Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 8:08 AM on Tuesday, April 14th, 2020
PVG to promote betterU’s solution to their 75+ Corporate clients
Announced that Positive Venture Group an Ottawa based outsource finance firm has entered into the Company’s newly launched Software as a Service program
PVG, one of betterU’s early beta clients, has been testing Ready-To-Go’s system and working with betterU to customize assessments for the accounting and finance sector
OTTAWA, April 14, 2020 — betterU Education Corp. (TSX VENTURE: BTRU, Frankfurt: 5OGA) (the “Company” or “betterU“) is pleased to announce that Positive Venture Group (“PVGâ€) an Ottawa based outsource finance firm has entered into the Company’s newly launched Software as a Service (“SaaS†or “Ready-To-Goâ€) program. PVG, one of betterU’s early beta clients, has been testing Ready-To-Go’s system and working with betterU to customize assessments for the accounting and finance sector.
This partnership has also now enabled betterU to assist PVG’s employees in managing COVID-19 pandemic pressures and over the months to come, betterU will be working to support effective skills development programs. betterU has already onboarded over 50 of PVG’s employees into Ready-To-Go and is working to support PVG for what they need today.
“It is important that all our clients know we are there to support them when they need it. Building a good partnership starts with understanding the challenges and working together to overcome them. COVID-19 has impacted all working families, employers and their clients, so we need to be supportive and willing to provide solutions to address the realities of the situation,†said Brad Loiselle, President / CEO betterU.
betterU has worked closely with Kaitlyn Buse, PVG’s Human Resource Manager to understand the structure, content and assessments that need to be in place to support the accounting and outsourced finance industry. betterU and PVG have since assembled multiple assessments for General Accounting, Accounts payable and receivable which received high reviews from PVG’s team. PVG is also now promoting betterU to their 75+ Corporate clients.
“Staying up-to date and keeping our employees informed is a priority for us at Positive. The biggest challenge was the over-communication in the news and online throughout the crisis. It takes time and effort to consolidate accurate information from reputable sources. Working with betterU changed that and while working on their SaaS program, the COVID-19 toolkit provided an all-in-one place that our employees can go to get up-to date information about the pandemic, including news updates, Health Canada information, and federal and provincial guidelines. My team was spending hours putting together information and guidelines on our new way of life – from how to be effective working from home to manage stress and anxiety during a pandemic. betterU’s app was already loaded with all of these tools, and more. I instantly had hours of my time back to focus on moving the business forward, while trusting that my employees were supported in every way possible.
The betterU team did everything – with almost no effort from us. They signed up our employees and provided the communication templates announcing the tool to our staff along with sign-up instructions. From there, when employees log in for the first time, they get an automatic tutorial that shows them how to use the application. betterU was able to get our employees up and running on the platform in just a few hours. We are looking forward to working closely with betterU in the weeks and months to come,†said Kaitlyn Buse, Positive Venture Group’s HR Manager.
Ready-To-Go, launched early 2020 and was developed to support corporate needs for delivering and managing effective skills development. The base program includes an assessment of an employee’s current skills, with up to 4 learning paths per month per employee, broken into microlearning programs to support and reinforce on-demand learning. Each month the employee is reassessed to determine their improvements in their skills gap and their learning path is adjusted accordingly. In addition, employers can use Ready-To-Go to support orientation programs, onboarding, policy and procedure updates and more customized solutions to meet their unique needs and challenges. “Our team has been working closely with our global education partners to build a solution that focuses on employee’s skills development rather than simply selling courses. With Ready-To-Go we are focused on providing only what an employee needs to support their corporate requirements. This approach creates better results, while saving money and time,†said Brad Loiselle, President, CEO betterU.
About betterU Education Corp.
betterU is an education-to-employment technology company offering an end-to-end solution leveraging business intelligence to automate skilling, reskilling and upskilling for companies operating on domestic and global scales. If you are looking for support in regards to COVID-19, please visit https://readytogo.betteru.ca/ to download your free COVID-19 Resource Toolkit.
betterU has integrated into its platform the content, technology and support for tailored skills assessments, learning pathways and training modules from 100+ of the world’s leading online education providers. betterU’s eco-system includes detailed job, skill, employer, and educational profiles spanning 3,000+ standardized jobs. betterU’s integrated platform is the most efficient solution to address evolving skilling challenges for employers and employees through the employment lifecycle from entry level to executive. We don’t sell content, we help build better people.
Positive Venture Group is Canada’s market leader in providing complete outsourced finance services, virtual CFO services and executive consulting solutions. Since birth, we’ve been 100% focused on helping startups, high growth ventures, and established companies meet their financial obligations, while also preparing them to raise capital.
We thrive on the energy of the growth stage company culture, and are always looking for opportunities to work with emerging companies on a customized, on-demand basis.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Posted by AGORACOM
at 7:38 AM on Tuesday, April 14th, 2020
First Class CBD and Nature’s Exclusive brands acquired over 6,000 new customers from April 1st through April 11th.
1,700 of the new customers purchased products from the Immune Support line.
MOTA experienced a record number of new customers enrolling in a monthly subscription, totaling 18,962.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / April 14, 2020 / Mota Ventures Corp. (CSE:MOTA FSE:1WZ:GR OTC PINK:PEMTF) (the “Company“) is excited to announce its First Class CBD and Nature’s Exclusive brands acquired over 6,000 new customers from April 1st through April 11th. Additionally, during this time period over 1,700 of the new customers purchased products from the Immune Support line. During the month of March, the Company experienced a record number of new customers enrolling in a monthly subscription, totaling 18,962.
The Immunity Blend is currently the Company’s top seller in the Immune Support line. The all-natural blend is made from 100% pure essential oils, including cinnamon leaf, lemon, clove bud, lime, eucalyptus globulus, rosemary, peppermint, spearmint and oregano. The line also features Immune CBD oil containing CBD, B3, B12, Vitamin C and Zinc and Immunity Gummy Bears contain 100% natural Elderberry extract.
