CHF WEEKLY ROUND UP: May 4 - 8, 2026

The ups and downs of global markets continue as hopes for a Middle East peace deal rise and fall. Overnight, world shares retreated, and oil prices fell back as the ceasefire with Iran launched another round of missile and drone attacks. The U.S. forces replied with retaliatory strikes on Iranian military facilities. A one-page, 14-point memorandum of understanding (MOU) is unlikely to result in a long-term peace agreement. Restrictions on transit through the Strait of Hormuz remain. China may need to take a more significant role in negotiating any "peace". Volatility will continue; stay calm, trade cautiously.

The TSX had a choppy week, down slightly overall. Energy, industrial, base-metal, and battery-material stocks were hit. The Venture exchange had a similarly rough week of trading, with no gains, as gold and metal prices rose and fell. Short-term, reactive trading is not a plan; stay invested in quality. This morning, Statistics Canada data showed continued weakness in the labour market, with Canada’s unemployment rate rising to a six-month high of 6.9% in April, while the economy lost a net of 17,700 jobs in March. Job losses were again concentrated in full-time positions.

On Thursday, U.S. stocks pulled back from record highs. Earnings reports from the Mag-7 came in better than expected. Demand for AI remains extraordinarily strong. Where to get all the necessary chips, electricity, water, and processing is the concern, not the shortage of customers. U.S. Treasury yields and mortgage rates have been rising with oil prices since the start of the war. With Kevin Warsh’s arrival as Chair of the Federal Reserve (Fed), greater emphasis will be put on its full-employment mandate, even as inflation remains elevated. Interest rate changes may not happen immediately, but policy shifts under his leadership could create room for a more dovish approach. On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia moved against global consensus and increased its cash rate target by 25 basis points to 4.35%. The U.S. dollar has started to decline against global currencies, currently just below where it started the year. Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by 115,000 last month, beating forecasts of 65,000, while the U.S. unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%, in line with expectations.

Gold opens today at USD$4,722.70/oz, and spot silver prices are sharply higher at USD$80.57/oz this morning. One analyst had an explanation for the short-term price movements, “when oil prices go down that tends to push up bond prices, which depresses yields because investors have reduced expectations of interest rate hikes from central banks, and that in turn supports gold and silver”. Gold and silver are the oldest forms of money, and they are the only forms that can be trusted, since governments cannot devalue them by printing money. Hang on to your gold and silver, buy the dips from here on through any lazy summer trading. China's central bank bought more gold for the eighteenth straight month, bringing its reserves to 74.64 million ounces at the end of March. Price targets for the end of the year remain at USD$6,000/oz. Shares of gold producers are being sold off even as they generate impressive free cash flow, with the current gold price more than USD$1,000/oz above the 2025 average. Look to be a buyer. Interesting note: if Canada had held onto its gold reserves rather than selling them off over the last few decades, at prices generally below USD$1,000/oz, the value backing the Loonie today would exceed USD$150 billion. A lot of bad decisions by all political parties are only visible in the rear-view.

Copper is at USD$6.11/lb, near the high for the year and its all-time high. Nickel has fallen back to a support level of USD$8.59/lb. Aluminum prices are down slightly as China has increased exports to cover lost production from the Middle East. Decades of underinvestment in metals production have constrained supply growth. The world is in a structurally higher-metal-price environment as the global reality continues to favour hard assets. Look for issuers that can grow production or are increasing resources in the ground.

Critical minerals have moved to the center of geopolitical and economic competition, with governments and financial institutions seeking to secure supply chains free from China’s dominance. Investment has not gone into domestic production quickly enough. Building mining operations, refining plants, obtaining permits, and finding energy for supply expansion all operate on terribly slow clocks. Look for issuers that can grow domestic production or have resources in the ground that could be taken over. Lithium at USD$28.00/kg is 150% higher than it was eight months ago. Cobalt has almost doubled in that period. The recent energy crisis has increased demand for electric vehicles and battery storage systems, and supply is limited outside China.

China’s third-largest electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, Chery Automobile Co., announced plans to enter the Canadian market by the end of the year. No Canadian materials or manufactured parts will be in the vehicles. Chery said it plans to sell its vehicles through conventional brick-and-mortar dealerships, which may create some employment opportunities and, hopefully, lead to Canadian technicians being trained. Honda announced it will suspend a CAD$15B electric vehicle plant in Alliston, Ontario, a project it initially put on hold in May 2025, due to a lack of demand from the U.S.

The state of New South Wales in Australia has introduced legislation to lift its forty-year ban on uranium mining and nuclear facilities, driven by the need for energy security. It is a lengthy process, and Australia produces uranium for export; the demand is a long way off, but the market continues to tighten. The Ontario government is moving ahead on a cost-sharing agreement worth up to CAD$300 million to advance the construction of a new nuclear generating station at the Bruce Power site in Kincardine, Ontario. When reporting their financial and operating results for the first quarter this week, Cameco Corp’s CEO said, “We're probably in the best environment for nuclear that I've ever seen in four decades.”

We are pleased to present our round up of client news for the week of May 4 to 8, 2026.

On May 1, 2026, Arya Resources Ltd. (TSXV: RBZ) announced that it has closed the primary tranche of its non-brokered private placement, issuing an aggregate of 4,320,000 flow through shares at a price of $0.50 per share ($2,160,000), and 944,445 non-flow through shares at $0.45 per share ($425,000.25), for total gross proceeds of $2,585,000.25. The remaining balance of the flow-through portion of the Offering at $0.50 per share, in the amount of $30,000, will be upsized to $50,000 (for a grand total of 4,420,000 flow through shares for gross proceeds of $2,210,000) to accommodate a final oversubscription. All securities issued are subject to a hold period until September 2, 2026. 

On May 5, 2026, Rocky Shore Gold Ltd. (CSE: RSG) (OTCQB: RSGLF) announced that, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, it closed the previously announced purchase of 13 mining claims in central Newfoundland. As previously disclosed, the Company paid consideration of $25,000 cash and issued an aggregate of 250,000 common shares of Rocky Shore for the Claims. The Vendors also retained an aggregate 2.0% net smelter return royalty on the respective Claims. Rocky Shore Gold is targeting expansion of its two gold deposits and the discovery of major gold zones at its 100%-owned Gold Anchor Project, strategically located in central Newfoundland.