Gold did nothing in Far East and early London trading on Thursday...and only caught a bid around 8:45 a.m. Eastern time. That smallish six dollar gain was all there was until London closed at 11:00 a.m...and then gold tacked on another twelve bucks in short order, to its high of the day which came around 11:40 a.m.

The buyer disappeared at that point...and the price declined slowly until shortly after floor trading was done for the day at 1:30 p.m. Eastern...and then it basically traded sideways into the close of the New York Access market at 5:15 p.m. Eastern. Volume was light once again.

Silver slid about twenty cents between the open of trading in the Far East and the London open at 8:00 a.m local time [3:00 a.m. Eastern]. From that point, silver rallied in fits and starts right up until the close of electronic trading in New York...closing almost on its high of the day. Volume was very light.

The dollar was down about twenty basis points by the time that London opened for business at 3:00 a.m. Eastern time. That proved to be the nadir for the dollar...and by the time the Comex opened at 8:20 a.m., the dollar had gained back about half of its tiny Far East loss.

Then the dollar went vertical...rising 50 basis points in a bit over an hour...before sliding a hair into the close.

If you check the gold chart above, you will note that the tiny $6 rally in the gold price that began at the Comex open, occurred at the same time as the dollar was skyrocketing...but the $12 jump in the gold price that began at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time, has almost no corresponding dollar drop to go with it.

There was virtually no co-relation between what the dollar was doing yesterday...and the corresponding moves in the dollar.

If you're getting the impression that the gold price is mostly independent of what the dollar is doing...unless 'da boyz' make it so...you would be right about that. These guys know how to paint a chart. As Ted Butler has been telling me for years, the dollar/gold ratio is mostly a myth. As Chris Powell says..."There are no markets anymore, only interventions."

The gold stocks were in positive territory almost from the opening of the equity markets at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time yesterday...and they topped out shortly after the gold price hit its zenith around 11:40 a.m. They held most of their gains as the gold price slowly slid for the rest of the New York trading session. The HUI finished up 1.78%.

The silver stocks finished higher...but it was very much a mixed bag. Some producers did very well...and some disappointed. But at the end of the day, Nick Laird's Silver Sentiment Index posted a gain of 2.54%

The CME's Daily Delivery Report showed that 425 gold, along with 71 silver contracts, were posted for delivery on Monday. The big issuers were the Bank of Nova Scotia with 324 contracts...and the JPMorgan [101 contracts] in its client account. By far the biggest stopper, with 387 contracts received, was JPMorgan in its proprietary [house] trading account. This, once again, shows that JPMorgan is trading against its own clients.

In silver, all 71 contracts were issued [delivered] by Merrill Lynch...and the only stoppers were the Bank of Nova Scotia and JPMorgan.

There were no reported changes in either GLD or SLV yesterday.

The U.S. Mint reported selling 3,000 ounces of gold eagles, along with 795,000 silver eagles. Month-to-date, the mint has sold 26,000 ounces of gold eagles, zero one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...and 842,000 silver eagles.

There was no activity at all at the Comex-approved depositories on Wednesday.

Here are a couple of graphs that were sent to me by reader 'David in California'. Between the two of them, it shows how the middle class is being decimated in the U.S.A.

¤ Critical Reads

Jim Rogers: "Bernanke Is A Disaster" Who Will "Bring QE Back"

I received two Jim Rogers interviews in my in-box yesterday, one from George Findlay...and the other from Tariq Khan. I'm running Tariq's interview posted over at zerohedge.com, mainly because I was having no end of trouble downloading the video from the marketwatch.com video that George sent me.

The link to the zerohedge.com story/video is here...and, why not, here's the link to the marketwatch.com video as well. Maybe you'll have better luck, as I had to click on 'Pop up Player' in order to get it to run. Both videos are worth watching.

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Bill Gross: Treasury investors will 'get cooked'

Pimco founder Bill Gross reiterated his warning to cash out of Treasuries Wednesday afternoon.

Investors who have been betting on Treasuries are destined "to get cooked like frogs in an increasingly hot pot of water," the well-known bond bear told attendees at a Morningstar Investment conference in Chicago.

I thank reader Scott Pluschau for sending me this money.cnn.com story yesterday...and the link is here.

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The 'Big Short' and Goldman's New Story

Matt Taibbi over at Rolling Stone magazine has another blog about Goldman Sachs as a follow-up to the blog that he posted on Wednesday.

"Given that Sorkin was apparently given access to a large trove of documents allowing him to make the case that Goldman didn’t have that “Big Short” on, I thought it would be instructive for readers to see what kind of answers the Senate got when it asked Goldman executives the same questions about the size of the banks’ short bet. They gave Sorkin the whole store, but Levin’s committee basically got name, rank, serial number, and a big legalese "eat me."

This longish blog is courtesy of reader Roy Stephens...and the link is here.

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Justice Officials in 'Panic Mode' as Hearing Nears on Failed Anti-Gun Trafficking Program

Officials at the Department of Justice are in "panic mode," according to multiple sources, as word spreads that congressional testimony next week will paint a bleak and humiliating picture of 'Operation Fast and Furious', the botched undercover operation that left a trail of blood from Mexico to Washington, D.C.

Washington state reader S.A. sent me this foxnews.com story yesterday...and the link is here.

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The Sultan of Istancool: Is Erdogan's Success Pulling Turks Away from Europe?