First Class and Nature’s Exclusive offer a CBD hemp-oil formulation intended to provide users with the therapeutic benefits that hemp may offer. The hemp oil used in the products is derived from hemp grown and cultivated in the United States. The extraction process is designed to maintain all the beneficial qualities that hemp may offer. First Class and Nature’s Exclusive offers a range of products, which include CBD oil drops, CBD gummies, CBD pain relief cream, CBD skin serum and CBD coffee. The Company plans to continue its significant growth in U.S. operations over the balance of 2020, as well as an expansion into the European market.
“I am pleased at the incredible number of monthly subscriptions acquired during the month of March. We continue to see overwhelming interest in our Immune Support products and higher CBD content oils. We operate a very responsive and agile business, which allows us to identify consumer trends and execute upon the demand we are seeing in the marketplace,” stated Ryan Hoggan, CEO of the Company.
About Mota Ventures Corp.
Mota Ventures is an established eCommerce direct to consumer provider of a wide range of CBD products in the United States and Europe. In the United States, the company sells a CBD hemp-oil formulation derived from hemp grown and formulated in the US through its First Class CBD and Nature’s Exclusive brands. Within Europe, its Sativida brand of award winning 100% organic CBD oils and cosmetics are sold throughout Spain, Portugal, Austria, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Mota Ventures is also seeking to acquire additional revenue producing CBD brands and operations in both Europe and North America, with the goal of establishing an international distribution network for CBD products. Low cost production, coupled with international, direct to customer, sales channels will provide the foundation for the success of Mota Ventures.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
MOTA VENTURES CORP.
Ryan Hoggan
Chief Executive Officer
For further information, readers are encouraged to contact Joel Shacker, President at +604.423.4733 or by email at [email protected] or www.motaventuresco.com
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 6:55 AM on Tuesday, April 14th, 2020
Shipped over 400 Binovi Touch units into the marketplace. With over 1500 practices in 20 countries using the Company’s products (Wayne Saccadic Fixator & Binovi Touch),
The Company continues to grow its base of monthly recurring revenue through the development of strategic alliances with neurovision training facilities, including world classsports teams, athletic training organizations, vision training clinics, and concussion recovery centers
Toronto, ON, Canada – Tuesday April 14th, 2020 –Eyecarrot Innovations Corp., (Eyecarrot) (TSXV:EYC) | (OTC:EYCCF) is pleased to announce that it has shipped over 400 Binovi Touch units into the marketplace. With over 1500 practices in 20 countries using the Company’s products (Wayne Saccadic Fixator & Binovi Touch), the Company continues to grow its base of monthly recurring revenue through the development of strategic alliances with neurovision training facilities, including world classsports teams, athletic training organizations, vision training clinics, and concussion recovery centers. It is the company’s goal to exit 2020 with an installed base of 2500 Binovi Touch Units.
To meet this objective, the company has been actively pursuing strategic alliances with sports training organizations to gain further market exposure, with more to come in the near. These alliances will expose the Company to tens of thousands of athletes globally. Sports teams and high performance athletic training organizations are realizing the benefit of neurovision training to augment their physical training regimen. With the current COVID-19 pandemic and the isolation measures being taken to minimize exposure to coronavirus, athletes are looking to hone their skill set, including the gained performance advantages of neurovision training. This has led to a heightened level of interest in the Binovi Touch Platform. The company is not constrained by distribution problems due to COVID-19 and does not anticipate delivery problems of the product.
“Working with our suppliers, we have streamlined our manufacturing process to improve the reliability and performance of Binovi Touch. This latest generation of devices has brighter and more consistent light, improving stimulus recognition when combining multiple devices together for a larger field of view. This continuous innovation is a core tenet of everything we do at Eyecarrot,” commented Sam Mithani, CTO.
This achievement marks another major milestone in the continued evolution of the Company’s product fulfillment and distribution goals.
“As we seek to strengthen our global footprint, continuous innovation and timely order fulfillment represents a key milestone in our overall growth,” said Adam Cegielski, Eyecarrot Founder + CEO. “Product demand within sustainable markets outside of Canada demonstrates our commitment to deliver world-class human performance products across all of the markets we serve.”
Eyecarrot is a human performance technology company that has developed Binovi , a hardware and software-centered platform. Binovi combines hardware, software, specialized expert knowledge, and unique big data insights in order to deliver customized one-on-one training and treatment. Binovi is designed for vision optimization and the enhancement of cognitive skills related to human performance. We are working together under a common banner to help neuro-optometry, vision rehabilitation, and vision performance professionals gain measurable results in less time, and with less effort.
Certain statements contained in this news release constitute “forward-looking information” as such term is used in applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information is based on plans, expectations and estimates of management at the date the information is provided and is subject to certain factors and assumptions, including, that the Company’s financial condition and development plans do not change as a result of unforeseen events and that the Company obtains regulatory approval. Forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause plans, estimates and actual results to vary materially from those projected in such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause the forward-looking information in this news release to change or to be inaccurate include, but are not limited to, the risk that any of the assumptions referred to prove not to be valid or reliable, that occurrences such as those referred to above are realized and result in delays, or cessation in planned work, that the Company’s financial condition and development plans change, and delays in regulatory approval, as well as the other risks and uncertainties applicable to the Company as set forth in the Company’s continuous disclosure filings filed under the Company’s profile at www.sedar.com . The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, other than as required by applicable law. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 6:51 AM on Tuesday, April 14th, 2020
Shares are now eligible for electronic clearing and settlement in the United States through the Depository Trust Company
DTC is a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, a U.S. company that manages the electronic clearing and settlement of publicly traded companies
VANCOUVER, April 14, 2020 –Hollister Biosciences Inc. (CSE: HOLL, FRANKFURT: HOB, OTC: HSTRF) (the “Company” or “Hollister“), is pleased to announce that its shares are now eligible for electronic clearing and settlement in the United States through the Depository Trust Company (“DTC“). DTC is a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, a U.S. company that manages the electronic clearing and settlement of publicly traded companies. DTC services provide cost benefits for investors and brokers trading Canadian securities in the United States.
