Note to all my readers: I will be attending the GATA conference in London all next week...and I will have no report for the entire time that I'm away. My last report before I leave will be on Saturday...and the next one won't be in your in-box until Tuesday, August 9th. I haven't had a break from this column since last October...and I can sure use one.

The gold price spent most of the Far East trading session...and the early part of the London trading session...up a few bucks. But starting around 10 a.m. in London, the gold price declined right up until lunchtime [7:00 a.m. in New York]. Then away went the price to the upside, before it was capped once again at the beginning of equity trading at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time.

Then, an hour later, gold got sold off to the tune of $11 in just a few minutes. The gold price recovered about six bucks before another seller showed up at precisely noon in New York...and peeled another $12 off the price...taking it down to it's low of the day thirty minutes later.

Gold then gained back the same six dollars, before trading sideways for the rest of the New York Access Market. Total volume was over the moon...but the vast majority of it was roll-overs out of the August gold contract.

Here's the New York Spot Gold chart on its own...where the not-for-profit seller's activities are much easier to see.

Silver's price path yesterday was very much similar to gold's...enough so that the differences aren't worth mentioning. Volume was huge.

The dollar chopped around 73.50 until precisely 2:00 a.m. Eastern time. From that low, the dollar ran up about 25 basis points by the opening of trading at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time...then really took off...and by noon in New York, it was up another 45 basis points on top of that. Then the dollar traded sideways for the rest of the day.

Even a cursory glance at the gold chart above shows that between 7:00 a.m. and 5:15 p.m. Eastern time, the gold price wanted to rise despite the huge dollar rally. Only the two interventions, the one starting at 9:30 a.m...and the other at precisely noon in New York...prevented that from happening.

The gold shares opened in positive territory...but didn't stay there long, as they came under selling pressure the moment that the top was in for gold. The two big price take-downs yesterday morning don't even register on this graph...especially the one that occurred at noon.

Normally the gold stocks follow the gold price tick for tick...but that phenomena is nowhere to be seen in this graph. Very strange. The HUI got clocked for 2.75%.

The silver stocks did not have a good day yesterday, either...and Nick's Silver Sentiment index was down 3.70%

(Click on image to enlarge)

The CME's Daily Delivery Report finally showed some action in the July delivery month in silver. Yesterday, there was one lonely gold contract...along with 126 silver contracts...posted for delivery on Friday. The big issuers/shorts were Merrill and Barclays with 123 contracts...and the big stoppers/longs were the Bank of Nova Scotia and JPMorgan with 105 contracts between them.

This is about half of what's still left to deliver, so tomorrow's column will show how the July delivery process for silver went right down to the wire...and who the last holdouts on the short side were. The link to yesterday's action is here...and it's well worth the look.

The GLD ETF showed that 97,392 ounces of gold were taken in yesterday...and there was no report from SLV.

For a change, there was no sales report from the U.S. Mint.

It was another busy day over at the Comex-approved depositories on Tuesday. They reported that 977,681 ounces were received...and 283,119 ounces were shipped out. The link to that action is here.

Silver analyst Ted Butler posted his mid-week comments to his clients yesterday...and I have stolen a couple of paragraphs that I thought might be of interest.

"Let’s face it – the entities I’ve accused of manipulating the price of silver, like JPMorgan and the CME Group, are among the most powerful financial entities of them all; they are the true masters of the financial universe.. They are at the tippy-top of the financial food chain. They have virtually unlimited access to financial resources. They are, by virtue of aggressive lobbying and political contributions, the dominating force in shaping legislation and regulation. They are staffed by the sharpest human talent and technological advantage that money can buy. In addition, they have the morals and ethics of a cockroach and a bag of dirty market tricks at their disposal, like HFT and after hours market control.

"Yet, in spite of all these clear advantages, the big shorts have taken it on the chin in silver over the past ten months. It wasn’t always so. For decades, the concentrated shorts made big money in silver on a regular basis. That’s because the big commercial shorts had a golden goose in the form of the technical funds and other momentum-type traders which the commercials could run in to and out from the market at will, by dictating artificial price changes. To the extent that these technical traders can still be dominated by the commercials, we must expect that we will see sudden sell-offs in the price. But clearly, the power of the concentrated commercial shorts is on the decline, as forces other than the technical funds have come to influence the price of silver."

