The  new trading week began on Monday, April 4^th with the major North American markets still at or near multi-month highs but looking perhaps somewhat overextended as brokers encouraged investors to lock in recent hard earned gains.

Lithium stocks had a good start to the week as investors renewed their enthusiasm for the rare-earth companies following a weekend update that Tesla Motors (TSLA-Q) had received over 300,000 deposits of U$1,000 for its Model 3 electric car, that would be powered lithium-ion batteries.

The share price of Virgin America (VA-N) soared up by over 41.5% to US$16.15 after Sir Richard Branson’s company accepted a US$2.6-billion all-cash takeover offer from Alaska Air Group (ALK-N).

Pure Gold Mining (PGM-V) shares’ rose by over 14.5% to $0.28 after the mineral explorer reported encouraging drill hole gold assays from it Madsen gold project in the historic Red Lake district of Ontario.

Shareholders’ of SunEdison (SUNE-Q) were shocked to see their investment plunge by almost 51% to US$0.21 after the Wall Street Journal reported the alternative energy company was preparing to file for bankruptcy protection.

On Tuesday, April 5th Technical analysts David Tippin & Ron Meisels commented – “The markets could continue to surprise by extending the current uptrend with a little pause, but a more likely scenario is a healthy period of pull back and consolidation.” (For a complete copy of this report please contact ‘rod.blake@canaccord.com’.)

Interest in gold issues continued with the share price of Pure Gold Mining (PGM-V) surging up by another 34.5% to $0.37 as investors continued to buy into the company’s Madsen gold project assays released the day before.

Governments have a way of putting a damper on market enthusiasm as was the case for the share price of Allergan plc (AGN-N) that dropped by 15% to US$41.63 after a U.S. Treasury statement that it would move to block the proposed tax induced US$160-billion takeover of the Ireland based drug company by America’s giant Pfizer Inc. (PFR-N).

Wednesday, April 6th saw the price of Bee Vectoring Technologies (BEE-V) buzz higher by over 11% to $0.45 on word that Virginia Tech was going to use the company’s Erwinia Amylovora or Fire Bright bug control product in a U.S. sanctioned trial.

Two days and two government decisions when the U.S. Justice Department sighted competition issues in filing a lawsuit to stop Halliburton (HAL-N) from its US$35-billion taking over of  fellow petroleum services company Baker Hughes (BHI-N).

The price of Harley-Davidson (HOG-N) shares’ fell by 7% to US$46.34 after analysts lowered their revenue estimates for America’s largest motorcycle company.

Nulegacy Gold (NUG-V) shares’ soared up by over 46.5% to $0.22 on Thursday, April 7^thon word that OceanaGold Corp. (OGC-T) had purchased $6.67-million of the junior mining company and its flagship Iceberg project in the prolific Cortez gold trend of Nevada.

Pacific Sunwear (PSUN-Q) shares’ plunged by almost 45% to US$0.05 after the California based PacSun retailer applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Baker Hughes reported that the number of active American natural gas drilling rigs fell to a 30-year low of 88 – well down from the 1,600 rigs working in 2008.

Friday, April 8^th began with Statistics Canada surprising the market by stating that the economy created a much better than expected 40,600 new jobs in March and that the country’s unemployment rate eased by 0.2% to 7.1%.

Meanwhile, the Canadian housing market remained relatively strong as Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) reported a better than expected seasonally adjusted 204,251 new housing starts in the month of March.

And we got our third government intervention in a week as the U.S. Justice Department once again sighted competition concerns in rejecting Canadian Pacific’s (CP-T) plan to set up a voting trust to run Norfolk Southern Corp. (NSC-N) in advance of its proposed takeover of its American railway rival.

Alliance Fiber Optic Products (AFPP-Q) shares’ surged up by over 19% to US$18.44 following a Corning Inc. (GLW-N) US$350-million all-cash takeover offer for the fiber-optics and communications equipment company.

Conversely, the share price of Gap Inc. (GPS-N) fell by almost 14% to US$23.84 after the retailer reported that higher inventories may affect its bottom line performance in the current quarter.

During the Week – The CRB Spot Commodity Index reached a new 7½-month high of 406 and the TSX Venture Exchange established a new 8^1/2-month closing high of 604.

BCE Inc. (BCE-T) at $59.92, Kinross Gold (K-T) at $5.14 and Vecima Networks (VCM-T) at $12.00 all established new TSX 52-week trading highs while Black Diamond Group (BDI-T) at $3.74,  Newalta Corp. (NAL-T) at $1.65, Torstar Corp. (TS.B-T) at $1.47 all set new        52-week trading lows.

For the Week – The Dow Industrials and S&P 500 Index lost an identical 1.21% to 17,577 and 2,048 respectively, while the NASDAQ Exchange was lower by 1.30% to 4,851. In the Go Bluejays north, the TSX composite Index eased lower by 0.32% to 13,397 while the lowly TSX Venture Exchange rose by 3.96% to 604.

With commodities – gold bullion gained 1.47% to US$1,242, with copper down by 3.24% to US$2.09, while crude oil surged up by 7.42% to US$39.52 and natural gas gained 0.78% to US$1.99. Overall, the CRB Spot Commodity Index rose by 1.25% to exit the week at 406.

The Canadian dollar improved by 0.08% against its American cousin to end the week at US$0.7691.

And the closely watched CBOE Volatility Index or VIX gained 2.25-points to finish the week at a more nervous level of 15.35.

And Finally – Kitco Metals reports it will be the marketing agent for The Canadian Mint’s new 100-killogram or 220-pound 99.999% pure gold coin that will have a face value of     CAD$1-million but will actually sell for some US$3,922,300.