Then, in the space of four hours, another $13 got tacked onto the price...and from noon onwards, the gold price faded a bit into the close of the New York Access market at 5:15 p.m. Eastern. Pre-holiday volume was light.

Silver managed to make it over $38 in early afternoon trading in the Far East...but then got sold off to its London low around 10:00 a.m. local time, which was 5:00 a.m. Eastern.

Shortly after the Comex trading session began in New York, silver was back above the $38 mark once again...but was not allowed to join in the same rally that gold was enjoying, as there was a ready seller there on every rally attempt over the $38 mark.

Then, within a few minutes of gold's high tick of the day, the bid got pulled on silver...and it was down 55 cents in five minutes.

The price recovered quickly...but the silver price was very carefully closed below the $38 mark in the electronic access market.

If you think that all of that was deliberate, you would be right about that. Volume, despite the holiday trading session, was very decent.

Here's the New York silver market on its own...with all the shenanigans clearly visible.

The dollar got hit pretty hard in early Far East trading...and was down about 60 basis points by early afternoon their time. There's almost no sign of that decline in the gold price whatsoever.

Gold's five hour $13 rally between 7 and 12 noon Eastern time was accompanied by less than a 40 basis point decline in the dollar.

The dollar then went on to close on its absolute low of the day [74.55]...none of which is reflected in the either the gold or silver price.

This is another day where the dollar moved a large amount, but the gold and silver price movements were unrelated to that fact. Here's the 5-day dollar chart for the week that was. The dollar was down 1.79% on the week.

The gold stocks gapped up...and stayed up...with the gold price peak [accompanied by the silver price smash-down] plainly visible about 11:55 a.m. Eastern. From that point, the stocks pretty much followed the gold price for the rest of the trading session. The HUI finished up 1.53%.

Here's the 5-day HUI chart for the week that was. The HUI was up 4.77% on the week.

For the most part, the silver stocks fared better than their golden cousins...with most of them finishing closer to their highs of the day, than their lows...despite the beating that the silver price took by the New York bullion bank[s] just before lunch on the east coast.

Here's Nick Laird's wonderful 'Silver Sentiment Index' updated with Friday's number. The SSI finished up 2.03% on the day.

There was a 2-part daily delivery reports from the CME yesterday. The first part showed the last silver contract for the May delivery month was posted for delivery on Tuesday. I knew there was one contract missing...and it finally showed up.

The second part of the report was First Notice Day for delivery into the June gold contract. A total of 1,950 gold contracts were posted for delivery on June 1st. Head-and-shoulders above all the issuers was JPMorgan with 1,311 contracts issued in their client account...and HSBC was a distant second with 573 contracts issued in their proprietary [in-house] account.

The biggest stopper with 1,177 contracts was also JPMorgan in its proprietary [house] account...JPMorgan trading against its own clients once again. In distant second place as a stopper was the Bank of Nova Scotia with 289 contracts received in its proprietary trading account.

There were several dozen other small stoppers in this CME report...and it's definitely worth spending a few minutes on...and the link is here.

The GLD ETF showed a small decline of 29,237 troy ounces yesterday...and there was no change reported over at SLV.

The U.S. Mint had no report on Friday.

The Comex-approved depositories reported that no silver was received on Thursday...but 383,025 troy ounces of silver were shipped out the door.

Friday's Commitment of Traders report [for positions held at the close of trading on Tuesday, May 24th] showed that the Commercial net short position in silver increased by a smallish 942 contracts...almost all of it occurring in the '4 or less' traders category.

The Commercial net short position in silver currently sits at 34,959 contracts...or 174.8 million ounces of silver. The '4 or less' traders are currently short 180.3 million ounces which, of course, is up from last week as per the previous paragraph.

I would like to think that silver's open interest has decreased since Tuesday's cut-off...especially after the hammering the silver price took on Thursday...but that will have to wait until next Friday's COT report. Monday is a holiday in the U.S...so there is only Tuesday's trading day activity left to be added to next Friday's report.

