in Mexico, Sweden, Peru, Portugal, Greece, USA and Canada to purchase a fixed percentage of their silver production at contracted prices for the life of the mines involved.

Blackmont Capital analyst Richard Gray has called Silver Wheaton’s May 2009 $243-million acquisition of smaller rival Silverstone …

Dr. Jeff Masters gives us the latest on monster hurricane Ike …

Ike's long-term fate has two main possibilities:1) Ike may hit eastern Cuba, as forecast by the latest (12Z, 8am EDT) runs of the GFDL and ECMWF models, and a number of ensemble members of the latest 12Z GFS model (Figure 2). A hit on Cuba would severely disrupt the storm, weakening it to a Category 1 or 2. Ike could then move on into the Gulf of Mexico and re-intensify, as forecast by the ECMWF model.2) Ike may plow through the Bahamas and come very close to South Florida (the consensus of the HWRF, NOGAPS, and GFS models). A trough of low pressure may then pull Ike to north. This turn to the north might occur over Florida, or over the western Bahamas, within 200 miles of the Florida coast. In the latter case, North Carolina might

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Readers, I'm happy to announce that the Financial Post, the daily business newspaper of Canada's National Post, today published my analysis in their 'Manager Picks' section. I read the Post daily as it's an indispensible resource for anyone investing in Canadian equities.Continue reading