Well, the smack-down about 9:15 a.m. in London proved to be gold's low for the day on Tuesday.

Then, from slightly under the $1,800 price mark, gold worked its way back...and by 9:00 a.m. in New York, gold had recovered over $30 of its loss...and was actually higher than its Tuesday close.

That happy state of affairs didn't last, as selling pressure showed up...and by 10:20 a.m. Eastern, the gold price had given back about twenty bucks worth of its previous gain. But then the seller disappeared...and gold rallied smartly until 2:00 p.m. in the thinly-traded New York Access Market...and then basically traded sideways for the remained of the electronic trading session.

The gold price finished up a whisker under twenty dollars. Net volume was decent at around 175,000 contracts.

Silver moved higher right from the open in Far East trading yesterday morning, with the interim high coming about 12:30 p.m. Hong Kong time. Then the price rolled over, with the low of the day coming pretty much at the London silver fix which occurs around 12 o'clock noon in London.

From that low, silver rose sharply until minutes before 9:00 a.m. in New York...and then traded sideways to down until minutes after 11:00 a.m. Eastern. Then away it went to the upside, with the high of the day [just like gold's] coming moments before 2:00 p.m. in the New York Access Market. The silver price then gave up a bit of those gains going into the close of trading at 5:15 p.m. Eastern.

Silver closed up 84 cents on the day. Net volume was in the neighbourhood of 37,000 contracts.

Despite the fact that the gold price did pretty well for itself during the New York trading session, the shares were somewhat more reluctant to join the party...and it wasn't until a rally that began around 1:30 p.m...that the shares moved permanently into positive territory. The HUI finished up a rather anemic 0.60%...which is certainly better than the alternative.

The silver stocks turned in a rather mixed performance on Tuesday...and Nick Laird's Silver Sentiment Index closed up only 0.47%

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The CME's Daily Delivery Report showed that 13 gold, along with 2 whole silver contracts, were posted for delivery on Thursday...a real 'nothing' sort of day.

By the way, the deliveries of physical metal reported in this CME report, never leave the Comex. All they do is change ownership from one member's account to another...and are probably moved from one rack to another as a result of this change in ownership. The actual physical added to, or removed from the Comex, is reported when I talk about the goings-on at the Comex-approved depositories a couple of paragraphs down. It's only there where actual physical metal is moved in and out of the exchange itself.

The GLD ETF reported a minor withdrawal of 19,469 troy ounces...and there were no reported changes over at SLV.

The U.S. Mint had another sales report yesterday. They sold another 1,000 ounces of gold eagles, along with 200,000 ounces of silver eagles. As I mentioned in this column yesterday, it's been a very soft month for bullion sales from the mint. Month-to-date only 19,000 ounces of gold eagles...4,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...along with 901,000 silver eagles, have been sold.

However, we do have another thirteen reporting days left in the month, so I'm sure the numbers will improve, but I'll stick my neck out and state right now that it will probably one of the slowest sales months of the year.

It was another action-packed day over at the Comex-approved depositories on Monday...as they reported receiving 614,152 troy ounces of silver...and shipped an impressive 1,563,718 ounces of the stuff out the door. Almost all the action was at Brink's, Inc...and the link is here.

I don't have a lot of stories today, but the ones I do have are mostly about the crisis in Europe in general...and Greece in particular.

¤ Critical Reads

Merkel seeks to calm Greek 'insolvency' fears

German Chancellor Angela Merkel attempted to reassure nervous markets about the future of the eurozone as US President Barack Obama urged greater efforts to solve the EU debt crisis.

Ms. Merkel said in an interview with Germany's RBB radio station that the top priority for policymakers was to avoid an "uncontrolled insolvency" for Greece, warning this would have serious consequences for the rest of the eurozone.

She also stressed that the currency region had to remain intact, warning that if Greece were to leave the group, others would swiftly follow.

Markets were unconvinced, with bourses in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Greece falling between 1pc and 2.2pc...and the markets have already priced in the near certainty of a Greek debt default.

