Golden Minerals Company

Sprott Asset Management's June edition of Markets at a Glance arrived in my in-box early yesterday morning. Chris Powell sent it out as a GATA dispatch late last night...and did a much better job of writing a preamble to this story than I ever could.

Here's the first paragraph from that report.

"The recent bear raid on silver has left many concerned about the sustainability of its historic run. Silver, being a relatively obscure market for most mainstream commentators, attracted much attention in the ensuing days following the May 1 takedown. Indeed, though the 30% drop in silver occurred over only four days, seemingly all eyes were on silver, with commentators who could’ve cared less about the silver market only a couple of months ago, suddenly tripping all over one another to make the bubble call. Silver bubble 2.0? Hardly. Anyone who has been fortunate to have been invested in silver over the past few years would unfortunately be used to such blatant takedowns. The Chinese don’t call it the "Devil’s Metal" for no good reason. With so much talk these days about the risks of investing in silver, we think that perhaps it may be timely for us to weigh in on the matter. The silver market is riskier than ever, but for reasons the vast majority of pedestrian commentators have failed to grasp."

The link to Chris Powell's introduction...along with the link to this absolute must read six-page Sprott report...is here.

This longish interview is posted over at The Gold Report website. I don't necessarily agree with everything that's said here, but you can run through it and decide for yourself. Rick rule is mostly talking about the junior mining stocks.

I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand for sending me this story...and the link is here.

Here's a subscriber-protected story that was posted in yesterday's edition of The Wall Street Journal that Chris Powell posted in a GATA release.

"There has been a lot of speculation about what Greece will do with its gold, but I am very doubtful that sales will be on the table," a senior trader at a European bank said. "When I speak with central banks, they acknowledge that gold sales make people worry even more. It's like selling the family silver."

This story, which bears the headline "Greece Boosts Its Gold Holdings", is well worth your time...and the link to the GATA release is here.

"For some time now, Europe has been more of a burden than something that is wanted. Political integration and insights into the meaning and goals of the EU are often limping miles behind economic integration. That distance is constantly growing, and that is extremely dangerous, because eventually the point will be reached where the patience of the European people has been exhausted. That wouldn't necessarily lead to populist revolts, but it would cause the foundations of the EU to crumble. As terribly banal as it may sound, it is crucial that the EU once again become a political project in the classical sense. The EU is in need of a rethink."

The link to the second spiegel.de article is here.

Here's a Peter Schiff blog that Eric King sent me yesterday...and the link is here.

Here's a marketwatch.com story from yesterday that was sent to me by Florida reader Donna Badach.

When I last wrote on gold, the metal was looking good—but I described gold shares as a “train wreck”, while noting that a number of observers were thinking the gold shares might have lagged too much.

In the past week, it is tempting to say the situation has reversed. Last Wednesday, gold closed at a seven-week high, and the Aden Report was talking of a possible move to $1,600 soon.

Then the roof fell in. By Monday, gold had fallen $58 (3.7%) to close at $1,496.40.

The link to the story is here.

As a Canadian, I was ever so happy to see this 3-paragraph Reuters story show up in my in-box late last night. I was not anxious to see our TSE/TSX exchanges end up even deeper in the clutches of the Anglo-American Empire than they already are.

The London and Toronto stock exchanges abandoned plans for a CAN$3.6 billion (2.3 billion pound) merger on Wednesday, as it became clear they would not win enough shareholder support for their trans-Atlantic alliance.

The story was posted over at miningweekly.com...and I thank reader Dave Crofton for sending it along. The link to the rest of the story is here.

Golly gee...what a surprise!

The sexual assault case against now-former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on the verge of collapse as investigators have uncovered major holes in the credibility of the housekeeper who charged that he attacked her in his Manhattan hotel suite in May, according to two well-placed law enforcement officials.

Now that he's been surgically removed as head of the IMF...and his successor named...it's OK to let him out of the 'honey trap' that was set for him.

It will be interesting to see what he has to say for himself [if anything] once he's safely back on French soil.

This is a must read story from this morning edition of The New York Times...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it to me very late last night. The link is here.

Here's a very interesting Reuters story that I found posted in a GATA release yesterday.

The rules of Treasury auctions may not sound like the stuff of high-stakes diplomacy. But a little-noticed 2009 change in how Washington sells its debt sheds new light on America's delicate balancing act with its biggest creditor, China.

When the Treasury Department revamped its rules for participating in government bond auctions two years ago, officials said they were simply modernizing outdated procedures.

The real reason for the change, a Reuters investigation has found, was more serious: The Treasury had concluded that China was buying much more in U.S. government debt than was being disclosed, potentially in violation of auction rules, and it wanted to bring those purchases into the open - all without ruffling feathers in Beijing.

One has to wonder what this is really all about. As I said, this is very interesting [but longish] read...and the link is here.

Here's another story that I lifted from a GATA release yesterday. The original headline to this story read "St. Louis Fed's Neely: QE Boosted Exports, Economy via Dollar Depreciation"

The Federal Reserve's large-scale asset purchases did not reduce the value of the dollar as much as expected, but reduced it enough to help stimulate the economy by boosting exports, according to a research paper presented Thursday at a St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank conference on quantitative easing.

St. Louis Fed vice president and economist Christopher Neely said the foreign exchange rate effects of quantitative easing shows that large scale asset purchases were "not toothless."

Wasn't little Timmy Geithner saying just a few weeks ago that a strong U.S. dollar was in the nation's best interest? This certainly makes a liar out of tiny Tim. I don't know why the Fed didn't take out a full page ad in The Wall Street Journal...as what they were doing to the dollar by reckless money printing [QE1&2] was known by all. QE3 should take the dollar down another couple of notches when it starts later this year.

The link to the story, which was posted over at the imarketnews.com website, is here.

I only have two stories about Greece for you today. Both are from the German website spiegel.de...and both are courtesy of Roy Stephens.

Foreign governments have reacted with relief to the Greek parliament's vote in favor of a far-reaching austerity package. But demonstrators in Athens responded to the news with rage amid brutal clashes with police. Prime Minister George Papandreou can expect further resistance to his reforms.

At the moment when the largest austerity package in Greek history was being passed, it was relatively quiet on Athens' Syntagma Square. Demonstrators sat on the ground, their shoulders slumped and heads down, smoking, chatting and drinking water from plastic bottles. They looked resigned, even while their leaders were still calling for an uprising.

Then all hell broke loose.

This is an ugly read...and the link is here.