ATLANTA – The most important news of this past trading week is that both gold and silver futures on the COMEX in New York finished the week in backwardation. A condition most long-time traders view as more bullish than bearish very short term. We’ll have more about that below, but first here’s this week’s closing table:
This Week’s Bottom Line Summary (in bold)
Our bias remains cautiously bullish for gold, silver and mining shares. Stops tight, but not too tight.
This week we see slightly negative money flow in most gold ETFs, but significant positive money flow into the leading U.S. silver ETF (slightly bullish). Both gold and silver ended the week in moderate backwardation on the COMEX futures markets, with the cash price actually higher than the front active contracts. (Bullish, see comments below.)
Price action suggests a consolidation is still underway, with much wider high-low spreads, but with silver much weaker. (Bearish.)
The U.S. dollar rallied, but ICE commercials dump a good-sized chunk of their DXY net long positions (detailed below). Well-financed mining shares were hammered along with the U.S. Big Markets (our nickname for the DOW, NASDAQ and the S&P 500).
The largest of the largest gold futures traders, the always net short traders the CFTC classes as commercial, reduced their net short positioning somewhat, but remain hugely net short. Although we noted action that has, in the past, been consistent with more aggressive commercial net short reductions late week, our caution flags are still flying. For all the details don’t miss the Gold and Silver COT sections below.
Repeating from the last full report two weeks ago: With a nod to the Trading Gods (so as not to offend them too much), the action right now is reminiscent of the last time the short-happy COMEX commercials were overrun – for months and months – beginning in August, 2005 as gold first challenged, then tested, then blew through the very staunch defenses thrown up by the hedgers and short sellers in the $450 - $475 region. Gold went on to test the $730s the following May, some 60% higher than where the commercials took their “goal line stand” that August of “ought-five.” (A similar move in this event would take gold up to around $1,520 the ounce, give or take $100. That’s not a prediction, just an observation.)
So, we have to keep the caution flags flying because of the enormous net short positioning of the COMEX commercials. But in this case, that caution extends equally to both bulls and bears. While it is usually bearish in times of such extreme commercial net short positioning as we detail below, it is also exactly the condition we expect to be in place when the “Big One,” the seminal technical definition move higher we have been expecting, (a high percentage explosion), finally occurs. We almost certainly cannot have one without the other.
Tight stops remain the standing order of the day, but not too tight! With the over-sized commercial net short positioning and minor backwardation in play, dips should, repeat should, be well bid while advances could potentially be explosive.
MIND YOUR STOPS or employ appropriate “insurance” for all at-risk positioning now, if not already accomplished. Well-placed stops offer protection against unexpected adverse calamity and they make for a much better sleep regimen.
Please note: Gold Newsletter (GNL) subscribers received this issue of the Got Gold Report Monday morning, November 2. GNL subscribers enjoy access to all Got Gold Reports, technical charts, analysis and information, as well as Brien Lundin’s timely and actionable analysis of specific resource related companies. For more information or to subscribe visit the Gold Newsletter home page.
Now, a closer look at a few of this week’s indicators:
Gold ETFs:SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), by far the largest gold exchange traded fund, reported several very small reductions totaling 4.575 tonnes so the trust held 1,104.519 tonnes of gold bars held by a custodian in London.
Source for data SPDR Gold Shares.
Barclay’s (In December it will become BlackRock’s) iShares COMEX Gold Trust (IAU), reported adding a rather large (for it) 4.57 tonnes to show 79.83 tonnes of gold held in COMEX warehouses.
All five of the gold ETFs sponsored by the World Gold Council (WGC) collectively recorded a reduction of 5.13 tonnes of gold metal, to a combined 1,302.88 tonnes worth about $43.6 billion as of Friday’s close.
Apparently, then, there was slightly more selling pressure than buying pressure in the world’s gold ETFs over the past week.
The authorized market participants for gold ETFs add gold (and increase the number of shares in the trading float) in response to more buying pressure than selling pressure and vice versa.
Silver ETFs: Barclay’s (also for now, and soon to be BlackRock’s) sponsored iShares Silver Trust (SLV), reportedly added a large 131.43 tonnes to show 8,744.00 tonnes of average 1,000-ounce allocated silver bar inventory for the week. That is as expected, as we noted tight spreads between the SLV share price and the implied NAV per share for SLV on Monday and again on Wednesday/Thursday.
