For those interested in silver Ed Steer had some pretty interesting commentary today.

This is the excerpt that caught my eye:  (from Ed Steers, gold and silver daily)

"While on the subject of how much silver the U.S. Mint is using, reader T.B. did some heavy lifting on our behalf over the weekend...and figured out from the published mint production data, that along with the 22,303,500 silver eagles produced up to June 30th, the mint used an additional 3.1 million ounces of silver producing other silver commemoratives during the first half of the year.  If this keeps up, the U.S. Mint will go through 50,000 silver good delivery bars this year.  That's about 20% more than all the silver mined in the U.S.A. in an entire year."

That is just the US mint, not counting any of the smaller mints like Northwest Territorial Mint.

When I read this it reminded me of the recent articles about both China and India demand for silver up double digit gains over last year. The fact that various bullion dealers have been reporting as many dollars being invested in silver as in gold through their retail shops is also a very bullish indicator since there is significantly less above ground, available for investment, silver stocks in the world than gold.

Have I mentioned lately, I like silver?

John