ECU and the juniors aren't the only pm stocks being held down by the bankers.

PM Share Manipulation

Hi Bill

I've been watching the release of quarterly reports by the major PM producers.

So far Kinross, Barrick, Agnico Eagle and Pan American Silver have all reported and except for Barrick the market has reacted negatively. Pan American was hit hardest with its share price falling 7.7% from Tuesday's high. We all know about the game of beating the estimates. Analysts make up low ball earnings estimates, the company beats it by a penny and up goes the stock. With the PM stocks you wonder whether the opposite is true. Pick an outrageously high estimate, the miner misses by a few cents and down goes the stock. Anything goes in this game of discouraging investors from buying anything that will save them from the future.

Let's take a quick look at the four companies that have reported. As reference we can go back two years to March 14th 2008 when Gold was $998.70 and Silver $20.61 Comparing today's prices Gold is up 38% and silver 50%. The HUI index on March 14th 2008 hit a high of 519.68 so the HUI is only up 4.9% two years later.

How have our four miners performed? Barrick has done best trading today at $50.62 compared to $54.74 back then. So gold is up 38% and Barrick is down 7.5%. Well, that'sBarrick, the hedger, so who cares, right? But wait.

Agnico Eagle is down 12.3%, Kinross is down 39.6% and Pan American is down 21.6% from their March 2008 highs. Think about that for a moment. It's March 2008, Silver is just over $20, you buy the premier silver producer (for leverage, ha, ha!) and two years later with Silver over $30 the share price is down 21.6%. Makes sense if Pan Am suffered some disastrous accident, but no. The same thing has happened to all the majors!

And its called discouragement. Unlike the Chinese government which is encouraging its citizens to protect themselves by buying precious metals.....well you know the rest.

Unfortunately for our cartel friends every action has its unintended consequences. By allowing this on going manipulation of the shares investors have correctly picked bullion as the better choice and thus the record Silver Eagle sales in January. This has led to such extreme under valuations that you can now buy Silver Standard for about $1 per silverounce in the ground. Pan American is not far behind.

Cheers from Auckland, Ed Wener