The Commercial net short position in gold jumped by a chunky 10,288 contracts. None of this was new shorting by the bullion banks...it was all the 40+ small traders in the Commercial category [Ted Butler's 'raptors'] that were selling long positions and taking profits. Selling a long, or putting on a new short position, has the same mechanical effect on the COT report...but they are quite different transactions.

The Commercial net short position in gold rose by 1.03 million ounces as a result of this activity...and currently stands at 21.7 million ounces. Of that amount, the '4 or less' traders are short 14.9 million ounces.

Nick Laird over at sharelynx.com provides Ted Butler "Days to Cover Short Positions" graph for yesterday's COT report.

Here's a graph that I borrowed from a must read spiegel.de posting further down in this column.

¤ Critical Reads

“The Risks Are Enormous”: Why Morgenson and Rosner Are So Worried

"We have even more 'too big to fail' institutions; more politically interconnected, very deep and wide institutions that could create another systemic event," says Morgenson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist at The New York Times. "It's almost as if the situation that brought us to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac having to be bailed out has now been squared or quadrupled. It's worse, not better."

The 5-minute finance.yahoo.com video is well worth your time...and I thank Roy Stephens for this story...and the link is here.

View full GSD edition

Speculators Helped Cause Oil Bubble: Wikileaks

Thanks to Wikileaks, we now know that when the Bush administration reached out to the Saudis in the summer of 2008 to ask them to increase oil production to lower prices, the Saudis responded by saying they were having a hard time finding buyers for their oil as it was, and instead asked the Bush administration to rein in Wall Street speculators.

This is another Roy Stephens offering...and it's a Matt Taibbi blog over at rollingstone.com. This falls into the must read category...and the link is here.

View full GSD edition

ECB's Wellink 'confident' of IMF aid for Greece as Greek politicians fail to agree a way forward

The failure of an emergency meeting of Greek political parties in Athens failed to reach consensus on nation's finances is a blow for the EU, which has warned Greece it must have broad political backing for debt-cutting measures if they are to provide extra cash to plug a funding gap next year.

"There is enormous pressure on Greece to resolve this," he told Bloomberg on Friday, as worries over the eurozone nation's debts saw the yield on 10-year Greek government widen to 16pc.

This is Roy's third offering in a row...and the link to the story from yesterday's edition of The Telegraph is here.

View full GSD edition

Consequences of Debt Restructuring: What Would a Greek Haircut Mean for Germany?

It may only be a small passage in the statutes of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but it is the bottom line: An organization can lend money to a country only if it is certain the state will remain solvent for at least one year. Washington experts are increasingly doubtful that this minimum requirement can be guaranteed in the case of Greece.

It's the worst-case scenario: Greece no longer able to get loans, with creditors having to wave goodbye to a chunk of their money. But what would it mean for Germany? Would the state have to bail out the banks again, and would private investors also suffer badly? SPIEGEL ONLINE takes a look at the likely consequences.

This is Roy Stephen's fourth story in a row in this column...and if you're beginning to get the impression that this would be a pretty skinny column without Roy's contributions today...you would be right about that.

I consider this story a must read as well...and the link is here.

View full GSD edition

Sky Wars: Pakistan, India and China

Here's an essay that's posted over at dawn.com...a website based out of Karachi in Pakistan...that Casey Research's own Bud Conrad sent me earlier this week. This is your big read of the day...and is an insider's story of what's going on between these nations.

The odd relationship out among the combination within this nuclear troika is Pakistan and China. Odd not because it is unexpected but because it is inevitable. India has fought wars with both China and Pakistan while Beijing and Islamabad have never. The maxim of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ makes sense to cultivate by these two. However, because of the policies and goals and economic and military capacities, this is not an equal relationship. China gets the satisfaction of strategic policy encirclement of India by being Pakistan’s ‘all-weather friend’. All Pakistan gets is a guarantee of no veto against it in the United Nations. China doesn’t do grants, aid and budgetary support – the three perennial shopping items in Pakistan’s basket. The best it does is investment and that’s purely profit-centric, Beijing managing to recoup any money it ‘gives away’ in this shape to Pakistan.