About Hollister Biosciences Inc.
Hollister Biosciences Inc. is a diversified cannabis company with multiple, high-quality products now carried in 220 of Indus Holdings (CSE: INDS), Hollister’s exclusive distribution partner’s 600 dispensaries. This level of penetration is expected to grow as the Company accelerates its seed to shelf, high margin business and product development model.
Capitalizing on this success, Hollister’s vision is to become the sought-after premium brand portfolio of innovative, high quality cannabis across multiple states and hemp products nationwide.
Our wholly owned California subsidiary, Hollister Cannabis Co, is the 1st state and locally licensed Cannabis Company in the City of Hollister, California, the birthplace of the “American Biker” from which we embrace the outlaw roots of Hollister to drive our Company fearlessly down the road of success.
Products from Hollister Cannabis Co. include HashBone, the brand’s premier artisanal hash-infused pre-roll ranked as California’s #1 hash infused pre-roll, along with solvent-free bubble hash, pre-packaged flower, pre-rolls, tinctures, vape products, and full-spectrum high CBD pet tinctures.
The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Forward-Looking Information: This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed “forward-looking statements”. The use of any of the words “anticipate”, “continue”, “estimate”, “expect”, “may”, “will”, “would”, “project”, “should”, “believe” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. These statements speak only as of the date of this News Release. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks including various risk factors discussed in the Company’s disclosure documents which can be found under the Company’s profile on www.sedar.com
Tags: Cannabis, CBD, CSE, Hemp Posted in Hollister Biosciences | Comments Off on Hollister Biosciences $HOLL.ca Announces DTC Eligibility $WEED.ca $CGC $ACB $APH $CRON.ca $OGI.ca $FAF.ca
Palladium is the main payable metal accounting for 65% of revenue stream based on 2019 PEA.
1:0.4 (Pd:Pt).
Excellent infrastructure and within 100 kilometers of the Sudbury Metallurgical Complex.
NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimation (Q1 2019)
PEA done Q3 2019.
2020 plan to follow up on PEA recommendations.
Preliminary Economic Assessment demonstrates positive economics for a large-scale open pit mining operation.
PEA Highlights (CDN$):
Life of mine (LOM) of 14 years, with 6 million tonnes annually of potential process plant feed at an average grade of 0.88 g/t Palladium Equivalent (PdEq) and process recovery rate of 80%, resulting in an annual average payable PdEq production of 119,000 ounces.
Pre-Production capital requirements: $495 M.
Undiscounted cash flow before income and mining taxes of $586M.
Undiscounted cash flow after income and mining taxes of $384M.
Average unit operating cost of $19.50/tonne over the life-of-mine.
Potential for up to 325 jobs at the peak of production.
Using March 11, 2020 spot Palladium price (US$2,275/oz) River Valley Project After-tax IRR is 30% and After-tax NPV (5%) is $C858M.
New Age Metals Inc. is an advertising client of AGORA Internet Relations Corp.
Posted by AGORACOM
at 4:04 PM on Monday, April 13th, 2020
Sponsor: Affinity Metals Corp. (TSX-V: AFF) is a Canadian mineral exploration company building a strong portfolio of mineral projects in North America. The Corporation’s flagship property is the drill ready Regal Property near Revelstoke, BC where Affinity Metals is making preparations for a spring drill program to test two large Z-TEM anomalies. Click Here for More Info
The gaping price differential between spot gold and gold futures that has been plaguing the paper gold markets in London and New York for the last three weeks shows no signs of abating and is continuing to flare up.
In essence, the contango phenomenon we are seeing is one of gold futures prices trading far above spot gold prices, a sign of liquidity problems in the London gold market and a signal that something is completely broken between the world‘s two predominant “gold price discovery” trading venues – which both, by the way, trade paper gold. As a reminder, London LBMA trades unallocated gold over the counter (OTC), a form of synthetic fractional gold derivative. The vast quantities of unallocated gold which are traded in London are then netted and cleared in an electronic clearing engine called Aurum by 5 LBMA bullion banks that comprices London Precious Metals Clearing Limited (LPMCL), namely JP Morgan, HSBC, UBS, Scotia, and ICBC Standard Bank). Allocation of physical gold is a totally separate process beyond clearing in Aurum
COMEX trades predominantly cash-settled gold futures contracts on exchange and facilitates the trading of these contracts bilaterally. COMEX futures are 99.9% cash-settled and even those that result in delivery really result in warehouse warrants changing hands but the gold staying in the New York vaults of JP Morgan, HSBC and Scotia.
That the wide-open spread continues to persist is even more remarkable, despite the best efforts of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), CME Group (operator of COMEX) and the powerful London-New York bullion bank syndicate to throw all they have at the problem.
At the time of writing, spot gold was trading at US$ 1696 against US$ 1753 for the front-month (most actively traded) COMEX gold futures contract, a $36 spread with futures over 3.44% over spot. The spread we‘re referring to can be seen in the below 3-day chart, which plots June 2020 gold futures (red and green line) against spot XAUUSD (blue line) from 6 April to 8 April. Notice that over this time the futures price has stayed far above spot, and more importantly, it has persistently done so.
3 day chart of COMEX gold futures price (June 2020) versus LBMA spot gold price, 6 – 9 April 2020. Source:Â www.barchart.com
The spot-futures spread blow out that has been running into its third week now can vividly be seen by zooming out and looking at a similar chart but this time from 24 March until 9 April, the first day that the price spread between London and New York gaped open. Notice the big gaps between futures and spot over 24-25 March, the persistence of the gap over the remainder of the week, and the subsequent re-explosion of the divergence since early April, particularly over the last few days.
Its instructive to review a short timeline of some of the events which have contributed to this ongoing saga over the last three weeks, because it shows that no matter what the LBMA and CME do, the spread between London and COMEX continues to stay out there.
Week 1
23 March – COMEX gold futures (April contract) begin trading noticeably above LBMA bullion bank spot gold prices.
24 March – Spreads between COMEX futures and London spot blew out to $100 at one point during the day, while bid – ask spreads within London spot widened substantially.
