By Christian Granholm

Canada’s history versus our level of overt patriotism is best described as “We walk softly – but we carry a big stick.”

Point in case, all-Canadian bad-ass Madeleine de Verchères, who rallied 20 local farmers to her family’s fortified home, Fort Dangerous (not making this up, check the Wiki!), after coming under attack by the Iroquois in the fall of 1692.

The 14 year old stalwart Madeleine takes charge of the defences as her father was away in Montreal, firing her cannons to alert her neighbours.

After withstanding a siege for 8 brutal days, Madeleine collapses into the arms of her arriving reinforcements, breathing out her last, “I surrender my arms to you”.

Ah, 90’s kids. SO dramatic.

October 22nd

I like food. In fact, I love food. It’s a joy that I get to experience every day, and it only gets better the more time and effort I put into preparing it.

Conversely, I hate anything that unnecessarily gets in the way of me getting food. Waits for service, lineups for payment, two-slice toasters when I know we should have sprung for the four-slice!

When debit first became popular at grocery stores and restaurants, I hated it. As a dyed-in-the-wool cash-only man, I refused to give up my hard currency ways, while scoffing at the people in line in front of me, who jammed up the works by taking forever to process their payments with bank card transactions at dial-up speeds.

But by the time TAP rolled around last year, I’d seen the errors of my ways. It’s just lightning fast, and too convenient for even me to deny.

So when new and better forms of payment broach our horizon, I do take note.

Glance Technologies Inc. (CSE:GET.CN) have announced their status as the preferred mobile payments solution of the British Columbia Restaurant & Food Services Association.

Thousands of independent restaurant/food chains across the province will be able to use the next-gen payment system, featuring fast and easy payments, digital rewards and a host of mobile improvements.

If it gets the burrito to my face faster, honestly I’m all for it.

October 23^rd

Quick, name two great things to come out of Idaho.

The best potatoes on the planet (sorry, Ireland) and… gold?

Ok, you had me at french fries, but lost me at gold. But it’s true, the next best golden thing to come out of Idaho isn’t deep fried.

Idaho Champion (CSE:ITKO) intersects 1.39 grams per tonne over 15.1 metres on its first ever drill program.

The company’s banner project dug down and pulled up a winner on their first at bat.

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I love how now that Prohibition is ended, we can finally drop the pretense that this wasn’t a booming industry for players on every side of the black market, from for-profit prisons in the US, to  24 hour convenience stores who dimmed their fluorescent lights and widened the aisles to make their stores more stoner-friendly.

1933 Industries Inc. (CSE:TGIF) straight up admits this when they announced, “…the Kootenay region is renowned for its outdoor and indoor cannabis cultivation which has been an economic driver in the area for over 40 years…”

Their subsidiary Spire Global Strategy has been awarded a contract to develop a Cannabis

Regulatory Compliance Course at Selkirk College, located in the epicentre of cannabis cultivation in the Province of British Columbia. Spire provides strategic advice to private and public companies with regards to licensing applications, risk and resilience management, investigative due diligence, and compliance.

October 24^th

More power!

MGX Minerals Inc.(CSE: XMG) announce its wholly-owned subsidiary ZincNyx Energy Solutions Inc  has signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Braingrid Coproration to co-develop and market a packaged energy management product offering for the cannabis cultivation market. The partnership will leverage Braingrid’s software and technology, which uses proprietary sensing and control hardware and ZincNyc’s modular energy storage systems, which provide scalable regenerative zinc-air flow battery for mass storage of energy, to provide cannabis cultivators with renewable solutions for cultivation.

October 25^th

United Battery Metals Corp. (CSE: UBM) plans an extensive exploration program at its flagship Wray Mesa Project, located on the Colorado Plateau and situated in westernmost Colorado and eastern Utah within the vanadium-rich Uravan Mineral Belt.

The project is situated within the prolific La Sal Creek Mining District, a district well-known for its anomalously-high vanadium to uranium ratios.

^{October 26th}

I remember the day my older brother got grounded for getting caught with a copy of High Times in his high school gym bag.

I also remember reading through it later that night, after I’d pilfered it from our staunchly-conservative mother’s nightstand, the locked drawer where she kept my dull switchblade and everything else we weren’t supposed to have as teens.

Marvelling at the underworld of narcotics laid out so bare on the pages before me, I was amazed to discover the depth of marijuana culture. From chicks that dug guys with weed, to a growers competition called the Cannabis Cup.

“Egads,” I exclaimed, “that kush is award winning!”

Teenage me would have been simply awed at 40-something me, dropping into Global Health Clinics Ltd. (CSE:MJRX) website to creep their latest accomplishment.

Nominated for “Best Cannabis Clinic in Canada”, Global Health is in the running to be recognized as among Canada’s industry leaders. The winner will be announced at a gala event in Toronto on November 29^th.

If only I could have pointed to future me, busily analyzing pot stocks and typing out serious articles about Canada’s thriving (and perfectly legal) industry, on that day several decades ago when my mother punished my brother.

“Mom, it’s like, a valid career.”

The Overall

The sunset trend we’ve been witnessing over the last few weeks continues at a predictable pace, as the CSE opened Monday at 895.02 and closed Friday at 858.74.

The challenge now is to time the bounce just right; the last time we saw this kind of steady drop (Aug. 14th), we hit 745.75 before the long steady climb.

New Listings

The CSE welcomes the following new listings:

Radial Research Corp. (CSE:RAD)

Plus Products Inc. (CSE:PLUS)

MGX Minerals Inc. (CSE:XMG.WT.C)

Kal Minerals Corp. (CSE:KAL)

Sensor Technologies Inc. (CSE:SENSOR)

Delrey Metals Corp. (CSE:DLRY)

Always Be Closing

Ahh the market, such a fickle mistress.

But like a fiery lover whose moods we’ve begun to anticipate, there are steps we can take to protect ourselves from the occasional lashing she serves out.

The trends on the CSE over the last few weeks, when you look at the historical data, are completely predictable.

And the coming bounce is as easy to see as well, factoring in both past figures and current moves by some of the big players.

As always, the money’s in the minutiae, and the exact timing of the bounce is what concerns all of us.

Maybe next week will make things a bit more clear.