From Ed Steer:

The low in Far East trading on Monday occurred shortly after the Hong Kong open...and lasted until precisely 4:00 p.m....which was 3:00 a.m. in New York. From there, gold got sold off about $10 in London trading. The low price of the day occurred less than 15 minutes before the Comex open. The rally that began from that point lasted through the entire N.Y. trading session...both Comex and electronic...with gold tacking on about $12 and almost closing on its high of the day. It was a pretty quiet trading session, and there wasn't a lot of volume

All of the above applied to silver as well.

Open interest changes for Tuesday showed that gold's o.i. fell another 2,588 contracts to 371,997...on smallish volume of 89,080 contracts. Silver o.i. was down a respectable 2,370 contracts to a total open interest of 103,981...on volume of only 24,042 contracts. Tuesday [at the close of trading] was the cut-off for Friday's COT report, so here's hoping that these numbers will be in it.

The Comex Delivery Report for Tuesday showed that 556 gold contracts were delivered...about half of what was left to be delivered in June. So far this month, there have been 5,438 gold contracts delivered...543,800 ounces. In silver yesterday, there were another 24 contracts delivered, bringing [non-delivery month] June's total up to 809 contracts...over 4 million ounces. Who is so desperate for silver that they can't wait for a regular scheduled delivery month? And it’s not just June...every other silver non-delivery month starting in October 2008 has been the same. What it means is the big unknown. Ted Butler thinks it’s bullish. So do I...but who the hell really knows?

In other gold news, there were no changes to GLD or SLV yesterday. Much to my amazement, the good folks over at the U.S. Mint had an update again...one ounce gold eagle mintings rose another 10,500 to 78,000 for the month. In silver eagles they added another 100,000...now up to 1,445,000 for June. And over at the Comex-approved warehouses, another 496,318 ounces were withdrawn from inventory.

For those of you who didn't have time to read Ted Butler's commentary yesterday, here's one of the graphs that was included. JPMorgan is the U.S. bank that holds the lion's share of the short positions in both gold and silver...and possibly the entire silver short position.

click to enlarge

It was a slow news day yesterday...but I have three very interesting stories nonetheless. The first is about these two Japanese men "detained in Italy after allegedly attempting to take $134 billion worth of U.S. bonds over the border into Switzerland." When I first heard of it, it sounded like it came right off the front page of the National Enquirer. I still don't know what to make of it...and neither does William Pesek over at Bloomberg. But his story about it...entitled "Suitcase with $134 Billion Puts Dollar on Edge"...is well worth the read, and the link is here.

The next story is about something I'd already written about a month or so ago...but I never linked the article...I just noted it in my 'other gold news' commentary. So when this piece showed up in the New York Times yesterday, I thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up. It takes less than two minutes to run through it...and the headline reads "Looking to Buy Gold? Grab a Sack of Quarters First"...and the link is here.

The last [and most important] story is from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. As the article says..."Free speech collides with fair trial...Review-Journal readers who posted their views online about a federal criminal tax trial, are the target of a sweeping federal grand jury subpoena asking for information so that authorities may identify who they are and where they live." The article bears the headline "Review-Journal resists subpoena for names of readers who posted views". It's a long...but a necessary read...as the subpoenas and the tax trial [involving paying employees in gold and silver coins] will probably have huge ramifications further down the road. I urge you to invest the time...especially if you're one of my American readers. The link is here.

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. - William Pitt

Yesterday was a big nothing in the gold and silver world. I wouldn't read a thing into Wednesday's activity. As Ted Butler always tells me on days like yesterday..."It's just another day off the calendar."

See you tomorrow.

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