From Ed Steer:

Gold didn't do much of anything in the Far East or Europe on Tuesday morning. There was a smallish rally at the Comex open that got stopped dead in its tracks at 8:30 Eastern. Gold had $10 carved off its price by the time the bottom was in...shortly before London closed for the day. It managed to regain that loss by the time Comex trading was over...but lost half of it by the time electronic trading on the Globex was through at 5:15 p.m. in New York.

But the real down-side action was in silver. Once again, there was no price activity worth mentioning until the Comex open...and, like gold, the budding rally got clipped at exactly 8:30a.m....and by the time the smoke had cleared, the silver price had touched $12.60...a 90 cent decline [-6.8%] from its 8:30 a.m. peak of $13.30. Half of that loss occurred in less than 20 minutes...between 10:30 and 10:50 a.m. New York time. Free market forces at work, you ask? Not bloody likely. But when it was all said and done, silver was only down a dime from Monday's close.

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JPM and HSBC were successful in blasting well through both the 50-day and 200-day moving averages in silver...so every leveraged spec Comex long that had been placed since the big take-down to under $12 on March 18th...got blown out of their positions.

In Monday's rather crazy trading session, gold open interest rose 905 contracts to 372,104...and silver o.i. fell 232 contracts to 92,922. Silver's open interest numbers for yesterday's trading should be interesting when they show up on the CME's website tomorrow. Yesterday was also the cut-off for Friday's Commitment of Traders report. Hopefully all of Tuesday's activity will be in it.

The usual N.Y. commentator had the following yesterday..."The European Central Bank's weekly statement of condition indicates that 'gold and gold receivables' fell €82 million last week: 4.15 tonnes at the present book value. This 'reflected' the sale of gold by one 'Eurosystem central bank...and the purchase of gold by another'. This is the third time in four weeks that this form of language has been used. It is quite distinct from what is said when a coin program is underway: it looks very much as if a CB has broken ranks and is buying for foreign exchange reserve purposes. This could be an important precedent. [Last week, two CBs were reported to have sold 0.65 tonnes in total.]"

In other gold/silver news, I see that there were no gold imports into India in March either. Yesterday was first notice day for delivery into the April gold contract. A total of 8,867 contracts were delivered, with Deutsche Bank delivering 8,500 of them. The big acceptors/stoppers were Bank of Nova Scotia [2,841] and JPMorgan [3,512]. There were 131 silver contracts delivered. There were no updates at the U.S. Mint...and there was nothing added to either the GLD or the SLV. Comex-approved silver warehouse stocks showed a minor decline.

Four stories today. The first was provided once again by Craig McCarty and was in yesterday's Financial Times out of London. The headline reads..."OECD predicts 10% jobless rate for 2010"..."One in 10 workers in advanced economies will be without a job next year, 'practically with no exceptions', the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Monday." The link is here.

The story is courtesy of the Toronto Globe and Mail. The headline reads..."Chevez promotes 'petro-currency' over dollar"..."Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez tried Tuesday to court Arab support for another swipe at America as its economy stumbles: a proposal for a new, oil-backed currency to challenge the global prominence of the dollar." The link is here.

In a story that showed up on Bloomberg yesterday, the headline read "Calderon Says Mexico Prepared to take IMF Credit Line"..."The peso strengthened on the comments, which eased concern that foreign reserves will dwindle. Activating the credit line makes the funds available and doesn’t imply plans to draw on it immediately, a Mexican government official said." Once again I thank Craig McCarty for the story...and the link is here.

In his second commentary in as many days, silver market analyst Ted Butler replies to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission member Bart Chilton about whether CFTC reports can be relied upon to demonstrate market manipulation. Butler argues that Chilton simply defaults when he suggests that overwhelmingly concentrated short positions on the Comex may be hedged by long positions in private markets elsewhere. For it is the Comex that sets the price, Butler writes, excessive concentration there is just that, that's the only market the CFTC can regulate directly, and so it should do its duty. Butler's commentary is headlined "All Talk, No Action"...and you can find it linked here.

American industry has reached a point where a break in New York stock prices does not necessarily mean a national depression. - Associated Press...December 28, 1929

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I've noticed in several news stories that a lot of people think the G-20 meeting in London will be a bust or a waste of time...or both. I heartily agree. The problems the world faces now are totally impossible to solve. They can't print enough or spend enough...and if they do, we'll have hyperinflation in spades. It's my bet [as I've said before] that somewhere in the future...and maybe the not-to-distant future...the world's economic, financial and monetary system will collapse in a smouldering ruin. I haven't changed my mind on that one bit.

See you on Thursday.

Casey Research correspondent-at-large Ed Steer is a keen observer of the financial scene and a board member of GATA.org.