24 March – Rumors in the gold market suggested that bullion banks that were required to deliver physical gold for COMEX Exchange for Physical (EFP) transactions failed to do so, suffered losses and exited the market, and that this caused the Spread between COMEX and London to widen substantially.
The bullion bank controlled LBMA releases its first control statement, deflecting attention away from London, saying it will help (essentially collude with) the CME-COMEX in the gold market – The official language is that the LBMA “is working closely with COMEX and other key stakeholders to ensure the efficient running of the global gold market.”
Note – Who are these other key stakeholders, what do they mean by efficient running, and what gives them the right to think they can “run“ the global gold market?
24 March – LBMA and its bullion banks pressure CME to launch a gold futures contract with a deliverable clause in London 400 oz gold bars.
24 March – At end of day, CME announces the launch of a new gold futures contract that can theoretically deliver 400 oz bars, 100 oz bars and kg bars but that uses a fractional paper concept called Accumulated Certificates of Exchange (ACEs) to divide 400 oz deliverable bars into 100 oz bars, and that critically includes all refiner brands on the LBMA Good Delivery List (current and former Good Delivery refiners). This contract will be called 4GC (See here and here).
30 March – CME published its daily gold vault stocks report (for Friday 27 March) with a new category for “400 oz AND eligible brands”, but with all vaults showing zero stocks of 400 oz gold bars. And notably, that the JP Morgan vault in New York had zero holdings.
30 March – When Bullionstar draws attention to this new CME vault report, in “COMEX can’t find a 400 oz bar for its new 400 oz gold futures contract“, the CME then deletes the new report from its website on the morning of 31 March, and replaces it intra-day with a report which reverted to the original version.
1 April – LBMA and CME publish an unprecedented second control statement titled “LBMA and CME group comment on healthy gold stocks in New York and Londonâ€, saying that “CME Group and LBMA..will continue to coordinate efforts as market circumstances evolveâ€. See “LBMA and COMEX try to Reassure the Market – Twice in One Week“ for background.
Note – If LBMA and CME are trading gold bars, why would they need to coordinate efforts, and more importantly, coordinate efforts to what end?
LBMA disingenuously refers to 8326 tonnes of gold in London, a figure that is from 3 months ago, and nearly all of this total tonnage is central bank gold, gold held in ETFs, and allocated gold held by other investors. The real float of physical gold in the london LBMA gold vaults controlled by the LBMA bullion banks is less than 1000 tonnes and some estimates from sources in the bullion banks say it could be between 300 and 500 tonnes.
In the same statement, CME refers to 9.2 million ozs ( 287 tonnes) of gold held in its approved vaults, with irrelevant claims that 5.6 million ozs of this is eligible gold. Eligible gold is gold which just happens to be in the form that satisfies the deliverable unit of the contracts (1 kg bars or 100 oz bars). The rest of this figure is registered gold, which already has warehouse warrants attached.
2 April – The spread between COMEX gold futures prices and London spot gold prices starts to gap up strongly again.
Rest of week – CME Group releases publicly a PowerPoint slide presentation titled “Precious Metals Physical Delivery Processâ€, which includes the new 4GC contract and explains how to get an electronic warrant if standing for delivery of COMEX gold futures contracts, but that explains nothing about withdrawing gold from the COMEX vaults.
The COMEX presentation also features a slide discussing the COMEX New York approved vaults but unbelievably instead of showing photos of one of its approved New York vaults, this slide contains photos of a HSBC gold vault in London showing gold bars belonging to the exchange traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD). This GLD gold has nothing to do with COMEX gold vaults in New York (or does it?).
COMEX presentation slide uses photos of a HSBC gold vault in London featuring SPDR Gold Trust gold bars
6 April – The spread between the COMEX June gold futures contract and the LBMA spot gold price blows out again very widely to over $80 at one point in the day.
6 April – CME adds back the category “Enhanced Delivery (400 oz AND eligible brands)” to its New York daily vault report. Of the 9 vaults on the report, 5 have 0 holdings in this 400 oz category, 2 (Brinks & Loomis) have a combined 2 tonnes, HSBC claims 21.5 tonnes, JP Morgan appears for the second time, claiming 126.8 tonnes. The first time being 30 January when JP Morgan was listed as having zero tonnes of 400 oz bars.
Note – “400 oz AND Eligible Brands” will be the subject of another article soon, but for now it means as follows. For the new 4GC contract, CME added all LBMA Good Delivery gold bar Brands (Current and Former) as Eligible brands. That’s 68 brands from the existing GC100 contract + 71 brands from the LBMA current Good Delivery List + another 113 LBMA former Good Delivery List As another aside, where did the JP Morgan New York vault suddenly get 126.8 tonnes of gold suddenly to add to Eligible category for the COMEX 4 GC contract? Was this 126.8 tonnes of gold suddenly shipped in to the JP Morgan vault from London? Hardly. Were 126.8 of London Good Delivery gold bars already sitting in its New York vault. Probably not as its London and not New York which is the center of 400 oz gold bar storage. Was there some type of gold swap involved between London and New York. Possibly.
Another intriguing possibility is that now that former LBMA Good Delivery List gold bars are eligible for the new 400 oz contract, that JP Morgan borrowed Old US Assay Office gold bars from the New York Fed (their two gold vaults are beside each other), and then added these to the Eligible category for the new 4GC gold contract.
Root Cause of Spot vs Futures Gold Price Discrepancy
So what is the cause of this dislocation in pricing between the lower ‘spot’ price and the higher ‘futures’ price, i.e. between the London LBMA gold spot market and the New York COMEX gold futures market? The answer in general is that the problem is with the spot price. And where is the spot price? London.
Ironically, the LBMA bullion banks are trying to shift the attention away from London, when London is exactly where the problem is. The spot price problem appears to be due to liquidity problems of the LBMA market makers in London where they are suspicious of trading with each other. This is despite the fact that these LBMA market makers are obliged to constantly make a market and offer two way price quotations to each other. These market makers are BNP Paribas, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ICBC Standard, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered, Bank of Nova Scotia, Toronto-Dominion and UBS.