Source for data, iShares Silver Trust.
We have to take note of considerably more buying pressure than selling pressure for the largest silver ETF, suggesting that investors were keen to buy the dip on silver over the past week.
SLV Short Interest Normal
On a related issue, earlier this week we noted some web-based commentary regarding short selling on SLV and GLD. One such report suggested that short sales of SLV shares constituted a “fraud,” under the writer’s notion that short sales do not have silver backing them.
Actually, before shares can be sold short they have to first be borrowed from someone who owns them. Since there is/was already an appropriate amount of silver backing the share borrowed to sell short, and since the borrowed share has to be returned to the owner at some point in the future, we do not see this as a legitimate issue. The collective effect of shares being borrowed and short sold against those being covered and returned to the float should be equal over time.
We disagree with those who contend that short selling of SLV or GLD is somehow “fraudulent.”
To the contrary, short selling forms a vital part of the price discovery process for exchange traded funds. Arbitrageurs and day-trading opportunists actually perform a majority of the “price policing” of most of the world’s ETFs. They are constantly on the lookout for the tiny, but lucrative pricing imbalances that occur naturally in any freely-traded market as either buying or selling pressure moves the issues up and down.
Without the collective action of both long and short trading by countless individuals, each acting in their own self interest, prices of the ETFs would almost certainly become much more volatile. Without the long and short selling arbitrageurs, it would be more difficult to manage the price of any ETF, ETN or ETC.
Perhaps more to the point, since the objective of SLV is to track very closely with the spot price of silver, less accumulated fees (SLV has done a fine job of doing exactly that by the way), there really wouldn’t be any realistic motive for over-selling the shares short.
To see exactly how well SLV has tracked with the spot price of silver, take a quick peek at this comparison graph on Stockcharts.com, which shows the relative performance of both spot silver and SLV.
https://stockcharts.com/charts/performance/perf.html?$silver,slv
As anyone can instantly see, the ETF’s performance is nearly identical to spot silver. If there was any short selling hanky-panky going on we sure wouldn’t expect to see the ETF in virtual lock step with spot silver, would we?
Even if there was an overabundance of shares sold short, temporarily driving the price lower than it should be, investors and arbitrageurs would quickly step in to earn the artificial spread such short selling pressure might cause.
As of the most recent short interest reports, SLV showed a total short interest of about 7.5 million shares, or about 2.6%, of the issued and outstanding shares. Since the average daily volume of SLV is upwards of 10 million shares, we see that level of short selling as reasonable and normal for a continuous offering ETF - especially after a long, high-percentage move to the upside when investors are more likely to hedge or bet on the downside. For comparison, the short interest for GLD as of the same report date was 2.5% of the float or about the same.
Short selling can also be an effective way to hedge temporarily as well as an opportunity for those who wish to bet on price weakness. SLV would be a less, not more attractive vehicle if investors were not able to use it as a trading vehicle in both directions. And no matter how much we might want to believe that short selling of SLV could interfere with silver pricing, if we stop and think about it for just half a minute, we realize that silver is a global market. The spot price of silver reflects the collective action of millions of individuals all over the globe. The pricing of just one trading vehicle for silver cannot drive global prices.
It is only when there are larger imbalances between buying and selling pressure that the fund’s managers, the authorized market participants or AMPs, step in to either sell shares of the fund or buy them to restore the share price back to very near its NAV per share. They do so in minimum baskets of just under $50,000 each as we have talked about in previous Got Gold Reports, either increasing or decreasing the number of shares in the float and causing an appropriate amount of silver to be added or sold concurrently with that transaction.
As long as SLV continues to track very closely with the price of spot silver why should we care if someone chooses to take the short side with it? We say “go for it,” if one thinks silver is heading lower, but only with appropriate trading stops, of course.
We understand that those who approach the metals markets with a physical-only bias or don’t like ETFs for whatever reason might like to make something out of the short selling issue, but it really isn’t one.
SLV is not the same thing as physical silver (we like both, by the way). SLV is just an amazingly well-run trading vehicle that uses silver as the basis for its net asset value. It would be impossible to trade physical silver or even silver futures as easily or as inexpensively as we can today with silver ETFs - in both up and down markets.
