Sound bites

In his latest Howestreet.com broadcast with Jim Goddard, INK CEO Ted Dixon worries that the Fed is looking backwards at positive US economic data instead of forwards at warning signs such as housing. If the Fed does not hold up on its rate hikes, they risk going too far. American insiders and stocks in the U.S. Financials sector are still not confirming a base in share prices and the Fed is probably one of the reasons why.

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In his November 14th Discovery Watch broadcast, John Kaiser reports that insiders have been buying Serengeti Resources (Mixed; SIR) stock in the public market after the stock started to tumble Tuesday. According to recent insider filings, that appears to be the case with four insiders buying a combined total of 564,000 shares between 25 and 35 cents on November 13th.

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Coral Gold shareholders may be keeping a close eye on drilling activity at the Renaissance Gold (REN) Ecru project which is located just to the north east of the Barrick Gold (Sunny; ABX) Robertson project. As John Kaiser explains in his November 7th Discovery Watch broadcast, Renaissance has optioned up to 70% of the project to Australia-listed S2 Resources which has a drilling program underway now that includes deep target holes.

Image source: Renaissance Gold

Today marks the return of our Sound Bites feature where we will be highlighting distinct commentary and opinions from Howe Street radio and possibly some other sources. To kick things off, we look at recent exploration activity in the Spences Bridge Gold Belt which John Kaiser of Kaiser Research reviewed in his November 1st Discovery Watch.

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Westhaven Ventures (Sunny; WHN) stock soared after it announced on October 17th that it had drilled 17.77 metres of 24.50 g/t gold at its Shovelnose project located in the Spences Bridge Gold Belt of south central British Columbia. That followed an earlier promising hole that was reported on October 2nd. According to Kaiser:

From a Vancouver perspective, the Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau war with small business over proposed tax increases makes no sense. If this duo are really interested in tax fairness, why are they not devoting the same energy and government resources to cleaning up the money laundering industry and its related big dollar tax evasions?

In my latest interview with Jim Goddard on Howestreet.com, we talked about how insiders were on top of Canada's growth rebound six months before the Bank of Canada. Looking ahead, there are big implications for a wide range of assets if the Bank of Canada joins the global central bank tightening parade:

While investors are once again fixating on the upcoming March 15th Fed meeting, they should also be paying attention to a high level meeting likely taking place in Tokyo on the same day. Next Wednesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected to start his northern Asian tour in Japan. Following his stop in Japan, over the following days he is expected to head to South Korea and China, in that order. A key topic will be North Korea which fired at least four missiles towards Japan earlier this week.

On Tuesday, the world will get the first serious insight into the Trump administration's priorities when the president addresses a joint session of congress. We got a hint of what may be in that speech when the New York Times wrote Sunday that the president will be asking for a major jump in defence spending. That news comes on the heels of further reports on the weekend from Reuters that China is investing heavily in naval capabilities to beef up its territorial claims in the South China and East China seas.

In my latest Talk Digital Network interview with Jim Goddard, I highlight how Canadian insiders have tilted towards old economy stocks. This move is likely in anticipation of better economy growth across the Canadian economy, notably Western Canada. With growth potentially on the upswing, old economy value stocks are likely to be regain favour with investors who will no longer have to pay premium valuations for growth. A shift towards value investing could put the relative performance of previous high flyers such as U.S. FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google) and Canadian marijuana stocks at risk. Indeed, we have already seen some interesting moves this month with auto stocks soaring as some marijuana stocks stumble.