I am encouraged by what is going on this week. ECU management have put out two very good news releases indicating that the company is on track to continue moving forward with the biz plan. And the stock has responded favorably despite the fact that gold has been under presure all week and silver has been driven lower.

So what if there is an overhang of sellers still holding up the trading. The stock is up this week and there is aggressive buying underway to dry up all of that cheap paper.

I do not think it is a big deal that Citi is active on the sell side. I think a US investor that was a buyer in the one of the PPs last year has now decided to unload through Citi and this could have caused ECU to trade lower for weeks while that position was dumped but now we can be happy that the extra paper is going quickly on a strong week for the company. I could care less if it is dumped in lots of 500 shares because it is orderly and the stock will probably close sharply higher on the day. Perhaps that means there will be follow through when the metals find a bid later on. COMEX options expiry last week brought on the usual suppression it the metals and the G20 meeting this week is probably generating further price manipulation for the metals. When that is behind us, look out above.

This is a market that is dominated by fear and the overall sentiment levels are still very low. It is not necessarily a direct manipulation of ECU every time someone finally decides they have had enough and want out. What matters to me is that the buyers are getting more aggressvie for the first time in weeks, and the company is on track to establish momentum. I would also add that Marc Faber published a very bullish report on ECU for his subscribers this morning, and he has a wide audience that may now be discovering ECU. These are all very bullish factors that should have us feeling pretty good about the next few weeks.

cheers!

mike