While gold has firmed over the last year, gaining 8%, its poorer cousin silver has failed to keep pace, falling by 7% in value over the same period. This has caused the gold-to-silver ratio, a key indicator of the value of the two precious metals relative to each other, to widen sharply. At the end of 2017, it took 77 ounces of silver to buy one ounce of gold, but now it takes 80 ounces.This indic...Read More

There are differing opinions on whether uranium is ever going to see a revival. Some would argue that with wind and solar power becoming cheaper, the need for large-scale nuclear reactors is going to go away. And with disasters like Fukushima, perhaps that's the right choice.But there are others who believe that to reach true energy scale, solar and wind have not yet proven themselves. And that's...Read More

The looming prospect of trade wars has put renewed pressure on both financial markets and the U.S. dollar.U.S. tensions with, well, many parts of the world and ongoing geopolitical turmoil are setting gold up to be the safe haven once again.And with a weakening U.S. dollar, we can expect rising gold prices. Typically, when the U.S. dollar loses value, investors look for alternative investments to...Read More

The global economic upswing continues to fuel firmer metals prices, especially with supply failing to keep up with demand. The prolonged slump in base metals prices forced miners to slash spending, curtailing exploration and mine development activities, leading to a lack of new sources of supply. Copper, a key indicator of global economic health because of its use in a broad range of industrial ap...Read More

Gold remains firm, trading at over US$1,300 per ounce amid investor fears of a market correction prompted by concerns that stock valuations have decoupled from underlying economic fundamentals. There are also fears that Trump's fiscal stimulus, including the recently implemented tax changes, could overheat the U.S. economy and cause inflation to rise at a rapid clip. Higher inflation makes gold an...Read More

Gold's meteoric rise in 2009 and its subsequent fall has had a devastating effect on the sector's once reliable dividend-paying companies. Since gold's fall from grace, the vast majority of dividend-paying gold stocks have either slashed, suspended, or outright cut their dividends. Only Franco Nevada Corp. (TSX:FNV)(NYSE:FNV) stemmed the tide and maintained its status as a Canadian dividend aristo...Read More

Today's market is facing many roadblocks.Trade wars, geopolitical risk, rising interest rates, and the fact that the market is trading near all-time highs with stretched valuations has put the market at risk.So, it is a breath of fresh air when we come upon stocks that are attractively valued, with good upside potential and low downside risk.OceanaGold Corporation (TSX:OCG)$2.2 billion OceanaGold...Read More

When markets opened on March 5, experts and analysts feared that the impending actions of the Trump administration could spark a global trade war. Reports have varied when it comes to the internal White House battles over the implementation of steel and aluminum tariffs, but President Trump appeared to signal a hardline path forward in statements Monday.Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the Hou...Read More

Trump's protectionist trade agenda rocked the markets late last week as he announced his intention to impose tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum. The steel tariff is expected to be a hefty 25%, while the aluminum tariff is to be 10%. The tariffs are expected to go into effect as early as this week, and, as per Trump, "are expected to last a long time." This is not great news for Stelco Holdings...Read More

In the commodities space, investors have a wide range of options to choose from. While most of the discussion for Canadian investors considering increasing commodities exposure tends to focus on oil and gas, gold or other precious metals, potash, or a range of other key Canadian mining sectors, base metals is one sector which is often left by the wayside.In this article, I'm going to talk about tw...Read More

Contrarian investors are always searching for unloved stocks that could be on the verge of a recovery.Let's take a look at the situation in the gold market to see if the miners might be interesting picks right now.Gold rallyGold rallied from US$1,140 per ounce in December to above US$1,360 near the end of January. However, it has since pulled back and currently trades near US$1,325 per ounce.The s...Read More

Peter Navarro, the U.S. assistant to the president, director of Trade and Industrial Policy, and the director of the White House National Trade Council, appeared to telegraph in an interview on March 3 with CNN that no countries would be exempted from the new steel and aluminum tariffs. Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross also seemed to indicate that Trump is leaning towards no exemptions in an intervi...Read More

Despite a global economic upswing, which has been a powerful tailwind for stocks, gold remains firm and is trading well above the psychologically important US$1,300-per-ounce mark. There are signs that gold will remain firm over the course of 2018, because of a range of economic and geopolitical risks that could trigger the next market correction. One of the best means of earning outsized returns...Read More

Former Bank of Canada governor and current head of the Bank of England Mark Carney issued a stern warning about the dangers of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in an address to the Inaugural Scottish Economics conference in Edinburgh this week."Classic hallmarks of bubbles"In his speech, Carney labeled the cryptocurrency market as a failure and drew comparisons to a lottery, where people find ri...Read More

Contrarian investors are always searching for troubled stocks that might be on the cusp of a recovery.Let's take a look at Baytex Energy Corp. (TSX:BTE)(NYSE:BTE) and Inter Pipeline Ltd. (TSX:IPL) to see if one might be attractive today.BaytexBaytex continues to see volatility, which could continue for some time.Why?The company finished Q3 2017 with net debt of about $1.75 billion, which is a lot...Read More

At the start of this year, the International Monetary Fund upgraded its outlook for global economic growth, forecasting that gross domestic product will expand by 3.9% in 2018 and 2019. This is 0.2% higher than 2017 and accounts for the tailwind given to economic growth by U.S. tax reform and firmer growth in Asia, where the emerging economies of China and India are growing at a rapid pace.The glo...Read More

Here is a little dose of reality for all of those inflation naysayers out there:76% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck.65% of Americans say they don't own their homes.53% of Americans have no money in the stock market, even through retirement accounts.Together, these three depressing facts mean a vast majority of Americans have seen their wealth and income crushed by inflation.Your wealt...Read More

The stock market took a sharp downturn to begin the new month of March. Usually, we see the stock market bid up on the last day of the month and the first few days of the new month, as institutions place optimistic bets.That is not the case now due to a far different, almost ominous, tone gripping the market place.On Thursday, President Trump announced the U.S. would impose a 25% tariff on steel a...Read More

Gold is down and it's because some investors - both institutional and retail - are working themselves up about interest rate hikes.There's a new sheriff in town - Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell - and with the economy in seemingly good shape, the expectation is that he'll immediately start jacking up interest rates.Well, it's not true.And I know it's not because I've watched this happen in...Read More

It's official: marijuana stocks are real and they're spectacular.For the last few years, pot stocks have been treated less like Jerry Seinfeld and more like George Constanza. They were the moody, volatile sidekick and weren't getting the respect they deserved...Most investors treated the companies like a bunch of playground stoners peddling pot. The average mom-and-pop investor was scared of them...Read More