The London traders reported for work after a long Christmas weekend to find gold and silver prices much higher. It didn’t take long for The Gold Cartel crowd to begin pressuring both precious metals at their usual time of late. Gold then fell on the Comex back to check $1400, but quickly came back to go plus on the day … and the price took off. The real problem for the bums clearly appears to be silver, as brought to your attention for months in this column. Its price began to bubble last evening and continues to gain against gold. It too fell on the Comex, but only to fill its gap left on the Comex open, after which silver went right back up to challenge $30.50, which was quickly overrun.

Yesterday both gold and silver left noticeable gaps, breakaway ones, so it is a technical plus there are no other near term gaps to be filled on the downside.

BOTH gold and silver were able to make new highs as the Comex trading session wore on. This is a good sign. In years past gold and silver would surge in the first hour of trading and then were kept in check from thereon in. Not this time.

Silver closed at a new 30-year high.

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The U.S. Mint Has Suspended Production Of Silver Eagles - Again

I was not aware of this until today, but the press release reads like silver eagle production has been suspended for awhile. Here's the press release: LINK

I was told a while ago by someone who is in a position to know that the Mint was under instructions to produce as many gold and silver eagles as possible this year in order to avoid the perception that silver supplies are tight. This is why big coin dealers like Tulving seem to have an endless supply of silver eagles.

However, this same source also said that he expected, based on thorough knowledge of the entire industry, that there would be a severe silver shortage starting sometime in 2011.

I guess that shortage may have started a bit early...