The spot price problem has nothing to do with air travel cancellations or shipments of 100 oz gold bars from London to New York. These market makers do not make markets in physical gold. The unit of trading in London is not real gold anyway, its unallocated gold or gold credit which is issued by a bullion bank and which has counterparty risk.
Something has spooked these market makers and caused a drop in liquidity in the London market. These banks, which normally trade with each other, now do not want to trade with each other due to heightened counterparty risk. Unallocated trading volumes in the London gold market have fallen over the last three weeks. See chart below.LBMA – Unallocated gold trading volumes, week-to-week, last 4 weeks to 5th April. Source: www.lbma-i.com
Likewise, according to Bloomberg, COMEX gold futures trading volume last week was 80.6 million ounces, a 72% drop compared to the end of February. From the same Bloomberg article, there is an intriguing and obviously dramatic quote from commodities broker Marex Spectron, saying:
“You have a bunch of shell-shocked market makers who are literally hiding under their desks and do not and possibly can not make markets in any size, shape or form,†said David Govett, head of precious metals trading at Marex Spectron. “Hence we have the lack of liquidity, the small volumes and the wide spreads.â€
Marex is a broker for EFPs, so maybe the LBMA market makers are not answering calls. Then they are failing in their duty and obligations as market makers. But why would market makers not want to trade and how does this relate to EFP spreads? If banks suffered EFP problems and then the EFP spread between London and New York blew up, and then they use the excuse that the EFP spread is too large for them to make a market in spot because they don’t want to take on risk, then that’s just circular logic and a pathetic excuse. But what causes LBMA market makers to become shell shocked and literally hide under their desks?
Could it be that the gold trading activities of some of these LBMA bullion banks have blown up and they have ceased their market making activities, but have not publicly stated this, and covered it up? Stranger things have happened. All the while, as trading volumes continue to fall in the paper gold markets of London and New York, the opposite is the case in physical gold markets, where BullionStar and other bullion dealers – those that continue to have inventory – see unprecedented demand and increasing trading volumes.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 2:55 PM on Monday, April 13th, 2020
SPONSOR: New Age Metals Inc. The company owns one of North America’s largest primary platinum group metals deposit in Sudbury, Canada. Updated NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate 2,867,000 PdEq Measured and Indicated Ounces, with an additional 1,059,000 PdEq Ounces Inferred. Learn More.
PALL has rebounded by nearly 50% since it crashed to its lowest since last August at $137.51 on March 16, taking bears by surprise.
The rebound in palladium prices has been driven by a broad-based recovery in the precious metals space following the COVID-19 panic last month.
Palladium’s outperformance since late March confirms our view that palladium enjoys the relatively tightest fundamental backdrop.
Financial flows are absent, with speculators and ETF investors reducing further exposure to palladium. This confirms that there is no bubble in the palladium market for now.
For Q2, we see PALL trading between $135 and $285 per share.
Welcome to Orchid’s Palladium Weekly report, in which we discuss palladium prices through the lenses of the Aberdeen Standard Physical Palladium Shares ETF (PALL).
PALL has rebounded by nearly 50% since it crashed to its lowest since last August at $137.51 on March 16, taking bears by surprise.
The rebound in palladium prices has been driven by a broad-based recovery in the precious metals space following the wave of ugly deleveraging caused by the COVID-19 panic last month.
That said, palladium is the clear winner, which we attribute to its relatively stronger fundamental backdrop. Before COVID-19, the palladium market was expected to register a deficit exceeding 1 million ounces this year. Although the deficit is likely to be much smaller than initially envisaged due to the likely contraction in automotive demand for palladium, the market is forward-looking and therefore, rises on expectations for a large deficit in 2021.
Source: Bloomberg, Orchid Research
Against this, we express the view that the long-term uptrend in PALL remains intact.
For Q2, we see PALL trading between $135 and $285 per share.
Source: Trading View, Orchid Research
About PALL
For investors seeking exposure to the fluctuations of palladium prices, PALL is an interesting investment vehicle because it seeks to track spot palladium prices by physically holding palladium bars, which are located in JPM vaults in London and Zurich. The vaults are inspected twice a year, including once randomly.
PALL seeks to reflect the performance of the price of physical palladium, less the Trust’s expenses.
Its expense ratio is 0.60%. In other words, a long position in PALL of $10,000 held over 12 months would cost the investor $60.
Liquidity conditions are poorer than that for platinum. PALL shows an average daily volume of $3 million and an average spread (over the past two months) of 0.33%.
Speculative positioning
Source: CFTC, Orchid Research
Non-commercials cut marginally by the equivalent of ~19 koz and their net long position in NYMEX palladium in the week to April 7, according to the CFTC. This was the 12th week of decline in palladium’s net spec length over the past 13.
Over March 31-April 7, the NYMEX palladium price tumbled 6.1%. This suggests the presence of additional OTC selling activity.
Non-commercials have slashed by the equivalent of around 1 million oz their net long positions in NYMEX palladium since the start of the year, which represents 15% of annual supply. Yet, the NYMEX palladium price remains up 14% on the year, even outperforming gold (which is up 11% YTD), a clear confirmation of fundamental strength.
Implications for PALL: The absence of speculative participation in the palladium market in spite of 1)the strong uptrend in prices since 2016 and 2)the tight fundamentals of the market makes us even more bullish on PALL. We would turn cautious on PALL once palladium’s spec positioning becomes too bullish.
Investment positioning
Source: Orchid Research
ETF investors sold 4 koz of palladium in the week to April 10, marking a 6th straight week of selling.
In March, ETF investors liquidated 106 koz, representing the largest monthly net outflow since October 2018.
ETF holdings are now below 500 koz, which represents an extremely low level of visible inventories when remembering that the palladium market was supposed to post a 1+ moz deficit this year.