Having said that, at Got Gold Report, we continue to believe that with premiums for physical silver metal at very reasonable levels, even at discounts for some silver products, right now is an excellent time for longer-term investors to “exchange” their SLV shares for the real deal physical metal, provided the investor has the ability to store silver safely or, for larger amounts, is satisfied with exchange receipts or warehouse certificates for allocated metal from well-established, respected or official sources. (COMEX warehouse receipts held by your commodities broker or in a very safe place are one acceptable option.)
As always, for actual physical metal to store at or near home, we continue to prefer U.S. pre-1965 90% silver dimes, quarters and half dollars, usually sold in $1,000 face value bags. Currently they are still at “par” or slightly discounted locally. We doubt that condition will remain for very much longer, however.
Moving to the price action in Gold, the yellow metal turned in a lower weekly low ($1,026.50 Thursday) and a lower cash market high ($1,059.86 Monday). Although gold probed a lower low, we noted significant and determined buying pressure in the $1,020s both Wednesday and Thursday. We also noted the kind of action on both Thursday and Friday, which has been consistent in the past with substantial commercial short covering. High-low spreads widened considerably as shown in the closing table above, with most of the “give” from the low side. The last trade on Friday printed $1,045.70 on the cash market, down $9.49, or 0.9%, for the week. Interestingly, gold in euro terms actually bumped up a little less than 1%. Please see the gold charts linked below for more technical commentary.
Silver lived up to itsreputation of amplifying the movement of its yellow cousin this week, beginning the trading in the $17.60s. As gold moved down to test the $1,020s, silver “answered” with its own move down to test $16.11 on both Wednesday and Thursday. But as gold managed to cut its losses roughly in half, the white metal closed closer to its lows. When the last trade Friday printed $16.31 on the cash market it recorded a weekly loss of $1.36, or 7.7%, versus gold’s minus 0.9%. Both the weekly high ($17.76 Monday) and low ($16.11 both Wednesday and Thursday) were lower week on week, and weekly high/low spreads widened a bunch as shown in the opening table. Like gold, most of the “give” in the spreads came from the low side. We had to note that there was considerably less “recovery” in the silver price compared to gold late Friday, but we definitely noted determined buying of SLV – in size – in the silver equivalent $16.20s just prior. Please see the silver charts linked below for more technical commentary.
Backwardation in Both Gold and Silver
Perhaps the most interesting news this week is that both gold and silver futures ended the week in moderate backwardation, where the cash or spot price was higher than the front active contracts. In the case of gold, cash gold closed at $1,045.70, fully $5.30 above the December contract as shown in the table below courtesy of Barcharts.com. Indeed, this time the backwardation is actually strong enough that the cash price was higher than all the contracts going out to August of 2010.
Barcharts.com
Backwardation is rare and unusual in the metals futures markets, but this week we see the same thing with silver as shown in the table just below.
Barcharts.com
While backwardation by itself does not guarantee that the metals will advance in price, it is most definitely viewed by many analysts and traders as a much more bullish than bearish condition. We need to take note and to trade accordingly. All else being equal, both gold and silver should, repeat should, remain well bid on most any dip in the near term, especially given the over-sized commercial net short positioning detailed below in the Gold and Silver COT sections.
The U.S. dollar finally gained some ground this past week, helped by ailing equity markets and another enormous amount (over $130 billion) of official debt issuance by the U.S. government. As foreigners move funds into place in order to buy U.S. debt that adds at least some upward pressure to the greenback.
The U.S. dollar index (DXY) ended the week at 76.35, about 88 basis points higher than the prior week’s Friday close as shown in the U.S. dollar index graph below in the charts section.
In dollar index COT action, as the DXY rose 67 basis points COT reporting Tuesday to Tuesday, to 76.20, ICE commercial traders dumped 2,456 contracts of their collective net long positioning. The “ICECOMs” reported a net long position of 10,065 DXY contracts out of a total open interest of 36,160 contracts (LCNL:TO = 28%) as of October 27. The U.S. dollar index chart, with commentary, is below in the charts section.
Moving to the Gold/Silver Ratio, theGSR jumped quite a bit higher this past week as silver way over-sold gold, finishing the week at 64.11 ounces to buy one ounce of gold metal. We view this jump higher for the GSR as a bit of a potential warning, both from a metal-centric viewpoint and as a barometer of deepening market fear. We much prefer a falling GSR to the opposite. We wouldn’t want to see the GSR stay above its 50-day moving average for very long and unless it corrects back lower almost immediately (within, say, the next week to two weeks), we intend to take even more aggressive defensive action in the equities markets. A rising GSR is most definitely a bearish omen and vice versa. See the short-term GSR chart below in the charts section.
