As is the norm of late, news flow slowed to a drip during Friday trading on the Canadian Markets with the headline on the junior front being a proposed three way merger. For the tale of the tape; the TSX Exchange added 0.63%, while the TSX Gold Index tacked on 1% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, gave back 0.20% with the advancers beating out the decliners by a 430 to 360 margin on 176 million shares traded.

Now, here’s something a little different. The high oil price is driving up the price of shares mineral sands companies.

Crude oil is grabbing the headlines but it’s coal and uranium that together provide nearly half the world’s power.

When you have a market that’s in the process of hammering out a bottom (as I believe we have right now), my “best investing idea” involves carefully adding some of the very best small cap stocks to your portfolio.