- December 21, 2023
- Posted by: John Arcena
- Category: Uncategorized
Welcome to the final CHF Weekly Round-up of 2023. Next week will be a shortened week of trading for the holiday break, leading up to the New Year. We will be back in January and look forward to bringing you exciting news as 2024 rolls out.
The Santa Claus rally continues even though North American stock markets hit a downdraft just after 2:00 pm on Wednesday but they are recovering this morning. Canadian markets remain near the high for the year, up 3% so far in December. U.S. markets lost 2% on the day, from what was a new high for the year. Half of that loss has been recovered this morning.
Inflation in Canada did not drop last month as the consumer price index held steady in November at 3.1%, instead of declining as most economists had expected. This suggests that inflation might be stickier than believed, but the Bank of Canada sees negligible risk of additional rate hikes. The U.S. inflation outlook has been steadily improving in recent months, and many market watchers feel that the Fed’s work is done as CPI is approaching the 2% target range. The European Central Bank (ECB) may be ready to consider its first interest rate cut around mid-2024, later than what investors are currently anticipating. U.K. inflation fell in November, dropping to 3.9% from 4.6% in October – the lowest reading since September 2021. The Bank of England has rates on hold for the near future.
The U.S. dollar continues to weaken, now down 1.5% on the year, but down 6% from the October high. Commodities have started to benefit from the lower dollar.
Precious metals continue to hold near recent highs, gold is more than $2,040/oz this morning. Silver is at $24.30/oz today. A bit of a base may be building at these prices, in preparation for a move higher.
Base metal prices are firm, with copper just over $ 3.90/lb. today, on an upward trend since mid-October. Other metals can be seen on the uptick in the last two weeks. Uranium continues to be strong at $82.30/lb. and uranium producers and developers are feeling it in their share prices. Battery materials continue to be at a low point. Lithium is at almost a three-year low of $ 13.66/kg. Cobalt is at a 3.5-year low of $ 13.21/lb.
Oil is a bit stronger after a bad two weeks of erratic trading, hitting $73.92/bb. (WTI) this morning. Middle East shipping difficulties in the Red Sea are creating a lot of uncertainty.
We are pleased to present to you our round-up of client news released between December 18-21, 2023.
On December 19, 2023, Sokoman Minerals Corp. (TSXV: SIC) (OTCQB: SICNF) announced that, further to its November 29, 2023 and December 6, 2023 news releases, it has filed documents with the TSX Venture Exchange seeking final approval to close their private placement financing of aggregate gross proceeds of $3,711,035. The Financing consists of 53,892,847 flow-through units priced at $0.065 and 3,200,000 non-flow-through units priced at $0.065.
Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company and one-half of a common share purchase warrant each full Warrant being exercisable for one additional common share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.13 for 12 months from the date of issue. Warrants issued with the non-flow-through units will be exercisable for an additional common share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.13 for 24 months from the date of issuance.
Three (3) insiders of the Company have subscribed for $29,500 or 453,846 FT Units, that portion of the Private Placement is considered a “related party transaction” as such term is defined under Multilateral Instrument: (MI – 61-101) – Protection of Minority Security Holders
The Company will use the gross proceeds from the sale of the Flow Through Units, to incur eligible “Canadian exploration expenses” that qualify as “flow-through mining expenditures” as both terms are defined in the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the “Qualifying Expenditures”) on or before December 31, 2024.
The Company intends to spend approximately 75% of the gross proceeds on its flagship Moosehead Gold project and the remaining balance on its Fleur de Lys Gold project.