by Jim Willie, CB. Editor, Hat Trick Letter | July 2, 2008

In the last two months, some important points should be kept in mind. The bigger mining companies must replace depleted reserves. They are turning to the successful explorers, case in point being both Goldcorp and Barrick. They are not interested in acquisitions of mid-sized junior miners, but rather the explorers that possess expertise in exploration and discovery of valuable ore deposits. A bidding round of junior miners is not only likely, it is also guaranteed. My eye is set upon the hedge funds who are in many cases employing spread trades, going long the large mining stocks and going short the explorer speculative mining stocks. Expect hedge funds to take heavy losses. Some actually believe that Barrick is a ringleader behind providing capital not to fund their own mining operations, but to New York and London hedge funds to suppress the small gold mining firms. Others believe that Goldman Sachs has abused its managed GDX exchange traded fund, as they short the entire sector by shorting the entire index. One should consider the possibility that either or both the GLD or SLV exchange traded funds, managed by the cartel members JPMorgan and Barclays respectively, might be assisting in suppression of mining stocks in order to acquire them later for a price as cheap as a song. This pair of titans surely is shorting gold and silver with paper futures contracts. We live in a corrupt financial world. Its mafia dons reside in New York and London.