As we noted in the last full report two weeks ago, large, well-financedmining shares, refused to “answer” the last $60 or so of gold’s advance and we said that was normally a reason for caution. Since then the HUI has indeed taken a 60-point dive closing Friday at 390.89. Much of the decline can be directly attributed to the sell-down in the Big Markets. Please see more in the HUI index and HUI/Gold ratiocharts below in the charts section.
Smaller, less liquid and more speculative miners and explorers such as those in the Canadian S&P/TSX Venture Index or CDNX (see the charts linked below in the charts section), which had been showing significant strength two weeks ago also moved lower, but not nearly as much as their bigger cousins relatively speaking. We noted that the CDNX actually outperformed the HUI this week, albeit in a down market. If this were the next waterfall plunge for equities, we would expect the CDNX to be sold off harder and faster than the big companies. That’s not what we are seeing so far.
Gold COT Changes: In the Tuesday 10/27 Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commitments of traders report (COT) for gold metal the COMEX large commercial’s (LCs) collective combined net short positioning (LCNS) declined 14,014 contracts, or 4.7%, from an all time record 297,493 to a still extremely high 283,479 contracts net short Tuesday to Tuesday as U.S. dollar spot gold fell $16.41, or 1.6%, from $1,055.91 to $1,039.50 - while the total open interest fell 12,199 to 497,479 contracts open.
Gold versus the commercial net short positions as of the Tuesday COT cutoff:
Source for data CFTC for COT, cash market for gold.
The chart above looks at just the nominal amount of commercial net short positioning. The chart below compares the COMEX commercial net short position for gold with the total open interest (LCNS:TO). That gives us a better idea of how the largest hedgers and short sellers are positioned relative to the rest of the COMEX traders.
As measured against all COMEX open contracts, the commercial net short position is now a little farther under the record levels set on September 22 (then at 61.6%), with the LCNS:TO still in “dangerous territory” and equal to 57% of all contracts open on the COMEX, division of NYMEX in New York.
Source for data CFTC for COT, cash market for gold.
Notice that the LCNS:TO is actually declining even though gold remains above $1,000 the ounce.
Repeating from the last full report two weeks ago: Both the very high commercial net short positioning and gold’s determined advances are very reminiscent of that 2005 defeat of the $450 barrier. In 2005 the gold bears were gradually, but steadily overrun, with the hedgers and short sellers doing the stop-out-fall-back-sell-again shuffle for months, all the way up to the $730s before they were able to gain the advantage again.
That has to be the best example so far of when the always net short commercials got it “net wrong.” Given the now record net short positioning of the commercials today, it wouldn’t take all that much of an exogenous event now to make that 2005 example look tame by comparison. The stakes are perhaps an order of magnitude higher today versus then.
Repeating from previous reports: A very high LCNS:TO is dangerous and usually bearish, but as we have been saying, a very high LCNS:TO does not necessarily mean the commercials are “right.” Indeed we have expected that the LCNS:TO would be quite high if and when gold would challenge the “Great Wall of Gold.” (See the two-year chart below in the charts section to see the (now defeated) Great Wall of Gold graphically.)
Silver COT: As silver fell 80-cents, or 4.6%, COT reporting Tuesday to Tuesday (from $17.50 to $16.70 on the cash market), the large commercial COMEX silver traders (LCs) reduced their collective net short positioning (LCNS) by 1,642 contracts, or 2.5%, from 66,004 to 64,362 contracts of net short exposure. The total open interest fell a larger 2,613 contracts to 132,843 COMEX 5,000-ounce contracts open, after falling just 559 contracts the week prior. So as silver fell 2.5% the LCNS fell by the same percentage.
Source for base data CFTC for LCNS, London Silver Fix for silver from LBMA until 2-26-08 then cash market
For context, the chart below compares the silver LCNS to the total number of open contracts on the COMEX, division of NYMEX (LCNS:TO). That gives us a better idea of how the commercials are positioned relative to all the COMEX traders. When compared to all the contracts open, the commercial net short positioning in silver futures actually fell slightly from 48.7% to 48.5% of all COMEX contracts open. For all practical purposes the relative LCNS was unchanged and it remained in the caution zone.
