U.S. Mint Sells Another Three Million Silver Eagles in June

Gold didn't do a lot in Far East and London trading yesterday... but the moment that the Comex opened, gold got sold off to its low of the day around $1,236 spot... which was shortly after 9:00 a.m. Eastern time. Then gold rallied to it's high of the day of around $1,249 spot at 10:15 a.m. Then it got sold off, and any subsequent rally got firmly and quietly sold off as well. Once the Comex closed, all was quiet into the close of electronic trading.

Silver didn't do much in the Far East... and had its high of the day [around $18.80 spot] occurred shortly after 11:00 a.m. in London. From there, silver 'fell' to its low of the day [$18.48 spot] around 9:30 a.m. in New York... and from there the silver price bounced around a little more before closing up 11 cents on the day.

All in all, it was just another day off the calendar in both markets... but there was obviously a seller lurking about making sure that no rally in either metal got out of hand. The highs and lows in both gold and silver for yesterday that I mentioned above, are just estimates... as the numbers posted at the Kitco website are definitely wrong.

The dollar fell about 50 basis points between 5 and 6 a.m. Eastern time... and then spent the next ten hours gaining all that back. Nothing to see here, folks.

The HUI peaked at 10:05 a.m. Eastern time... about ten minutes before the gold price topped out. I wonder why that would be? From that point, the HUI sold off a hair and was basically flat for the rest of the day. However, the precious metals shares got thrown out with the bathwater when the Dow plunged 100 points during the last hour of trading... and the HUI only finished up 0.11%.

Yesterday's CME Delivery Report was a bit of a surprise, as a rather large 1,067 gold contracts were posted for delivery on Friday. The big issuer was MF Global... and the big stopper was Newedge USA. The big bullion banks were conspicuous by their total absence. In silver, there were 401 contracts posted for delivery on Friday. The big issuers there were JPMorgan and the Bank of Nova Scotia. The big stopper was JPMorgan. There was a lot of activity... and it's worth looking at... and the link is here.

Neither the GLD nor SLV had anything to say for themselves yesterday. But the U.S. Mint had more sales to report for the final day of June. They sold another 8,500 ounces of gold eagles... and another 1,000 24-K gold buffaloes. They didn't add to their silver eagle sales. For the month of June, the U.S. Mint sold 151,500 ounces of gold eagles in various sizes... 33,500 24-K gold buffaloes... and 3,001,000 silver eagles. Year-to-date... 673,000 ounces of gold eagles have been sold... 160,500 24-K gold buffaloes... along with 18,168,500 silver eagles. That gargantuan number in silver eagles represents virtually every ounce of silver that the U.S. has mined so far this year. Have you bought your share, dear reader?

Over at the Comex-approved depositories, they reported another silver withdrawal on Tuesday. This time it was 489,913 troy ounces... with virtually all of it coming from Brinks, Inc. Tuesday's report is linked here.

Nick Laird over at sharelynx.com... knowing full well that I'm up at these ridiculous hours of the morning... sent me the following updated graph for GLD as of June 30th. I just know you'll be interested, so here it is...

Here's the SLV chart... updated for June 30th as well. You can see that there's been very little buying interest [or if there has been... they just can't get the metal] since early December.

My one and only gold-related story is courtesy of reader Danny Cheung. It's a Bloomberg piece posted over at their businessweek.com website... and it bears the headline "IMF's Gold Assets Shrank in April as Russia's Rose". I noticed one mistake in it right away. The reporter says that Russia increased its gold holdings in May by 22.5 tonnes. The Russian Central Bank reported that they had increased their gold holdings in May by 1.1 million ounces... 34.2 tonnes. One has to wonder what else the reporter got wrong. It's worth the read... but I'd take it with a grain of salt... and the link is here.

The next story is about real estate... which I dug up on my own over at Bloomberg yesterday. The headline is not happy reading and states "Foreclosed Homes Sell at 27% Discount as Supply Grows". The story reveals the shocking statistic that 29% of all sales are foreclosures. As a 27-year veteran of residential real estate sales... I can say categorically that in a normal real estate market [here in Canada] foreclosures would account for a tiny fraction of 1% of total sales in any given year. This story is from the U.S.A... where lending practices by the financial institutions went out the window. In Canada, that would never be allowed to happen. The story is very much worth the read... and the link is here.

Another story I found over at Bloomberg, came with this headline... "Petraeus Confirmed as Afghan War Commander by Senate". Petraeus replaces General Stanley McChrystal, who was removed from the war command by Obama last week for disparaging comments about the administration made in a Rolling Stone magazine interview. One has to wonder in advance who the next general will be that will take over from Petraeus when he eventually falls from grace... as Afghanistan has a 2,000 year history of destroying invaders. The link to the story is here.

Here's a story filed from Dubai that I received from reader U.D. The headline reads "Western oil firms stop business with Iran"... and it's posted over at the tradearabia.com website. France's Total joined an expanding list of companies that have stopped gasoline sales to Iran, and Spain's Repsol said it had pulled out of a contract to develop part of the country's huge South Pars gas field in the Gulf. What's happening to Iran is basically what the U.S. did to Japan shortly before Japan attacked the U.S.A. at Pearl Harbor... and I feel, dear reader, that the result this time may be exactly the same... with some 'false flag' operation to set it off. This story is a must read... and the link is here.

The next two stories are out of Europe... and are both courtesy of reader Roy Stephens. The first one is a 2-page essay posted at the English website of spiegel.de in Germany. The headline reads "The Four Horsemen of the Acropolis: An Old Battlefront Returns in War on Euro". In 1998, four renegade German professors tried to stop the introduction of the euro with a legal challenge in Germany's highest court. Now, 12 years later, they are fighting against a German bailout for Greece -- and this time around, people are listening to them. This is an excellent behind-the-scenes story... and it's certainly worth your time... and the link is here.

This next story out of Europe is an Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering that was posted at The Telegraph in London very late last night. The headline reads "Angela Merkel's political woe punctures market euphoria", Fears over the political survival of German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent tremors through European markets late on Wednesday, puncturing the near euphoric mood after a crucial funding operation by the European Central Bank eased doubts over bank stress. This is another story that's certainly worth your time... and the link is here.

The next story is also from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. I believe I stole this from yesterday's King Report. The headline reads "Warning signals of a double-dip recession flash brightly across the world". This is a must read from top to bottom... and the link is here.

And lastly today comes another interview with Jim Rickards... Senior Managing Director at Omnis, Inc. As always, it's my opinion that anything Jim has to say is worth your time. In this interview he discusses the G-20 meeting and annual report of the super-secretive BIS. This interview with Eric King over at King World News is a must listen... and the link is here.

As you can see, the cartoonists had field day with McChrystal, Petraeus, Obama and Rolling Stone magazine. The good folks at Rolling Stone must be ecstatic... as you can't buy that kind of publicity!

Yesterday was just another day on the ever-steepening slippery slope into Doug Casey's "greater depression". Nothing can stop it... and everything that's being done is just delaying the inevitable.

Neither gold nor silver are doing much at the moment, but both are down a bit as of 5:52 a.m. Eastern time... and volume is light in both metals. However, the dollar has taken a 40 basis point nosedive during the last ninety minutes or so. But as you are already aware, dear reader, the daily price movements of the world's reserve currency are almost a sideshow now... as both precious metals appear to be trading independently of any currency... and that's exactly the way it should be.

Let's see what 'da boyz' have in store for us when New York opens in a bit.

To all my Canadian readers, I hope your Canada Day celebrations are fun... and the fireworks are great.

See you on Friday.