Turkey is all that's left of the Ottoman Empire that got carved up by Britain, the European powers...and the U.S...after their defeat in WW1.

Their new foreign and economic policy has been dubbed "Neo-Ottomanism," another term that triggers anxiety in the West. Are the Turks trying to rebuild the empire that controlled the Middle East for 400 years?

Such fears are exaggerated. At most, what will materialize is nothing more than a loose commonwealth of former Ottoman provinces. What is important, however, is the Turkish example that is being transmitted into a politically backward region. It is proof positive that even an Islamic government can be democratic, and that it doesn't take oil revenues to build affluence.

But it's not without its problems, as it sits as a key player in the 21st century version of the "Great Game". This is a 3-page essay on modern Turkey as it is today...and it's an educational read...and if you have the time, it's worth it. Roy Stephens was kind enough to share this spiegel.de essay with us...and the link is here.

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Japan may have no nuclear reactors running by next April - ministry

Here's a Reuters story that was sent to me by reader Ken Metcalfe yesterday. The title pretty much sums up the content of the article...and the link to this worthwhile read, is here.

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Thieves are now climbing poles to steal copper

The King County Sheriff's Office in Seattle says thieves who want copper to sell to scrap dealers are now scaling telephone poles to cut down cables.

That has happened at least three times in the last month in the Sheriff's Office's jurisdiction. Thieves cut down more than 700 feet of telephone cable, interrupting phone service to hundreds of people.

This story was posted over at seattlepi.com yesterday...and I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sending it along. The link is here.

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The Destructive Power of Weak Money: Alasdair Macleod

Here's an essay that I found posted in a GATA release yesterday.

Loose money is bringing on stagflation and soon will renew the world financial crisis, economist and former banker Alasdair Macleod writes in his new essay.

"Both China and Russia now have sounder monetary bases than America, Europe and Japan, because their banks are less geared and they recognise paper money for what it is. They have cleaned the market out of physical gold, and are certain to hold considerably more than they officially admit, while the United States is suspected of exaggerating her holdings. Here again, the distortions are simply incredible, with over $50,000 of bank liabilities and monetary base in the U.S. for every ounce of gold officially held by the U.S. Treasury."

The preamble, plus the link to this absolute must read essay itself, is here.

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GATA's Murphy, GoldMoney's Turk, and DEG's Boehringer take questions

Here's an item I stole from a GATA release yesterday.

At their conference in Munich on April 29, GATA Chairman Bill Murphy, GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk, and Peter Boehringer of Deutsche Edelmetall-Gesellschaft (DEG), the German precious metal society, answered questions about the precious metals, government currencies, and the world financial situation. Video of the question-and-answer period is 25 minutes long and you can watch it at GoldMoney's Internet site...and the link is here.

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John Hathaway: Audio Interview

In my Thursday column, I ran the King World News blog on this...and later in the day, Eric King sent me the entire audio interview. Eric describes it as "Very powerful John Hathaway audio interview on the end game, currency destruction, gold above $10,000." As I said yesterday, this interview would be worth listening to when it's finally posted...and the link is here.

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Fed managing 'orderly' rise in gold: Jim Rickards

The international currency wars will end in devaluation against gold, market analyst James G. Rickards tells the German journalist Lars Schall in an outstanding interview posted this week.

This interview is imbedded in another GATA release where Chris Powell has already done the heavy lifting for me. This is well worth your time...and the link is here.

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Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book. - Ronald Reagan

Thursday's trading volume in gold was a very light 103,000 contracts net of all roll-overs...but the price jump yesterday resulted in a 10,936 contract increase in the preliminary open interest number. No doubt it will be much reduced later this morning...but it's obvious that yesterday's rally did not involve any short covering.

Gold's final open interest number for Wednesday's trading day showed a small decline of 675 contracts...which was a nice drop from the preliminary number, which showed an increase of 5,461 contracts.

Silver's net volume yesterday was a very smallish 49,000 contracts...more or less...and the open interest showed an increase of 4,448 contracts. The final o.i. number will certainly be smaller than that.

Silver's final open interest number for Wednesday's trading day came in as hoped...with a decline of 1,325 contracts. I was expecting a decline, as the preliminary o.i. number showed a smallish increase of only 1,102 contracts.

At 3:30 p.m. Eastern time today, the latest and greatest Commitment of Traders Report [for positions held at the close of trading on Tuesday, June 7th] will be posted on the CFTC's website. When that time arrives, you can click here. Silver analyst Ted Butler isn't expecting a lot in the way of changes from the previous week's report.

Today is also the day that we should get the June Bank Participation Report. I just checked the website...and it still hasn't been posted as of 3:44 a.m. Eastern. Hopefully it will be posted later today...but sometimes it isn't posted until early the following week.

Not much happened in Far East trading earlier on Friday...and there's not much happening now that London is open, either. Volumes are extremely light in gold...but already pretty decent in silver...as over 25 million ounces of paper silver have already been traded on the Globex system, so it's obvious that the high frequency traders are stomping about the silver market once again.

There's still time left to either readjust your portfolio...or get fully invested in the continuing major up-leg of this bull market in both silver and gold...and I respectfully suggest that you take a trial subscription to either Casey Research's International Speculator [junior gold and silver exploration companies], or BIG GOLD [large producers], with all our best [and current] recommendations...as well as the archives. A subscription to the International Speculator also includes a free subscription to BIG GOLD as well. And don't forget that our 90-day guarantee of satisfaction is in effect for both publications.

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