Source for base data CFTC for LCNS, London Silver Fix for silver from LBMA until 2-26-08 then cash market
While we cannot yet say that we see significant “improvement” in the silver LCNS, we do wish to mention that late week we noted action which, in the past, is consistent with more aggressive commercial short covering. Taken together with silver bouncing on three consecutive days at almost precisely the same level ($16.11 Wednesday and Thursday and $16.12 Friday) and with silver ending the week in backwardation we would be willing to attempt a new long ETF entry-sized position on Monday provided it is with a razor thin, new-trade trailing stop.
Although we would normally prefer to wait until the odds very strongly favor reentry, we believe we are seeing signs of stronger overseas demand surfacing for both gold and silver.
General Comments
This is a gold bull market until proven otherwise. In a bull market speculators have but two possible positions: Long or on the sidelines. Definitely not short, except to hedge (at least just yet).
We remain on the hunt for special situations and “vulture opportunities” via “stink bids” for obvious lack-of-liquidity, non-news-related, over-reaction sell-downs on the miners via our Vulture Bargain Hunter Method. Companies we believe have been sold down too far with longer-term high-percentage recovery possibilities, like the candidates Brien Lundin mentioned in the most recent Gold Newsletter.
One of the small uranium companies we mentioned in the last report, Forum Uranium (TSX: V.FDC), saw a small gain on extreme volume following news reports that Pinetree Capital took six million shares of a private placement for the company. What is interesting about that is that the high volume surge occurred on a delayed basis, so the cause of the very high volume day may or may not be connected to that news. Traders we correspond with speculated Friday that perhaps Forum might be the subject of a possible takeover given their large land holdings in the Athabasca and Thelon basins. We’ll see.
Quite a few of the smaller companies in our universe of former resource company guru favorites, the “little guys,” which reside in our “Vulture Bargain Hunter Shell Collection” (VBHSC) have been seeing stronger bids and an increase in volume of late. The VBHSC is loosely defined as companies that used to be the darlings of the resource company gurus – now fallen off their respective radar screens, but not ours.
Many are currently in post-crash bottom-looking consolidations and while they are still very inexpensive we don’t mind taking positions with what we call our “Vegas Money.” (Small, high-risk capital in amounts we might take on a weekend trip to Las Vegas.)
We mentioned three companies in the last full report two weeks ago. Two more that are exhibiting the kind of consolidation we like to target are Columbus Gold (TSX: V.CGT) and Paragon Minerals (TSX: V.PGR). So long as they remain in their post-crash bottom-looking consolidations (Paragon is actually attempting its first breakout), we don’t mind using good-till-cancel “stink bids” near the bottoms of those consolidations to build low-cost positions in them. Of course that requires the patience of … well, the patience of a Vulture! (Click on the names above to see our tracking charts.)
Once we have what we consider “enough” then we Vultures wait patiently until one of two events occurs. A breakout or a breakdown of the bottom-looking formation. If a breakout of the consolidation occurs, that’s our favorite time to add to the position, usually only once. (Because events seem to have changed enough to alter whatever had been holding the company back up till then.)
If a breakdown occurs, then, unless the company snaps right back into the consolidation, we admit defeat and let the market have those shares back as soon as we can.
We’ll have more about Vulture Bargain Hunting and gaming the resource company gurus in future reports. The method is not for everyone, but when it works it can very quickly affect those Vegas-money-sized high-risk bets in multiples. That’s the fun part.
Got Gold Report Charts
Below are few samples of the Got Gold Report (GGR) technical charts. Gold Newsletter subscribers enjoy access to all GGR charts and all the GGR reports, commentary and trading ideas.
End Notes
Frank Holmes, CEO of U.S. Global Investors (and a prince of a guy in person) says gold could easily advance or correct 10% just about any time. He calls that gold’s “DNA of volatility,” but remains convinced the long-term trend for the yellow metal is up.
Before the gold bull market ends, Holmes believes that gold will make a new inflation-adjusted high and suggests that it would be in excess of $2,300 per ounce in today’s dollars. “I think that’s a fair target,” Holmes said Friday, October 30.
In a TV interview with Yahoo Finance, Frank reminds us that when governments keep interest rates artificially low (to spur economic activity) it creates negative real interest rates for that country’s currency, which in turn makes gold an attractive, but “boring” asset. See Holmes’s short interview at this link.
