Hi all...

First on the recent news front: Pic, Just to be clear it is Israel that is upset that there are Iranian warships in the Suez... not Israeli ships. Basically Iran is rattling swords again. Not like the Israeli's don't like doing it now and again (they have recently been massing troops on Egypt's boarder as a warning.)

I think there are other rumblings that are concerning the international community more than Egypt now, like Bahrain where a key US fleet (5th fleet) resides and anti-government protests are gaining real ground... this is also really modern, central banking territory with a very pro-western lean. Yemen, another key US ally against Al Queda is also seeing serious unrest. I'd be absolutely flabbergasted if I found out the US was behind the current ME rumblings as it would be very, very stupid of them. What's happening there now is raw, ungovernable and unpredictable. Dontcryforme had a great post today on this topic.

Now back on ECU/silver topic: Finally over my jet-lag from my extended trip back home to Canada for 3 1/2 weeks with my little family and I'm settling back into Swiss life. Obviously there has been a lot of excitement in the house with all this Middle Eastern news going on, but I'm finding the silver story also very, very interesting.

I loaded up again (yet again) with more ECU at 1.11 and still have never sold any shares since we were at the 3.20ish level. I'm getting a clear, deep gut feeling that something is really rumbling this time. The raids as usual are sharp, but just don't seem to stick. Even the big push back down to the 26 level got creamed all the way back now into the 30's...

Interestingly I was having a look around for physical silver when back in Canada and had some observations to share. Firstly, there were a number of coin and precious metal shops that had popped up since the last time I was home and at least one was very prominently right in the middle of a huge shopping mall.

When I went up to the shop there was a currency exchange window where it looked from afar that I could simply change cash into silver! I went up and tried to see how it worked, already salivating at the thought of such easy unbridled access to silver! However the lady there quickly directed me to the coin counter. There I was told there was a minimum 3 week delay for new maples and the older maples I could see were all in the 37-45$ price range. They wouldn't even take orders for the new maples.

Later I saw a Canadian mint branch where again I though... aha! the source! Again... no direct sales and reports of big delays in delivery. Sigh. Everywhere I found it, I found huge gaps between the current market price and the price of the physical stuff.

Also I found that many of my friends who had never shown any interest were talking about gold and silver. In fact some had even gone so far as to come to the conclusion (unaided) that silver had the best upside potential as it was both precious and industrial! There is no way they came to those kind of conclusions without some nod from the media, so I guess perceptions are changing. I even had some friends asking about my favorite (ECU of course) with real interest.

I just have this deep gut feeling that there are a lot of games being played, but we are really on the cusp of some real love with ECU. I'm not cheerleading so much as sharing my instinct for whatever it's worth. It's not a surprise to find that I think ECU is WAY undervalued, but I simply cannot believe where we are at right now... impossible without manipulation. I only wish I had access to some really big gunpowder so I could place a massive buy. What do we need to spark us and send us forth? News? Drill results? Profitable quarter? 41-101? Time will tell, but I believe it will be worth the wait.

Soul