via Financial Post - Waterton

Either Waterton is Sprott, or they're tearing a page out of Sprott's billionaire's book and offering lower interest rates, knowing that Sprott is intending to squeeze companies with usurious rates. Rick Rule has been talking up lower rates since this has been occurring. The market is automatically lowering rates.

Waterton is targetting companies which already have some financing in place with Sprott and replacing those deals with newer, more elaborate financings. All of the Waterton exec is from Barrick.

Not likely that this is private equity. The deals that Waterton makes are important to how the junior mining sector will turn out, since they subordinate the asset value of the companies they are invovled with.

Any mining company with a deal that subordinates the assets and production are not going to see any share price appreciation, therefore they make extraordinarily cheap buyout prospects. In fact, the asset becomes worthless.

Financial Post

via Kitco - Ben Johnson

I am casting aside suggestions that gold will continue to see declines and some sort of capitulation in late summer. The mania was in the first few years of the bullion price rise, where most of the prominent assets were sold off.

Ben Johnson's comments are very apt, that should U.S. stock markets correct, gold markets will see a rush. A strong comparable can be found in similar economic conditions to the 1973/74 bear market, where gold sector values outperformed during a bear market in stocks.

Kitco

via BNN.ca - Ned Goodman

Ned Goodman had been in the news lately because of his resignation from boards at various companies and being hired on to Barrick.

Mr. Goodman has issues with private equity since they don't have experience in mining, and yet make decisions that might affect the best economic assets of a country like Canada.

It was the conservative government that allowed the sale of nickel assets to a brazillian mining firm. The conservative government also recently shut down Taseko mining's project in B.C. Notwithstanding that Taseko's project is disastrous environmentally, the conservative government's track record so far has been very anti-mining with resource sector taxes and very pro banking sector, and pro housing bubble economics.

http://watch.bnn.ca/headline/headline-march-2014/headline-march-4-2014/#clip1072219

via BNN.ca - PDAC Coverage

When BNN reporters are humidifying their panties over gold miners in dubious jurisdictions, you have to wonder just why markets are reacting so negatively to gold mining projects in Canada, which should be one of the premier gold mining jurisdictions in the world.

http://watch.bnn.ca/#clip1072334

$Gold:$CDW Weekly

The $CAD weekly chart is showing some very strong technicals at a time when gold futures are persistently in backwardation:

http://scharts.co/17HxjtG

GBN.V Daily

This chart is colourful, though not pretty. Upwards momentum has been building:

http://scharts.co/1cHKlti

-F6