Market, California Nonsense, High Grade with AGI, AZT, GOT, MRNA Collapse
Short Bitcoin with SBIT
To follow up on my Friday update, it's official with Friday's close the stock market has broken down. We are into a correction and a bear market is most likely. These are the levels I am watching and if next support holds it is only a -7% correction. There is a lot of negative news for the market coming, like inflation, higher interest rates and the Trump transition will be bumpy, especially tariffs. We get inflation data tomorrow but I think January and February numbers are the ones to watch out for.
California Fire - Climate Change Narrative is Total Nonsense
It only takes a little research to know this tragedy was an accident waiting to happen. The climate in California has been heavily prone to fires as far back as we know.
Pre-1800, when the area was much more forested and the ecology much more resilient, 4.4 to 11.9 million acres of forest and shrub land burned annually. California land area totals roughly 100 million acres and since 2000, the area that burned annually has ranged between 90,000 acres, or 0.09%, and 1,590,000 acres, or 1.59% of the total land of California. Back in early history about 10 times more acres burned and probably because many were not in harms way and there was not many people then to put them out.
The high winds that fanned the flames are known as Santa Ana winds and have been known to occur as far back in history as we know. They are seasonal, mostly occurring in Autumn and typically there are 10 to 25 occurrences every year.
The winds start with high pressure in the Great Basin and Mojave desert with low pressure over the Pacific ocean. The winds are funneled through mountain passes resulting in a strong, warm, and very dry wind blowing out of the bottom of mountain passes into the valleys and coastal plain. These warm, dry winds, which can easily exceed 40 miles per hour.
According to Wikipedia, The Santa Ana winds and the accompanying raging wildfires have been a part of the ecosystem of the Los Angeles area over 5,000 years, dating back to the earliest habitation of the region by the Tongva and Tataviam peoples.
Drastic weather changes and droughts in California have occurred regularly throughout history. This erratic weather pattern is more so than any other US State. For example the drought of 1863-1864 was proceeded by torrential rains in 1861-1862. The drought of 1928 to 1937 was a long one that occurred during the historic dust bowl in much of the western U.S. Plains. The drought of 1977 was thought to be one of the driest and the ones of 1986-1992 along with 2011-2017 were long ones.
I remember when I was in the Mojave desert around 25 years ago and we could drive short cuts because the river bed was dried up. Just drive across the river bed to the road on the other side. Sometimes there was a river, other times not so.
In the last many decades California saw a lot of development and population growth and with that came power lines. Now they are aging and often poorly maintained electricity transmission and distribution lines, particularly in areas serviced by Pacific Gas and Electric. The deadliest fire in California with 86 deaths in November 2018 was caused by Pacific Gas and Electric.
More than 350,000 people in California live in towns sited completely within zones deemed to be at very high risk of fire. In total, more than 2.7 million people live in "very high fire hazard severity zones", which also include areas at lesser risk.
It was reported that 2024 was the hottest year on record in California going back 130 years. However, I believe it is actually faulty data. I went into detail in my July 23 Climate Scam Update. Temperatures are way warmer in urban areas than rural and most weather stations have been moved one or more times. Most U.S. based temperature recordings are in parking lots, on buildings, against brick walls, or in other artificial environments that would create a higher temperature.
About 1/3 of stations don't exist anymore so the NOAA uses estimates. Temperature adjustments (not actual readings) increased the overall land temperature warming by 16% between 1880 and 2016.
In 1981, NASA relied on only a few hundred land stations almost entirely in the Northern Hemisphere to estimate global temperatures. Their temperature record did not even use any sea surface temperature data until the 1990s.
The flaws are so significant that they make the temperature data—and the models based on it— essentially useless or worse, three independent scientists with the Center for Environmental Research and Earth Sciences (CERES) explained.
Conclusion
The historic data is severely flawed but that said, I have no doubt 2023 and 2024 were hot years. The most reliable data is the Surface Sea Temperature (SST) because it is unbiased. measured all around the world by satellites but this data only began in 1981. This is the world average chart and it is a very busy chart with all the years so I highlighted 2023 and 2024. Note that 2021 was in the historic !991-2020 and 1982-2010 ranges.
As I have commented many times, Climate Change is natural and has been happening since the world existed. The tiny bit of man made carbon is not a factor. Many scientists and myself have little doubt it was the massive volcano, Hunga Tonga that exploded in January 2022. that is the main cause of higher temperatures this past year or two.
What is unique is that this volcano was under the ocean about the perfect amount to spew a massive amount of water vapour into the atmosphere. This was unprecedented and estimates were enough water vapour was spewed into the stratosphere to fill more that 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools “We’ve never seen anything like it,” said Luis Millán, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. With much recent world wide cold weather, it looks like the volcano's effect is subsiding.