Implications for PALL: The palladium ETF activity has had a muted impact on the NYMEX palladium price because volumes exchanged are impactless on the global palladium market. Low visible inventories are bullish for PALL over the long term.
Seasonal patterns
Source: Bloomberg, Orchid Research
As the chart above shows, the volatility in palladium prices tends to be extreme in March. 2020 did not disappoint in this regard. Lower volatility in the months ahead should be expected based on palladium’s seasonal patterns.
For April, the seasonality is slightly friendly, with palladium prices recording a median performance of +2.7% (over 2002-2019).
Implications for PALL: The high volatility regime is behind us, in our view. The seasonality is positive for the NYMEX palladium price and thus PALL in April.
Closing thoughts
The recent outperformance of palladium over the rest of its complex confirms our view that palladium enjoys the relatively strongest fundamental backdrop.
The absence of financial flows in palladium despite its price uptrend since 2016 leads us to believe that 1)there is no bubble in the palladium market yet and 2)prices are essentially driven by their fundamental dynamics.
The sudden sell-off in PALL in March was exacerbated by the COVID-19 panic. Although palladium’s fundamentals will prove weaker than expected in 2020 due to a likely contraction in automotive demand, the market seems increasingly focused on 2021 when a large deficit is likely to re-emerge as global economic growth bounces back and automotive demand rebounds.
We maintain that PALL is in a clear long-term uptrend and even though volatility cannot be ruled out, we would only turn cautious when investor sentiment reaches an extreme high. We are far from it.
For Q2, we see PALL trading between $135 and $285 per share.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 12:37 PM on Monday, April 13th, 2020
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Cannabis sales spike after lockdown measures in legalised areas
As more people are confined to their homes, and can’t get out to unwind in other ways, they bought cannabis products at higher rates, and in bigger amounts than they have before
Around the world, precautions against the spread of coronavirus have meant that people are confined to their homes for a while. Everyone has their own plans, which has included stockpiling loo roll, food and medicine.
For people who realise that they may want to relax, those preparations include stockpiling cannabis too – in Canada, the Netherlands, and states in the US where cannabis is legal to buy, the coronavirus lockdown has caused a surge in demand for cannabis products, particularly online and at dispensaries.
As more people are confined to their homes, and can’t get out to unwind in other ways, they bought cannabis products at higher rates, and in bigger amounts than they have before.
Now that lockdown measures have been in place for several weeks, cannabis companies and other retailers have been able to take stock of how their businesses have fared.
In the middle of March, several marijuana businesses throughout the US saw a spike in people buying all kinds of products. People also tended to be buying it in larger quantities than they would normally.
In California, sales had gone up 159 per cent compared to the sales in March of 2019.
In general, the legal cannabis industry is a growing one, so there will be more people buying it “officially” than the year before. Even so, the kind of spike that cannabis business owners around the world saw in mid-March coincided exactly with announcements of cannabis lockdowns.
But is this a good thing? Information from the World Health Organisation suggests that smoking cannabis can weaken the lungs, which isn’t a good thing when we have a global pandemic of a virus which attacks the respiratory system.
However, it seems people may have thought of this.
Data from Headset suggests that while sales of cannabis were up 10 per cent, edibles surged in demand too – by 28 per cent – and that people are shifting away from pre-rolled products when thinking about what they would want to stock up on for a few weeks.
In Ontario, Canada there were almost 3,000 orders on the last Saturday before full lockdown at the Ontario Cannabis Store. That was an 80 per cent increase over a typical Saturday.
Daffyd Roderick, the communications director at the OCS, said that they had seen a significant increase in demand for same-day and next day delivery options, in addition to a higher volume of purchases.
Other cannabis stores, in the province of Quebec, also said that they had seen a spike in sales of cannabis over the weekend. Additionally, many shops have started to operate a click and collect service – where people can come and pick up their orders themselves. These kinds of services could offer a chance for people to keep stocked up on the products they want, but they minimise social contact as much as possible. Measures like this are possible in Canada, where individual provinces maintain a monopoly on the sales of cannabis – so they can implement changes more quickly than elsewhere.
In the Netherlands, photos circulated on social media of people in towns and cities lining up to buy cannabis and weed from coffee shops before a government-imposed quarantine would put the country on lockdown.
While cannabis is illegal in the Netherlands, it is decriminalised for personal use, and posts from social media users showed lines of more than 20 or 30 people waiting to stock up in various cities, from Amsterdam to Utrecht.
The day after the announcement was made, cafes and coffee shops were allowed to re-open as long as they were only offering takeaway services.
The situation around cannabis in the US is different from places like Canada and the Netherlands because federal policy governs whether cannabis is legal, as well as whether there are other restrictions on what dispensaries can do with their stock. In eight states that have imposed stay-at-home orders, recreational cannabis can still be sold, and over 15 others have continued to allow the sale of medical cannabis only.
In states like California and Washington, dispensaries have reported huge increases in demand for their products since mid March.
In Oakland, a dispensary’s whole supply was sold out by 2pm on the day that the lockdown measures were announced.
Delivery services in San Francisco said they had seen an increase in demand for cannabis delivery too, although they weren’t as severe as recent spikes.
In Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolfe declared marijuana dispensaries an essential business, which brought in changes that had otherwise been passing slowly through legislation. Telemedicine – where people are prescribed medication over the phone – mean cannabis has become much more accessible, and for people who needed cannabis to treat illnesses or reduce their symptoms, getting the adequate documentation happened much more quickly too.
Some dispensaries have also transitioned to offering drive-through services too, to minimise contact.
Other elements of the legal cannabis industry have changed in response to Covid-19.
The government in Oregon increased the minimum amount of cannabis that you could buy in one go, to stop people from making more trips.
Websites like Leafly, which focus on the world of cannabis, have created guides on disinfecting cannabis product packaging and taking other safety precautions. For business owners, it’s an opportunity to strengthen online vendor systems and figure out whether a drive through system is possible.
As lockdown measures are extended around the world, cannabis business owners are attempting to figure out what they should be doing next – in some cases, they ordered in extra stock and increased hours for workers. In others, they’ve been encouraging customers to place their orders online, rather than coming into town.