Along those same lines, in a Friday Bloomberg article, Goldcorp founder and CEO of U.S. Gold, Rob McEwen, said he believes that gold will be $2,000 an ounce by the end of 2010. He believes the pullback underway now is “seasonal.”
Why is McEwen smiling?
U.S. Gold Corp.
Because last year, well before the crisis began, he reportedly converted all his considerable liquid cash assets out of government currencies and into physical gold metal. Nice move, Rob.
Kitco’s handy new comparison chart, which tracks the comparative performance of gold and the U.S. dollar index, suggests that Friday’s minus $1.10 action in gold can be explained as the difference between $6.20 to the downside, lost due to strength in the U.S. dollar, against $5.10 to the upside due to “predominant buying.”
For those who haven’t yet discovered Kitco’s excellent new tool, check it at this link. Friday’s closing chart of the Kitco Index is reproduced just below.
On another note, the volatility index (we follow the VXO, the original version of the VIX) snapped over 25% higher on Friday as the Big Markets took a month-end swan dive. That’s a little unsettling, as it suggests rising fear.
But if we are looking hard for a silver lining, maybe there is one we can point to on a very short-term basis. Another measure we look to for guidance is the TED spread, or the difference between LIBOR and three-month T-bills (treasury rates). Although it has moved a little higher, (up to 0.237 as of Friday, which roughly converts to 23.7 bps spread), it remains low enough to give us comfort that the banking system is, at least so far, not signaling overt stress; certainly not Armageddon like it did in 2008.
DROP Tax Hikes
And finally, we figure much of the selling in the Big Markets this past week is because so many funds have their year end on October 31. Between booking profits (to bump up bonuses), a very long and very tired liquidity-induced rally rolling over, tax-loss selling the last week of October and tax avoidance selling, the stars were finally all aligned to give long suffering bears a decent week. But if we look closely at the long-term charts of the DOW we would have to do a repeat of this past week for it to really look ominous technically.
Speaking of tax avoidance selling, we didn’t hear much about it in televised media, but we wonder how much of the fund selling that occurred this past week was motivated by profit taking ahead of the big tax increases set to take effect next year? Socialist-leaning democrats prefer to call it “reversing the Bush tax cuts,” (as if by calling it that they think the stupid voters won’t catch on to them). But what it is, of course, is a whopping big increase in the nominal income tax rates and higher capital gains taxes. Bush may have been involved in the tax cuts, but he certainly doesn’t have anything to do with raising the tax rates. We can thank our current congressional “leadership” for that.
Instead of the Democrat-preferred moniker, why don’t we call it the Dodd-Reid-Obama-Pelosi or DROP Tax Hikes of 2010? It’s appropriate because raising taxes during a financial crisis is one of the causes of the Great Depression – it caused (or at least contributed to) a big DROP in the U.S. stock markets back then, didn’t it?
Or maybe the PROD Tax Hikes, because raising taxes in a very tough economy feels a lot like a cattle prod might.
That’s it from Atlanta this week. Until next time, good luck, good trading and as always, MIND YOUR STOPS. Got gold?
The above contains opinion and commentary of the author. Each person should study the issues carefully and, as always, make their own informed decisions. Disclosure: The author and/or his family currently holds a net long position in SPDR Gold Shares, net long iShares Silver Trust, long San Juan Basin Royalty Trust (SJT), long Permian Basin Royalty Trust (PBT), long the following “Vulture Bargain Hunter Stocks” mentioned in this report or within the last three months: Timberline Resources (TLR), Paragon Minerals (PGR.V), Forum Uranium (FDC.V), Odyssey Resources (ODX.V), Radius Gold (RDU.V), Columbus Gold (CGT.V), Endeavour Financial (EDV.T), Terraco Gold (TEN.V), Hathor Uranium (HAT.V), Natcore (NXT.V) Esperanza Silver (EPZ.V), Gold Port Resources (GPO.V), Victoria Gold (VIT.V), Bravo Venture (BVG.V), Millrock Resources (MRO.V), Atna Resources (ATN.T), Riverstone Resources (RVS.V), Premium Exploration (PEM.V) and currently holds various (approximately 20) other long and short positions in mining and exploration companies. The author receives no compensation from any company mentioned in this report. To contact Gene use LLCCMAN (at) AOL (dotcom).