Barrick Gold (ABX)

This week in Insights, we tackle the question of what is next for Canadian stocks after a nice run in the first two months of the year. For clues, we look to our INK Sentiment Indicator which is showing some signs of potential weakness.

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We also highlight our Broadcast of the week and Insider of the Week. Click here to read the March 11th edition (registration not required).

We have been digging through the latest IIROC bi-weekly short report looking for nuggets of opportunity. By assessing the combination of short positioning and insider commitment in stocks, we are typically able to spot some bullish or bearish signals.

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In the latest IIROC report which covers the period between February 16th to 28th, Barrick Gold (Mostly Sunny; ABX) caught our attention.

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

Perhaps it was no surprise with a pivotal US Federal Reserve interest rate decision pending, but hard assets were taken down 'hard' last week. Copper, gold, silver, platinum and oil crumpled heavily, and reached oversold conditions not seen in months, even years. However, experience suggests whenever multiple commodities hit the ground hard in unison, it is really an opportunity cloaked in panic. When I studied my own forecasts and saw they lined up well with this panic bottom idea, I began to focus on some resource stocks with star power.

Before appearing on BNN's Business Day AM with Amber Kanwar and Jon Erlichman today, we wrote up a note for the show covering some key trends in the market and how insiders are positioning themselves. The background note was fairly extensive and we couldn't possibly cover it all in 7 minutes on television. But, I thought it would be worth sending the material to our readers because it covers a lot of ground, focusing on both institutional and speculative situations in the market.

The replay of the interview is now on the BNN website. If you missed the interview, you can watch it here: http://www.bnn.ca/video/insider-trading-trends-in-canadian-heavyweights~...

INK Research Announces Semi-Annual Review of the INK Canadian Insider Index
May 13, 2016

Vancouver, May 13, 2016 - INK Research (INK) announces changes to the INK Canadian Insider Index as a result of the rules-based semi-annual review. These changes will be effective at the close on Friday, May 20, 2016.

ADDITIONS (Name and Symbol)

What are we looking for?

We are just over halfway to the next the INK Canadian Insider Index semi-annual rebalancing to be implemented on May 20th. A stock already in the Index before the rebalancing date stays so long as it is in the top 30% of all stocks ranked on the basis of our INK Edge V.I.P. criteria (valuations, insider commitment and price momentum). Today, we want to get a sense of the stocks that are candidates to replace any drop-outs from the 50-stock index which is used by the Horizons Canadian Insider Index ETF (HII). To see which names are in top contention for index inclusion, we screen for the top-15 ranked TSX stocks using our V.I.P. criteria.

In looking at start the start of October, we entered a period which began under a great deal of negative sentiment thanks to the volatility of the last few months and the financial media which always seem ready to trot out annual comparisons to October 1987 or various analogs to the 1929 stock market crash. We see this as a very bullish backdrop from a contrarian point of view. In fact, we are already seeing increasingly bullish signs across North American financial markets. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrials have thumbed their noses at the mainstream media as they have risen 5% in the last week alone, one of the best starts to October ever!

Today, we're going to take a technical look at mining stocks which are an important element in the commodities market since their direction and movement tend to lead the price of gold.