This is a very interesting story...and half a planet away from the New York media spin machine. The link is here.

View full GSD edition

The New 'Great Game' - Stone-faced Clinton pays Pakistan a frosty visit

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Pakistan today for a “surprise visit” that was really the worst-kept secret in Af-Pak circles. Clinton was expected to visit Pakistan earlier this month, shortly after the US raid on Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad dwelling. But that was postponed as Washington needed more time to gauge Islamabad’s reaction to the raid.

We’ve had weeks of Pakistani reaction by now and it’s been grim for US-Pakistani relations.

This story, from the france24.com website yesterday, is Roy's last offering of the day. I consider this required reading as well for all students of the 'new and improved' Great Game...and the link is here.

View full GSD edition

China’s Gold Demand Seen Rising by 17% in 2011

Here's a story I found at Kitco that was posted over at forbes.com late last night.

This very short story is bullish on both gold and silver demand in China for the balance of the year.

It's definitely worth the read...and the link is here.

View full GSD edition

GoldMoney interviews GATA Chairman Bill Murphy

GATA Chairman Bill Murphy describes GATA's work and history in an 11-minute interview with GoldMoney, whose video can be watched at the GoldMoney Internet site linked here.

View full GSD edition

Two King World News Interviews

Yesterday I posted a couple of KWN blogs. One was with acclaimed money manager Dr. Stephen Leeb...the other with Rob McEwen. Eric now has both interviews posted on his website. The 10-minute Leeb interview...which Eric says is his best ever...is linked here. And the Rob McEwen interview is linked here.

View full GSD edition

Today's 'blast from the past' comes from the one-hit group called the Jaynetts back in 1963. It made it to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. You'll have to have more than a few gray hairs to remember this one. This was recorded when stereo sound was in its infancy. In this recording, the vocals come out of one speaker...and all the instruments come out the other. Turn up your speakers and click here.

As I mentioned earlier, gold volume was very light [under 60,000 contracts] on Friday, once all the roll-overs were subtracted from yesterday's trading. As of 4:52 a.m. Eastern time, the CME had not updated their website...so I don't have any preliminary open interest numbers to report in either gold or silver.

The final open interest number for gold on Thursday showed a decline of 19,395 contracts...which would be all spread-related...and market neutral. This big drop was no surprise, as the preliminary number had already shown a decline of 7,483 contracts.

Silver's net volume yesterday was around 44,000 contracts...which I thought quite heavy...especially in relationship to gold's volume.

Silver's final open interest number for Thursday's trading day, when silver got hit pretty good, showed a decline of 2,071 contracts...which shouldn't really be a surprise, as a lot of traders got blown out of their newly-place long positions when JPMorgan did the dirty early on Thursday morning.

The backwardation situation in silver on Friday remained just about unchanged from what it was on Thursday.

Here's the 6-month silver chart, with the price still safely under the 50-day moving average.

Here's the 6-month gold chart.

With May now off the board, it will be interesting to see what happens in the silver and gold markets going forward. Will the New York bullion banks allow the prices to trade freely, or are they still going to be in there managing the price? I haven't a clue, but I'll be watching next week's price action with great interest.

There's still time left to either readjust your portfolio...or get fully invested in the continuing major up-leg of this bull market in both silver and gold...and I respectfully suggest that you take a trial subscription to either Casey Research's International Speculator [junior gold and silver exploration companies], or BIG GOLD [large producers], with all our best [and current] recommendations...as well as the archives. A subscription to the International Speculator also includes a free subscription to BIG GOLD as well. And don't forget that our 90-day guarantee of satisfaction is in effect for both publications.

Enjoy what's left of your weekend...and I'll see you here on Tuesday.