Canadian Finance Minister Francois-Phillippe Champagne announced a C$2B Critical Minerals Sovereign Fund to accelerate investment in strategic mining projects and strengthen national security supply chains. The new fund (administered by Natural Resources Canada) will provide equity investments, loan guarantees and offtake agreements to advance critical minerals projects. Additionally, Ottawa will launch a C$372M First and Last Mile Fund to support upstream and midstream development of critical minerals supply chains.
Canada’s 2025 Budget also extends the Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit to 12 additional minerals: bismuth, cesium, chromium, fluorspar, germanium, indium, manganese, molybdenum, niobium, tantalum, tin and tungsten.
ICBC (China’s largest state-owned bank) plans to open a precious-metal depository at Hong Kong International Airport in conjunction with Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee’s pledge to increase the city’s bullion storage capacity to 2,000t and establish a central clearing system over the next three years, all in support of China’s (de-dollarization) efforts to increase international RNB-denominated gold trading.
DXY dollar index -0.05%, spot gold and spot silver +0.9%. Gold /silver ratio at 83.4.
We continue to flag mounting market-liquidity stress. In our chart of the week, the spread between the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) and the Fed’s Interest on Reserve Balances Rate (IORB) spiked to 32 basis points on Tuesday, the highest since the Covid-panic peak (3/16/20). Combined with Monday’s equity-correction warnings from Wall Street CEO’s, something is a-brewing. Stay tuned…
SOFR-IOBR Spread (12/31/19-11/5/25) [Bloomberg]
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