California is a far left state and has been in a decline for many years. They cut their fire fighting budget recently by $17 million, gave fire fighting equipment to Ukraine and despite a growing population, the known fire hazard they have built no new water reservoirs in almost 50 years. Fire fighters ran out of water and the relevant Santa Ynez reservoir was empty and closed for maintenance.
The far left will blame it on climate change, but as is obvious, this has always been the climate in California. It was summed up nicely by someone on 'X'. This empty reservoir wasn't caused by Climate Change. It was caused by Democrats. pic.twitter.com/WrLFHYOsBh.
Regardless, I doubt these things made little difference and despite California's best efforts this was simply a huge risk and accident waiting to happen. The other factor is that there are high odds that crazy climate activist arsonists were involved like the huge wild fires of 2023 in Canada. Several arrests were made on arsonists that set dozens of fires.
There are some great updates and news with some of our gold stocks.
Alamos Gold Inc. — - TSX/NY:AGI Recent - — - Price - $27.50
Entry Price - $12.43 (from Argonaut takeover) - - - - - Opinion – hold
One of the main reason Alamos is on the Selection List is their acquisition of Argonaut and the synergies of the Magino and Island gold mines that resulted.
Today Alamos reported new results from underground and surface drilling at the Island Gold Mine. Exploration drilling continues to extend high-grade gold mineralization across the Island Gold Deposit, as well as within several hanging wall and footwall structures.
"Our drilling program at Island Gold over the past year has been one of the most successful in the history of the asset in terms of the magnitude of high-grade intercepts across the lateral extent of the main deposit, and within the numerous newly defined hanging wall and footwall zones. We expect this to drive another year of growth in combined Mineral Reserves and Resources, marking the ninth consecutive year, with grades also increasing over that time frame. Island Gold has established itself as one of the highest-grade and fastest growing deposits in the world. With the main structure open laterally and down-plunge, and significant high-grade results being intersected within emerging and yet to be defined zones in proximity to the main structure, we see excellent potential for this pace of growth to continue,” said John A. McCluskey, President and Chief Executive Officer.
Here is the examples of exceptional high grade results.
Island West (C-Zone)
67.68 g/t Au (16.07 g/t cut) over 3.61 m (790-479-62);
31.59 g/t Au (31.59 g/t cut) over 4.18 m (890-461-58);
16.58 g/t Au (16.58 g/t cut) over 5.56 m (890-461-40);
40.21 g/t Au (21.69 g/t cut) over 2.08 m (790-479-69);
22.71 g/t Au (11.48 g/t cut) over 2.14 m (890-461-54); and
20.09 g/t Au (20.09 g/t cut) over 2.13 m (1025-497-08).
Island East (E1E-Zone)
55.50 g/t Au (45.31 g/t cut) over 3.87 m (MH40-02);
49.26 g/t Au (49.26 g/t cut) over 2.07 m (540-578-05);
31.55 g/t Au (31.55 g/t cut) over 2.92 m (MH40-03); and
26.25 g/t Au (26.25 g/t cut) over 2.57 m (540-578-08).
Aztec Minerals - - - TSXV:AZT OTC: AZZTF - - - - Recent Price - $0.19
Entry Price - $0.40 - - - - - - - Opinion – buy
Aztec reported some very good drill results from their Tombstone property in Arizona today. These are the rest of the results for the Main (North) Contention zone and their are more results to come with 9 holes from the Westside and Southern Extension targets. Some very good long intersects with higher grade portions. Drill Highlights:
DH TR24-10 intersected 9.2m of 5.93 gpt AuEq within broader zone of 88.1m averaging 1.02 gpt AuEq at shallow depth
DH TR24-07 intersected wide mineralized zone with 0.39 gpt AuEq over 146.3 m (0.21 gpt Au & 14.12 gpt Ag); including1.94 gpt AuEq over 13.7m (1.22 gpt Au & 57.61 gpt Ag).
An excellent drill map below that shows the 3 holes reported. Note that there are results for 6 holes in the virgin Westside Area.
In this program 17 RC holes have now been drilled and the program completed with additional results pending release over the next several weeks. This 2024 drill program has successfully expanded the footprint of the oxide gold-silver zone revealing new target zone open in multiple directions.
This drilling is going to significantly expand the minerialization at Tombstone and I am eagerly awaiting the first ever drill results at the Westside Target. Plus more results on the Southern Extension to the Contention Zone. The total drilled at Tombstone by Aztec to date is now 67 holes and just shy of 10,000 meters.
The stock remains closer to the bottom of it's 2 year range and an excellent buy level.