This story from yesterday's edition of The Telegraph is Roy Stephens first offering of the day...and the link is here.

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Merkel and Sarkozy to hold crisis talks with George Papandreou

Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy will hold crisis talks with the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, on Wednesday in an attempt to defuse the eurozone's escalating debt crisis.

With President Barack Obama putting pressure on Europe's politicians to show the necessary leadership to prevent a Greek debt default triggering a market meltdown, the German chancellor and the French president will on Wednesday insist that Athens stick to its tough deficit-reduction programme. The US fears the worsening eurozone situation risks a return to the mayhem in the global markets seen three years ago this week when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.

This story was posted in The Guardian yesterday evening...and is Roy Stephens second offering of the day. The link is here.

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Property Pinch: Greeks Vow to Rebel Against New 'Monster Tax'

This is a follow-up story from one I ran on this issue in this column yesterday.

The Greek government's new real estate tax, a desperate bid to meet its budget goals and secure fresh foreign aid, will hit the population hard. Greeks have almost their entire wealth invested in property -- and are more worried about the tax than about the prospect of a national insolvency or leaving the euro.

The country's well-oiled protest machine has already been fired up. The influential Federation of Real Estate Owners said it would only accept the tax if no other extra contributions were levied. The trade union of state energy utility DEI, which is to collect the tax and switch off the power supply to owners who refuse to pay up, said it would block the process by refusing to issue electricity bills. The threat is credible because virtually all DEI employees are union members.

You can't make this stuff up. This story, posted in over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday, is Roy Stephens third offering of the day. This short article is certainly worth the read...and the link is here.

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Outside View: Greece must default, dump euro

It is doubtful Greeks are willing to let their economy sink to Third World status to perpetuate the myth of European unity. As important, the Germans like lecturing the world about the virtues of Teutonic thrift and efficiency too much, to let go of mercantilism...and to let debtor nations accomplish trade surpluses and obtain the euro needed to repay their debts.

If Greece had its own currency, it would still have had to reduce government spending, increase taxes and cut wages but not by nearly as much as richer EU states and the ECB now demand because Greece could also devalue its currency against those of richer EU economies to make its exports more competitive, accelerate growth and increase debt servicing capacity.

In the end, necessity will trump pan-Europeanism. The Greeks will default on their debt and, if they are smart, eventually dump the euro.

This UPI story from yesterday is Roy Stephens fourth story in today's column...and the link is here.

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Italian Borrowing Cost Rises at Auction as Investors Shun Indebted Nations

Italian borrowing costs jumped at a 6.5 billion-euro ($8.8 billion) bond auction as contagion from Europe's debt crisis leaves investors shunning the region’s most-indebted nations.

Investors have dumped Italian debt as divisions among European governments over how best to fight the region’s debt crisis sparked concern the contagion would spread to the bloc’s third-biggest economy. Bonds have dropped even after the government passed a 54 billion-euro austerity plan that failed to ease concerns that weak growth would lead to a credit rating downgrade and hurt efforts to cut Europe’s second-biggest debt.

Amid “talks about a Greece default” and “a possible downgrade of the Italian debt in the next couple of months, today’s auction results are not too bad,” Annalisa Piazza, a fixed-income analyst at Newedge Group in London, said in an e-mailed note to investors.

Not too bad??? More whistling past the graveyard. I thank reader Scott Pluschau for this Bloomberg story...and the link is here.

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Europe's banks are staring into the abyss

Where now for European banks? Sir Howard Davies, former chairman of Britain's Financial Services Authority, said on BBC Radio's Today programme on Tuesday morning that he thought the French government was only days away from having to recapitalise the country's banking system for a second time. It's hard to disagree.

The panic seems to have been temporarily stemmed by a statement from BNP Paribas to the effect that it wasn't having the problems widely reported of finding dollar funding. There was also an emphatic denial of discussions over state intervention. But no-one is kidding themselves. Italy had to pay the highest spread since joining the euro to sell its bonds on Tuesday. There are growing fears over whether Europe's largest borrower can stay the course.