Currently, the length of the lockdown measures remains uncertain, so you might as well be well prepared, whether you’re buying or selling.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 12:00 PM on Monday, April 13th, 2020
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Healthcare communication post-COVID 19: Need for new approaches and protocols to achieve resilience
– Health communication was never so important in controlling the disease outbreaks as it is in COVID 19 pandemic
– The alarmingly increasing risk of misinformation through fake news on social media, termed as infodemic by the World Health Organization (WHO); and fear of such outbreaks in the future has put the communication at the core of resilience and response policies.
However, the scariest part of this pandemic is infodemic – a huge amount of misinformation and fake news on social media. “Our common enemy is #COVID19, but our enemy is also an “infodemic” of misinformation. To overcome the #coronavirus, we need to urgently promote facts & science, hope & solidarity over despair & division,” said Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations apparently announcing a full-fledged organized war against the COVID 19 infodemic. This proclamation from the top of the UN came about one and half months after WHO Chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom declared fight against the infodemic. “But we’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic. Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus, and is just as dangerous,” said Dr. Tedros on February 14 in a press conference in Munich (Germany).
The announcement by the UN Chief was a kind of acceptance that the WHO required enforcement to fight against the infodemic. And, enforcement was rushed on a war footing as the UN and its various organizations such as Global Communication Team, Cyber Security Team of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and UNESCO joined the WHO’s efforts against the infodemic. Presently, all the UN bodies have joined the fight against misinformation from their perspectives. The pandemic has manifested the extend of misinformation and its impact on communities across age groups. In the initial stage of the COVID 19 outbreak, the misinformation was primarily non-intentional but now it has reached to the level of cybercrime posing threats of cybersecurity throughout the globe.
Fake news about infection and treatment
Detection and prevention are two pillars of the response plan for disease outbreaks like COVID 19 for which no treatment is available.
However, experiences of the ensuing pandemic show the maximum number of the fake was created on detection, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of the disease. These fake news items are aimed at directly misguiding the healthy and infected persons on contagiousness and potential damages to be caused by the infection. The misguided individuals virtually end up increasing the number of cases in the society through their behaviors. Therefore, providing scientific information to make the people aware of the real causes of infection, do’s and don’ts to be followed during the period of disease outbreaks and appropriate preventive care becomes a top priority. ‘Myth Busters’, the online campaign launched by the WHO is focussed on combating the fake news items of this category thereby enabling the COVID warriors and various stakeholders throughout the world.
Starting from – Garlic, Vitamin C, Hot Water, ten seconds breathing control-diagnosis, the fake news items of this category have now reached to the extent of fake claims that ‘5G mobile networks spread COVID 19‘. “COVID 19 is spread through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks. People can also be infected by touching a contaminated surface and then their eyes, mouth or nose,’ WHO has reiterated time and again. However, the fake news items are designed so meticulously that they convince uneducated and educated societies as well. The arson attacks on 5G cell towers across Britain and large scale uprising against the rollout of 5G telecommunication networks in the Netherland indicate the capacity of fake news to influence the people in the countries that have achieved cent percent literacy and are considered highly educated societies. Therefore, developed and developing, all countries are vulnerable to fake news but the situation could be more dangerous in developing countries as they have fewer resources to combat the infodemic.
Conspiracy theories on Pandemic
The fake news items and unsubstantiated claims of this category are targeted against communities, personalities, nations, international bodies and also the UN organizations. They may not play a direct role in the outbreak or escalating the intensity of the outbreak but the unsubstantiated claims of this category are dangerous for creating tension between communities thereby posing law and order problems.
India has faced unprecedented fake news for and against Tablighi Jamaat community after an event in Delhi attended by hundreds of foreigners from several countries became the nodal center for novel coronavirus outbreaks and caused a sudden rise in new cases. At the international level, China and the USA have been blaming each other for conspiring in the outbreak of the disease. The unsubstantiated claims of this category were often made by scientists, professionals, legislators, and even the heads of the states.
Besides, the credibility of the national, international and UN organizations is also being questioned. The US President Donald Trump and several other who’s who of the US has alleged that the WHO Chief sided with China and helped in concealing information that caused the outbreak of this magnitude.
The United Nations is yet to develop a mechanism to deal with the infodemic of this category. However, the nations also need to develop mechanisms to deal with conspiracies meant to provoke one community against the other as such strategies will be very crucial in managing the current outbreak and also in developing pandemic resilience policies for future outbreaks.
Cyber Security: Protecting the vulnerable
Due to global lockdown, millions of people have been forced to stay at home. The global economy has come to a standstill but a few businesses have developed the capacity to continue their operations online. Here comes the danger of cybersecurity.
In fact, all the businesses that are operating online due to global lockdown have been exposed to cybercrime. The cybercriminals can aggravate the problem by attacking the communication network of the governments, hospitals, hacking websites, influencing diseases outbreak dashboard, interfering with ‘myth busters’, sending fishing emails, individual emails, fake official order, and miscommunication of various kinds to hamper the fight against the disease outbreak. All these aspects need to be considered in the outbreak/ epidemic/ pandemic disease response plan for COVID 19 and also in preparing outbreak resilience plans for nations or regions in the post-pandemic world. Not only the smaller websites, but the big organization such as Coronavirus statistics site Worldometers.info and the US Department of Health and Human Services have also faced cyber-attacks in the ensuing COVID 19 pandemic.
“The vast majority of cyberattacks – by some estimates, 98 percent – deploy social engineering methods. Cybercriminals are extremely creative in devising new ways to exploit users and technology to access passwords, networks, and data, often capitalizing on popular topics and trends to tempt users into unsafe online behavior,” said Algirde Pipikaite and Nicholas Davis in an analysis published at the World Economic Forum. The authors have suggested three broad strategies – step up cyber-hygiene standards, be extra vigilant on verification and follow official updates. Throughout the world, cyber-crimes have increased during the pandemic.
