Postcards from a Midwestern Hedge Fund: SilverBull you are spot on about Leaks of the merger. There Were None! NONE! Rumor has it that the Hedge fund in the midwest that was naked short 25 Million ecu shares (traded through european entities), was caught completely by suprise. "The Elephant In The Room" not only died friday, he was completely blown apart along with the room. The visual description of the traders of the entity was; "looked like ants after gasoline was poured on them". They are supposedly hoping for cover in a large downdraft in the the general equities and commodities markets, caused by Bernake's indecission and coyness about any further "Formal QE", and a hoped for general seasonal weakness in PM's exacerbated by the above mentioned downdraft in equities and comodities. My friend who runs a small hedge fund in the midwest who is long ecu thinks the merger is superb, and wants to add aumn shares on any weakness. He said that the debt, the inability to create positive cash flow with the mills because of all the reasons Coach so accurately and succinctly stated in his post, low market cap, extreme share dilution, the associated inability to float more shares without catastrophic share destruction, the inability to further drill the MS, all dissapear with this merger. All the elements that created the "Elephant" are ALL completely gone. Further he said that because AUMN is traded on the Amex, the SEC will be watching "Them", and he doesn't think they will be able to naked short aumn sharers at all. Additionally he thinks if great drill results come from either the MS at ecu in mexico or aumn's rich ore body in Argentina at their flagship, before the merger is consumated......aumn stock, he thinks, trades at 27 plus or minus 3....BEFORE "They" finish their short cover, even in a lousy PM market. "They" were as surprised as we, and everybody else was. This summer could really be interesting for us. I'm not selling a share. I'm scratchin up money to excersise my warrants!

Best of Health to You All