Goliath Gold - - - - TSXV:GOT, OTC:GOTRF- - - - Recent Price - $1.20
Entry Price - $1.22 - - - - - - Opinion – strong buy
Goliath Drills Remarkable Hole Assaying 34.52 g/t AuEq (1.11 oz/T AuEq) Over 39.00 Meters, Including 132.93 g/t AuEq (4.27 oz/T AuEq) Over 10.00 Meters, Plus Several High-Grade Holes With Multiple Intercepts, System Remains Wide Open, Golden Triangle, B.C. Assays Pending For 89 Out Of 105 Drill Holes
Drilling Highlights – Golddigger Property:
GD-24-260 intercepted the highest concentration of visible gold and its best high-grade gold drill hole to date at the Surebet Discovery from the Bonanza High-Grade Gold Zone that sits ~200 meters above the valley floor level. Mineralization is within a vein-hosted band of semi-massive pyrrhotite, where the gold occurs in alloys with silver, bismuth and tellurium. Mineralization was also intercepted in the Surebet Zone that sits above Bonanza; both remain wide open:
Bonanza Zone: 34.52 g/t AuEq (34.47 Au and 3.96 Ag) over 39.00 meters, including 132.93 g/t AuEq (132.78 Au and 12.98 Ag) over 10.00 meters, and 166.04 g/t AuEq (165.84 Au and 16.07 Ag) over 8.00 meters.
Surebet Zone: 5.51 g/t AuEq (5.39 g/t Au and 9.82 g/t Ag) over 3.40 meters within 2.96 g/t AuEq (2.89 g/t Au and 5.46 g/t Ag) over 6.35 meters.
Assays Pending For 89 Out Of 105 Drill Holes. With only 3 months of drilling in 2024 and the strong gold mineralization observed in multiple drill holes the size of the known Bonanza High-Grade Gold Zone has been nearly doubled from an area 180,000 m2 (720 x 612 x 410 meter triangular area) to 341,000 m2 (835 x 685 x 612 x 410 meter polygon area) that remains wide open.
Dr. Quinton Hennigh, Technical Advisor of Goliath Resources, states: “Drill intercepts from the Bonanza Shear Zone continue to generate remarkable gold values that strongly indicate this important structural zone is a likely feeder to the overall Surebet gold system. While other larger structures such as the Surebet Shear and the Golden Gate Zone are important, and should in no way be discounted, the Bonanza Shear is living up to its namesake. Not only are exceptional gold grades present, but the Bonanza lode, a relatively flat-oriented structure, displays robust thicknesses. Given the numerous drill intercepts that have penetrated this lode to date, it is clearly expansive, too, measuring at least 800 meters along strike and 600 meters down dip. Many assays from these holes will be returning over the coming weeks, but already, it is clear that Goliath needs to carry out a systematic drill campaign in 2025 to test this entire area as well as for extensions of the system as it remains open. We now have supporting evidence that gold in the Surebet system is likely fed by a gold-rich reduced intrusion. Goliath now needs to fully explore the Bonanza Zone, as well as each and every gold-bearing structure that is encountered in order to determine where all the fluids that emanated from this intrusion carried and deposited high-grade gold. Goliath is clearly on the right track.”
Despite the recent gold stock correction the stock is still in an up trend channel. I believe the only reason the stock is still this cheap is the the junior exploration stocks are still getting little respect. It does present a buying opportunity as late in the bull market these stocks will make huge gains.
Moderna - - - - - NASDAQ:MRNA - - - - - Recent Price - $33.20
Short with January 2026 $25 Put - - - - - Recent Price - $4.35
Today the stock plunged on an update provided at the 43rd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. It also broke down further on the chart and is headed to my $25 target pointed out in my November update.
Most relevant is their 2025 financial framework: Moderna is accelerating and expanding its previous cost efficiency and prioritization programs and now projects cash cost reductions of $1.0 billion (including cost of sales, research and development, and selling, general & administrative expense) in 2025. The Company expects an additional $0.5 billion in potential cash cost savings in 2026. Moderna now projects $1.5 billion to 2.5 billion in revenue in 2025, mostly in the second half of the year, primarily due to Spikevax and mRESVIA vaccine sales. The Company expects to end 2025 with cash and investments of approximately $6.0 billion.
Another down grade in revenue projections comes as no surprise (see my November update) and exactly what I was predicting. There are real risks the MRNA Covid shots are with drawn off the market this year. Basically that is all Moderna has and as I have said a number of times, I believe the MRNA is failed technology, at least for medical purposes and as that becomes more apparent this stock could go to zero.
Bitcoin has broken down on the chart early hours this morning as I was projecting Friday with my Danger Will Robinson warning and currently is just under $92,000.
I would go short with the SBIT etf currently around $11.90
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