Children: The most vulnerable
Children are always the most vulnerable to misinformation and attack by cybercriminals. They can be misguided through video games, dangerous challenges, and tasks. These activities may expose them to infections.
COVID 19 is not much fatal to children but there are infectious diseases that can pose risks for children as well. Besides, children could be misguided and used as vectors for spreading the infection in the family, schools, playgrounds, markets, and communities. In the past, there have been several dangerous games such as the Blue Whale game and skull break challenge that had caused the deaths of several children. The governments will have to develop a robust cybersecurity system, cyber monitoring system and strict cyber laws to prevent the children from falling in the trap of cyber criminals during COVID 19 pandemic and also for developing resilience and response plan for handling outbreaks of communicable diseases in the future.
COVID 19 and the dangers of terrorism
“The weaknesses and lack of preparedness exposed by this pandemic provide a window onto how a bio-terrorist attack might unfold and may increase its risks. Non-state groups could gain access to virulent strains that could pose similar devastation to societies around the globe,” said UN chief Antonio Guterres addressing the UN Security Council meeting on April 10. Though any link to the terrorist organizations has not been established in the case of COVID 19, the highly contagious virus has posed a new threat to humanity. The countries will have to amend their laws to ensure the culprits are served strictest punishment, and outbreaks are detected and contained efficiently.
Public Health Communication in the Post-COVID 19 World
Communication has always played an important role in prevention and response plans against outbreaks of infectious diseases but the experience of the COVID 19 pandemic has increased its scope and importance. The role of communication in disseminating scientific information and rejecting fake news has become a top priority.
As the COVID 19 pandemic has taken the whole world into its grip, WHO and all the UN agencies are assisting nations in their fight against the outbreak of the disease. However, this kind of collaboration will be rare in case of local or national level outbreak of diseases in the future. Besides, internet-based technological innovations have provided cybercriminals with several new weapons that they can use by sitting in any corner of the world or through artificial intelligence. The policymakers and administrators will be required to consider several such aspects of health communication which were unheard of in the pre-COVID 19 periods. The existing disease outbreak resilience policies and protocols need a thorough review to deal with COVID 19 pandemic and challenges to be posed in the post-COVID 19 world.
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Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 11:22 AM on Monday, April 13th, 2020
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Embracing EdTech in a post-lockdown world
More than a billion children are currently out of school with no return date.
As we enter another month with educational institutions around the world in lockdown, it has become clear that the Covid-19 outbreak has the potential to forever change not just how we learn, but how we think about learning.
While the world’s schools, colleges and universities may be closed, education must go on. This is a challenge unlike any we have faced before, but it is also an opportunity to harness the human capacity for learning and to further develop our tools.
In this environment, online systems, data-driven structures, and artificially intelligent algorithms offer critical resources for students, teachers and even parents. But realising the full value of these resources requires re-thinking how our education systems interact with technology, forging a new path and incorporating technology into every aspect of learning.
For several years now education has been one of the fastest growing sectors in technology. According to HolonIQ, a global education intelligence firm, the ‘Edtech’ field is projected to be worth $341 billion by 2025.
This is unsurprising given its obvious potential, not just today, but for the cities of tomorrow, which will need to be agile enough to embrace change and disruption. Those that thrive will be the ones already investing in the wider strategic infrastructure that supports online learning.
Communities around the world have been wrangling with the demands of continued support for education through the Covid-19 lockdown. When Abu Dhabi closed schools on March 9th, the emirate immediately activated an “at home†model, with all of its school children continuing to learn through online platforms.
In a time of social distancing, that means that not only can students continue to learn, they can also continue to engage with their peers and their teachers. And during these trying times, it is clearer than ever just how important these relationships remain for our mental and emotional health.
That shouldn’t be regarded as a replacement for the social warmth of physical classrooms and human interaction, but it is a viable way to foster and maintain connections when the alternatives are not available.
In some areas, we shouldn’t be afraid of also considering how to retain some of these technologies in a post-Covid-19 world. Learning online means students can progress at their own pace, with personalised systems that puts each student at the centre of every class. Instant and ongoing assessments also provide teachers with feedback on individual progress, giving them a chance to adjust, correct and spend additional time on material through one-on-one instruction.
Videos, games and interactivity can also keep the lessons flowing, harnessing an approach known as the “gamification of learningâ€. This motivates them to learn, practice, and ultimately achieve full mastery of the material. The most successful platforms also allow for streamlined and consistent delivery of lessons, relieving teachers and parents of the time needed to build resources from scratch. This frees them up to focus on the actual delivery of the lessons, maximising their direct engagement with students.
It can be more than just continuing to teach, it can be a qualitative shift in our education systems if we grasp the nettle.
This is not to say that embracing Edtech is without challenge. For example, schools need to be scaled up with the necessary IT infrastructure and hardware, while external systems themselves have to be able to handle the processing demands of home access.
Similarly, the tools we use also have to be based on sound learning principles and properly aligned with national curricula, with the most important stakeholders in mind: the teachers and students. From a design perspective, teachers and students will bring endless varied challenges and Edtech systems must be designed with this diversity in mind, especially for those students with special educational needs.
Lastly, we should not be so arrogant as to assume that teachers and parents can simply be “dropped†into Edtech systems. Software designers may always be confident that their tools are eminently intuitive for all users, but the reality is that scaling up online technologies also means ensuring we provide support in the form of the training required for our students and children, helping them to get the maximum value from these technologies.
These things are not easy. They take time, they take investment and they require a government that is committed to deploying innovative systems in an environment that doesn’t always rapidly embrace change. Abu Dhabi invested heavily over the years, directly and indirectly, to support companies that deliver these programmes as well as a stable infrastructure to support them, giving the emirate and its students flexibility and a way forward.
Ultimately, the most effective providers will be those who keep users at the heart of their endeavours, offering a holistic learning experience which ensures that no student misses a beat, whether inside the classroom or out.
And the education systems that are best placed to thrive in a post-Covid-19 world will be those who retain the technologies and tools that have been tested so fiercely during this outbreak.
