Long time lurker, first time poster. My family has been a shareholder of ECU since 2006 and currently owns 1.66 million shares. Like every shareholder who pays attention, we have been very frustrated by the performance of the stock during this silver price escalation. However, after watching the daily trading activity of ECU, especially the frequently suspicious nature of trades through brokerages CIBC, Jitney, and ITG – “carpet-bombing”, Penson – “last 10-second daily takedown” and "infamous" Anonymous, I confidently understand the nature of this underperformance and believe that it is just a matter of time before the stock begins to rally.

Going back several years, since the initial attack on ECU by pseudo-analysts "Otto Rock" and Christopher Ecclestone of Global Hunter Securities, I have suspected that a hedge fund has shorted ECU to the tune of 15-20 million shares. Since the "official" report only indicates a 4 million share short position, this hedge fund's position is illegally "naked." Undoubtedly, "Otto Rock" and Ecclestone were "hired guns" – otherwise, they would have no vested interest in attacking ECU as excessively as they have.

I spoke with ECU's management at the time those bogus reports were written and unethically, neither "so-called" analyst attempted to contact management before writing those reports – a procedure any objective analyst does to make sure he gets his facts straight before publishing an analysis. Immediately thereafter, ECU's management delivered a corresponding rebuttal to the reports but neither character published it nor returned management’s call/email. They certainly were not interested in the facts.

In Ecclestone's report dated October 12, 2009, he proudly claims that the short position on ECU was initiated on Sept. 10, 2009 at C$.60. So, even though the stock has underperformed relative to the benchmark silver price, this short position is undoubtedly underwater. Yet, the hedge fund continues piling onto its large, naked-short position, refusing to accept a loss.

Now…here's where it gets interesting.

What this hedge fund doesn't know is that many of the shares they short daily are currently being accumulated by several of the large, longstanding and extremely knowledgeable ECU shareholders. In fact, in the past 6 months, one of these shareholders has added nearly 6 million more shares to an already extremely large ECU position.

Eventually, this short position will be "squeezed" and the hedge fund will be forced to cover, losing even more money. Perhaps results from the near term drilling program, oriented around the potential massive sulfide, will be the catalyst. After all, in a recent PR, management briefly commented about increasing third-party interest. Furthermore, additional drilling will soon commence in other ECU mines and much of the expanding Inferred resource will be upgraded to the Measured & Indicated category. Institutions interested in owning an extremely undervalued precious metal exploration company will soon realize the massive resource that ECU sits upon.

I'm pretty sure I know the hedge fund involved which presumably is midwest-based, but that’s as much as I’m inclined to disclose.At the risk of stating the obvious, I'm merely stating my opinions, so do your own due diligence.

My bets are already in place!