We start with this quote from David Cameron, the British Prime Minister made at the conclusion of the latest in European Summit Meetings.

Well, it was a good meeting in that there was complete agreement that dealing with deficits and getting growth are not alternatives, they go together, you need to do one in order to get the other.

We are stunned. Its taken 22 of these high level meetings to agree that they need growth! The mental anguish is unbearable,

I've read articles from more than one analyst claiming that gold stocks are down on low volume, implying there's a lack of interest in precious metals. While on the surface that seems like an obvious statement, their point is that most of the recent volume has been coming from sellers and thus exaggerating the recent decline.

I decided to test this hypothesis, because if correct, it has investment implications, starting with the fact that at some point you run out of sellers; and if and when buyers return, the ensuing rise could be spectacular.

I also wanted to compare volume now to the waterfall decline in 2008. If volume is starting to spike now like it did then, it might give us some additional clues about our current environment and what to expect going forward.

So let's take a look. The following chart shows the average weekly volume of the 10 largest gold producers that trade in North America, along with the daily price movements of GDX, the Gold Miners Index.

(Click on image to enlarge)

While the number of shares trading hands every day fluctuates a great deal, the first thing that jumps out is that the current correction in gold is indeed occurring on relatively low volume.

The eurozone debt crisis has now morphed into a new and deadly stage, with fears that the region could be about to witness full-scale bank runs.

Last week, investors were rattled by reports that Greeks had withdrawn €5 billion ($US6.4 billion) from the country’s banks after elections held on May 6 failed to produce a government. They were also unsettled by a report in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that customers had withdrawn more €1 billion from the ailing Bankia, which had recently been partly nationalised by the Spanish government. Even though Madrid subsequently denied the report,

In an interview with Louis James, John Hathaway discusses the US's economic outlook and why he's delighted by the current bearish sentiment toward gold.

[To be a successful speculator, one must be willing to go against the mainstream investment trends, as John is. There's no better way to get a primer on contrarian investing than by sitting in on the recently concluded Casey Research Recovery Reality Check Summit – and you can do that by ordering the Summit Audio Collection today. Every presentation, every chart and graph, and every actionable investment tip can be yours, in either the instantly available MP3 files, or in CD format.]

For many years now, a meme has been floating around that the prices of gold and silver are being manipulated, which is to say suppressed, by various powers of darkness. This is not an unreasonable assertion. After all, the last thing the monetary powers-that-be want is to see is the price of gold skyrocketing. That would serve as an alarm bell, possibly panicking people all over the world, telling them to get out of the dollar. It's assumed, by those who believe in the theory, that the US Treasury is behind the suppression scheme, in complicity with a half-dozen or so large bullion banks that regularly trade in the metals.

The assertion is bolstered by the fact that governments in general, and the US in particular, are always intervening in all kinds of markets. They try to control the price of wheat and corn with various USDA programs. They manifestly manipulate the price of credit (interest rates), now keeping it as low as possible to stave off financial collapse. And they may well be active, through the so-called Plunge Protection Team, in propping up the stock market. They were largely responsible for the boom in property, through numerous programs and parastatals like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Why, therefore, shouldn't they also be involved in the monetary metals?

The following is a video of Eric Sprott being interviewed on CNBC, hes holding firm with his conviction that gold prices will hit $2000/oz in 2012. He also throws in some very interesting data points or metrics in support of his conclusion.

Kevin gets stuck into gold miners around the 6^th minute of this interview with Daniela Carbone, refers to idiot management among other reasons for not owning the stocks.

In an interview with Louis James, Rick Rule provides an excellent summary of what contrarian speculation investment is and makes a powerful case that the current metals climate means gold stocks are the play to make

[If you weren't present at this timely summit, you can still learn the details of Rick's current investment strategy, plus much, much more. Get the actionable advice and economic perspectives and insights of 31 financial luminaries to make sure you don't miss the opportunities ahead.]

Jim Sinclair

The following is a missive that we received from Jim Sinclair today, who is the host of a web site called Jim Sinclair's MineSet in our humble opinion its well worth the time spent on reading what he has to say. The above link will take to his site and his updates via email are free, so you have nothing to lose by signing up for them.

My Dear Extended Family,

Today has been interesting in a perverse way. I have heard from every gold short who knows my name. I have heard from every weak gold holder that knows my name yelling for help. This time I cannot answer all the incoming communications. Nobody could.

A month ago I got over 3500 incoming emails in less than three hours.

The Gold Report: What does your new partnership with Casey Research mean for investors going forward?

John Mauldin: We're creating a joint venture, Mauldin Economics, which will have its own brand and publications. We'll be starting out with a fixed-income letter. Casey Research and Mauldin Economics will be sister companies. It's not so much a partnership with Casey as it's a partnership with the team that runs Casey.

There will be a number of other letters, too. Editors and writers whom I like and have worked with will be writing rather than me. My personal letter will still always go out Friday. I'll still be doing Outside the Box and some other services.