¤ Critical Reads

Bank of America Donates, Then Demolishes, Houses to Get Rid of Foreclosures

Bank of America Corp, faced with a glut of foreclosed and abandoned houses it can’t sell, has a new tool to get rid of the most decrepit ones: a bulldozer.

The biggest U.S. mortgage servicer will donate 100 foreclosed houses in the Cleveland area and in some cases contribute to their demolition in partnership with a local agency that manages blighted property. The bank has similar plans in Detroit and Chicago, with more cities to come, and Wells Fargo, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Fannie Mae are conducting or considering their own programs.

This Bloomberg story from yesterday is an interesting read...and I thank reader Ken Metcalfe for sending it along. The link is here.

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Wells Fargo Target Of Justice Department Probe; Agency Alleges Discriminatory Lending

The Department of Justice is preparing a lawsuit against Wells Fargo, the nation's largest home mortgage lender, for allegedly preying upon African American borrowers during the housing bubble and steering them into high-cost subprime loans, according to three people with direct knowledge of the probe.

The company, the fourth-largest U.S. bank by assets, is currently embroiled in pre-lawsuit negotiations with the Justice Department in hopes it will settle the accusations and avoid a public lawsuit, these people said.

The allegations mirror those in public actions taken by the Federal Reserve and a separate lawsuit filed by the city of Baltimore.

This Huffington Post article filed late Tuesday night was sent to me by Roy Stephens...and the link is here.

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Fannie/Freddie regulator sues UBS on $900 million loss

Here's a Reuters piece that was picked up by finance.yahoo.com yesterday...and it was sent to me by Washington state reader S.A.

The regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sued UBS AG to recover more than $900 million of losses after the Swiss bank misled the housing agencies into buying $4.5 billion of risky mortgage debt.

In announcing Wednesday's lawsuit, the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency said it also plans more lawsuits to recover additional losses by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from investments in private-label debt.

I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sharing it with us...and the link is here.

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Credit Suisse unlikely to get help over U.S tax probe

Here's another Reuters story, this one from the past weekend.

Switzerland's parliament would not vote for a second tax treaty to help settle U.S. charges that Credit Suisse bankers helped wealthy Americans evade taxes, Swiss politicians were quoted as saying on Sunday.

In 2009, the Swiss government cut a deal with Washington to hand over the details of 4,450 UBS bank accounts to the U.S. authorities to end a damaging lawsuit against the bank, lifting the veil on Switzerland's cherished tradition of banking secrecy that had helped it build up a multi-trillion-dollar offshore banking industry.

But politicians of various affiliations said there was little appetite for a second deal to help Credit Suisse, which is being probed by U.S. authorities as part of a broader investigation into banks suspected of helping Americans evade taxes.

This is the second offering in a row from Washington state reader S.A....and the link is here.

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Germany's Fourth Reich Has Conquered Europe: Jim Rickards

Jim has an unusual take on the European debt crisis. The Germans, with the co-operation of their political and financial foot-soldiers, have essentially conquered Europe. You can read all about it in this King World News blog linked here.

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At the End of Europe: Seeking a Path out of the Crisis in Portugal

After living beyond its means for decades, Portugal is now feeling the full brunt of the crisis. The government is responding with a brutal austerity package.

The gravity of the situation became abundantly clear when the Moody's rating agency, after questioning whether the country could still service its debts, downgraded Portugal's government bonds to junk status earlier this month. Portugal has overreached financially, and it will have trouble coping with the crisis. Could the euro zone be facing a second Greece?

But savings alone won't do the trick -- the country needs to find ways to expand industry and make itself more attractive for investment. The good news is that positive models already exist within its own borders.

This is another interesting read...and was posted over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday. I thank Roy Stephens for this story...and the link is here.

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Gold price seen rising further by African Barrick Gold

Today's first gold-related story is Roy Stephens last offering for today.

The company, the largest producer of the metal in Tanzania, said gold's attraction as a safe haven for investors means prices will grow further despite already clearing record levels of $1,600 per ounce.

Greg Hawkins, chief executive of African Barrick, said: "Against a backdrop of continuing uncertainty in the overall economy, we remain positive on the outlook for gold.

"We believe that the fundamental attraction of gold as a store of value as a result of the global credit crisis will continue to support future gold prices."

This story was posted yesterday in The Telegraph...and the link is here.

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Gold's Noise Is Getting Louder: Jeff Clark

Yesterday's edition of Casey's Daily Dispatch contained a short piece by BIG GOLD editor Jeff Clark.