This longish piece in yesterday's edition of The Telegraph is a must read...and it's also Roy Stephens final offering of the day. The link is here.

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Is gold being suppressed? - Christopher Barker

In commentary posted yesterday at the Motley Fool, market watcher Christopher Barker notes the growing consensus that Western central banks have been intervening surreptitiously in the gold market to suppress the monetary metal's price and to support their own currencies.

Barker's commentary is headlined "Is Gold Being Suppressed?"...and I thank Chris Powell for providing the introduction...and the link to this must read essay is here. Don't forget to voice your opinion in the "Motley Poll" at the bottom of the article.

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Gold's smashing amid Swiss devaluation was dead giveaway, Embry tells King World News

The smashing of gold simultaneous to the devaluation of the Swiss franc was a dead giveaway of surreptitious intervention by Western central banks, Sprott Asset Management's John Embry told King World News yesterday. Conditions for a rising gold price, Embry adds, are more favorable than they've ever been.

I thank Chris Powell once again for providing the preamble...and the link to the KWN blog, which Eric headlined "Embry - Institutional Gold Holdings will increase 12 fold," is here.

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Resort to SDRs for next bailouts will spur rush to gold, Rickards says

Eric King sent me this blog yesterday...and I'm going to link the GATA dispatch, because Chris Powell's preamble to the story is rather extensive...and he provides other links as well. It's definitely a must read...and the link to the GATA release is here.

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All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. - Galileo

Despite Monday's big down-day in both gold and silver...the final open interest numbers did not show very large declines. But, as you are probably aware, the bullion banks are very good at covering their tracks by going long themselves, rather than covering short positions. All will be known on Friday, as Monday's trading action will certain be included in this Friday's Commitment of Traders Report...as will all of yesterday's price action.

Yesterday's price action in gold included that big down-draft below $1,800 spot early in the London trading day...and it's entirely possible that the subsequent rally was the bullion banks covering short positions or going long themselves. We'll find out in a couple of days.

I note in Far East trading during their Wednesday, that both gold and silver topped out around 9:00 a.m. Hong Kong time...which was 9:00 p.m. last night in New York...and both have been in slow decline ever since. Surprisingly enough, gold volume is already very close to 30,000 contracts at the London open, which is 3:00 a.m. Eastern time. Gold is down about twelve bucks...and silver is down about 50 cents. Silver volume is pretty light...whatever that means these days.

It seems like gold and silver are 'consolidating' their recent gains...but nothing could be further from the truth, as the blatant interventions by the bullion banks over the last seven days is the cause of that. As Ted Butler keeps saying, there is nothing free-mark about what's going on in the precious metals market these days.

As I said yesterday, it's hard to know if there's more down-side pain left to go, or not. To get really significant tech fund long liquidation in gold, the bullion banks would have to get the price down below its 50-day moving average, which is more that $100 away from where the gold price is sitting at the moment. The question to be asked here is...can they, or will they? Here's the 6-month chart.

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In silver, the 50-day moving average is well under a dollar away from silver's current price. We touched it the other day, but it would be no problem for JPMorgan to drive it below the 50-day moving average and clean out the majority of tech fund longs that may still be hanging on. I also note that silver's 50-day moving average should break above the $40 mark at the close of trading today. And as I said yesterday, I consider silver's 200-day moving average to be a bridge too far.

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And lastly...don't forget, that Casey Research's FREE on-line sponsored event is happening TODAY...Wednesday, September 14th at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time. It's entitled "The American Debt Crisis"...and it's posted over at the americandebtcrisis.com website. The introductory trailer runs 8:33...and if you want to register for this FREE webinar, you can just type in your e-mail address in the spot indicated in the right sidebar. The link to all of the above, is here.

As I hit the 'send' button at 5:13 a.m. Eastern time, I note that both metals have rallied a bit off their lows at the London open, so I'm look forward to the New York open with some interest.

I hope your Wednesday goes well...and I'll see you tomorrow.