Ontario government wields budget axe

The chase by Marty Cej:

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty last night delivered the toughest budget seen in years in a bid to convince financial markets and credit-rating agencies that his government has a handle on the province's finances. Premier Scissorhands' plan promises expenditure cuts of almost $18 billion over the next three years, frozen public sector wages and no corporate tax cuts. Finance Minister Dwight Duncan says the measures will balance the budget by 2017-18, making it the slowest of Canada's 10 provinces to do so. At the very least, investors can expect a jump in provincial bond issuance over the next few years. We'll need to take a closer look at the implications of the Ontario budget for the federal budget, to be released Thursday.

We'll be taking a close look at gold today with the publication of the CPM Gold Yearbook for 2012. The 278-page document contains a review of 2011 and outlook for 2012 and beyond, analysis of investment demand, fundamental demand, supply, official transactions and price data. It also includes 25 pages of sponsor thank-yous, but we'll skip right on past those. Jeffrey Christian, CPM Managing Director, joins us at 10:30 am Eastern. And when you're talking hard currencies, you gotta put on the hard tunes. We'll use some classic Rage Against the Machine for the intro and outro; it strikes the right balance between goldbugs' vision for a violent dystopian future and an aggressive bass line.

I should also note that Goldman Sachs today shifted its commodity recommendations to "neutral" from "overweight" as "most commodity markets have reached [Goldman's] near-term targets." However, Goldman reiterated its long positions for WTI crude and gold, arguing that gold should climb to its 12-month target of $1,950 as the Fed eases policy again later this year.