"I outlined last week the increasingly bullish consensus among analysts about gold stocks. The same pattern exists with gold itself; growing numbers of analysts have either joined the movement or have upped their bullish outlook."

"The following comments and developments have all been reported just this month. It presents quite a convincing case when one strings them together like this. Keep in mind that this is what these analysts and managers are telling their clients."

It's all very happy reading...and the link is here. You have to scroll down a bit to find Jeff's commentary.

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New Yukon gold rush video evokes GATA's 2005 conference

I stole everything you see below from a GATA release that came out late last night.

ABC News last week broadcast a wonderful report about the new Yukon Gold Rush and particularly about the prospector of the decade, Shawn Ryan. The broadcast includes a few seconds of an aerial view of Dawson City and thus evokes GATA's Gold Rush 21 conference there in August 2005, which will be celebrated next week at GATA's Gold Rush 2011 conference in London. The report is a bit less than six minutes long...and is an absolute must view...and the link is here.

There's still a little room left at the GATA London conference that starts late next week...and you can register for it here.

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Gold to $1,750 soon, Cazenove's Griffiths tells King World News

Cazenove Capital technical strategist Robin Griffiths told King World News yesterday that he sees gold reaching $1,750 in the short term and gold mining shares picking up sharply because they're very undervalued.

I stole all this from another GATA release...and the link to the KWN blog is here.

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Eric Sprott on the Silver Take-Down and Why Silver is Set to Explode

Here's a longish [26:44] interview with Eric Sprott that's posted over at financialsense.com. I've had no time to listen to it, but considering the title, I would think it's worth your time...and the link is here.

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As more people are subjected to the daily reports of a financial world in distress and of political animosity, their thoughts will naturally gravitate to assets with no liability to that stress and animosity. As more people come to learn of the rarity and value of silver compared to gold, their choice will be to buy and hold silver. The trick, as always, is to beat the crowd. - Ted Butler

Gold volume on Wednesday, net of all roll-overs, was a very tiny 41,000 contracts...but the gross volume was 420,000+ contracts. Yesterday was the day that all the large traders had to be out of the August gold contract...and that fact sure showed up in the volume.

The preliminary open interest number showed a decline of 5,985 contracts. How much of that was spread trades being lifted vs. the price action yesterday is unknown...but the final o.i. number this morning should show a much larger drop than the preliminary open interest number. Too bad it won't show up in tomorrow's Commitment of Traders Report.

Gold's final open interest number for Tuesday showed a decline of 4,950 contracts. This number will be in tomorrow's Commitment of Traders report.

Silver's net trading volume was a whopping 72,000 contracts...which is monstrous considering the price action...and the preliminary open interest number showed a chunky increase of 3,978 contracts, which I'm guessing is mostly spread trades being placed. The final o.i. number might provide more information...but we'll probably have to wait until next Friday's COT report before all is revealed to us.

The final open interest number for Tuesday's trading day showed an increase of 2,386 contracts. Both Ted and I feel that this was probably one or more spread trades being put on. We'll find out in tomorrow's COT report.

This morning's preliminary report also showed that there are 246 silver contracts still outstanding for the July delivery month. When you subtract the 126 contracts that were posted in last night's Daily Delivery Report, which I talked about earlier on in this column, there are still 120 contracts left to deliver by the end of the trading day today. I will report on that, plus the first day notice for August deliveries in gold, in this column tomorrow.

Here's the 6-month HUI chart. As I commented on both Tuesday, Wednesday...and again today, I think someone was painting the tape on this index in order that it became self-fulfilling prophecy. Well, it certainly happened yesterday. I view the share price action this week...along with the gold and silver price action yesterday...with the deep suspicion.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Price action in gold and silver wasn't very exciting in most of Far East trading earlier today...but both metals ticked higher shortly before London opened...and both are in the black as of this writing at 5:01 a.m. Eastern time. Net volume in gold is light...and what volume there is, is the last of the roll-overs out of the August contract, because it goes off the board at the close of trading in New York later today.

Silver's high frequency trading volume wasn't particularly heavy either...and the dollar is doing nothing.

As you saw from yesterday's action, virtually all the price excitement...and the volume...occurred during the New York trading session. I expect that to be the case again today. As I mentioned a couple of times before, the August gold contract goes off the board at the end of today's trading...first day notice for the August gold contract is posted late tonight...and then we begin a new month.

As always, I await the New York open with great interest.

See you on Friday.