From Ed Steer:

It was a nothing kind of day yesterday. Both gold and silver got sold off at bit in the Hong Kong market late in their afternoon. This lasted until shortly after London opened. Then the prices just sat there until shortly before the London p.m. gold fix, when a N.Y. rally of sorts commenced in both, with neither metal going too far. Ted Butler pointed out to me that neither silver nor gold got above their Monday highs...and that was probably the intent.

Open interest changes for Tuesday were as follows...gold o.i. actually fell 2,597 contracts to 390,939...on pretty big volume of 107,703 contracts. And silver's o.i. also improved as well, down 554 contracts to 98,269...on just ok volume of 16,801 contracts. These numbers, the bullion banks willing, should be in Friday's Commitment of Traders as the cut-off was Tuesday at the close of trading.

For the first time in quite a while, there were no deliveries in either gold or silver on the Comex Delivery Report. There were no changes [as usual] in the alleged holdings of the SLV ETF...but GLD showed a drop of 186,507 ounces yesterday. The U.S. Mint has another update for us...they increased their gold eagles by another 4,000 and their silver eagles by 150,000...bringing their monthly totals so far to 60,000 and 2,025,000 respectively. And lastly, there were no material changes in silver inventories over at the Comex-approved warehouses.

The only gold story of interest that I could find was over at mineweb.com where the headline read "Saudi retail gold sales plunge: Higher prices and fewer visitors force sales down 30%"...and the link is here. On top of that, the usual New York gold commentator mentioned in his commentary that neither India nor Vietnam were importing gold yesterday.

In other news, I note in a Bloomberg story headlined "Credit Card Charge-offs rise again in June". As a matter of fact, they rose to a record high. The Moody's credit card charge-off index -- which measures credit card loans that banks do not expect to be repaid -- rose to 10.76% in June from 10.62% in May. Moody's also mentioned that charge-offs should peak at 12-13% in mid-2010." [I wouldn't bet any money on that. It sounds like another case of whistling past the graveyard to me. - Ed]

Not a lot of interesting stories...as it was a ho-hum kind of day everywhere yesterday. The first one is an item that I lifted from Bill Murphy's MIDAS commentary over at lemetropolecafe.com. It's a story from the BBC in London. The headline reads "U.K. Debt Hits a Record of £799 billion" One wonders how much hacking, slashing and outright cooking of the financial books it took to get that number below £800 billion? The link is here.

The next story is from Bloomberg. The opening paragraph reads..."The Federal Reserve is “embroiled” in politics and has “stretched beyond reason” its authority to make loans, said William Poole, who served as president of the St. Louis Fed from 1998 to 2008." The 'long knives' are out for the Fed...even from their own people. The short article is well worth the read...and the link is here.

Normally, press releases from the CFTC would not show up in my column, but this one is different. The headline reads..."CFTC to Hold Three Open Hearings to Discuss Energy Position Limits and Hedge Exemptions: First Hearing Scheduled for July 28, 2009". Ted Butler sent it to me early yesterday morning. He pointed out the fact that one paragraph was all in bold type. Now why on earth would a government press release do that? It stands out like the proverbial sore thumb. Maybe its because the boys over at JPMorgan Chase [and the other silver shorts] can only read large print. But it sure looks like a warning to me. Ted went on to say that the 8-point list below that describes to a 'T' what has to be done in the silver market to bring it back into line with every other traded commodity on the planet. Or, it could mean nothing. You be the judge...and the link is here.

While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed through the worst — and with continued unity of effort, we shall rapidly recover. There has been no significant bank or industrial failure. That danger, too, is safely behind us. - Herbert Hoover, President of the United States...May 1, 1930

To make up for the lack of anything of much interest yesterday...here's a video I ran at least 18 months ago. I've picked up a lot of new readers since then, so I thought I'd run it up the flagpole one more time. It's not a music video, but turn up your speakers anyway, and then click here. Enjoy!

I'm still sitting on the precious metals fence...waiting to see which way the gold [and silver] price is going to go...but ready to jump into either the bull or bear camp, depending on the outcome. And as I've mentioned several times over the last week or so...I've got the perfect explanation as to why the price is going up or down...and by now, dear reader, you should have figured that out too.

Enjoy the rest of your day, and I'll see you here on Friday.

Casey Research correspondent-at-large Ed Steer is a keen observer of the financial scene and a board member of GATA.org.