Endeavour Silver (AMEX:EXK) Output Up 15 Percent for Quarter

Endeavour Silver (AMEX:EXK) reported silver production was up for the sixth year in a row, with silver production for the latest quarter rising 15 percent and gold production 6 percent.

Total silver ounces mined by Endeavor for their latest quarter was 895,931 ounce, while gold production reached 4,871 ounces for the fourth quarter.

The latest figure is a record quarterly production result for silver by Endeavor.

For the year, silver production increased to 3.3 million ounces, a 26 percent gain over 2009.

Gold production on the year totaled 17,713 ounces, an uptick of 33 percent.

Endeavor said the record production total was from the expansion at their Guanacevi and Guanajuato mines in Mexico.

It appears the production projection for 2011 will be lowered when the company communicates it in the middle of January.

Endeavour closed Friday at $6.54, up $0.07, or 1.08 percent.

Will Potential Gold Bubble End up Being a Silver Rally?

While I don't think a gold bubble is coming any time soon, as there are too many elements involved to support the ongoing increase in the price of gold unrelated to the herd mentality, which will as some time kick in, but probably not for a few years, if not more, depending on the economy and actions of central banks around the world.

What that means for silver investing is the incredible heights gold will probably reach will start to weigh on a large number of investors who simply can't afford to invest in it any longer, or at least perceive they can't.

That inevitably leads to a run on silver from an investment perspective, and should drive the price of silver up to astronomical levels, although that will take time.

Of course silver is driven by industrial use as well, which will also continue to drive up the price of silver because existing mines won't be able to keep up with supply.

Add these two scenarios together and you see a perfect storm for silver prices to rise, and silver has been already making the beginning of a number of major moves reinforcing its coming surge.

Coeur D'Alene (NYSE:CDE), Other Miners, Considered Potential Takeover Targets

With the failure of giant mining companies to secure mergers and acquisitions recently, it seems miners like Coeur d'Alene Mines Corporation (NYSE:CDE) are considered as major acquisition targets in an industry that wants to grow through acquisition, as organic growth is getting more difficult because of limited resources.

RBC has taken aim at Coeur d'Alene Mines, upgrading them from "Underperform" to "Sector Perform," and we should see a number of these types of upgrades happening with the smaller miners who will help with expansion, but not at the cost of tightening and more expensive credit.

Coeur d'Alene Mines, based in Idaho, mines primarily for gold and silver, but also has secondary metal production such as zinc and lead.

The miner closed Friday at $23.48, increasing by $1.26, or 5.67 percent. RBC raised their price target on them from $22 to $27.

Coeur d'Alene Mines (NYSE:CDE) Metals Production Soars

Coeur d'Alene Mines (NYSE:CDE) announced last week that metal sales for the company has skyrocketed by 94 percent last quarter, generating an increase in operating cash flow of 308 percent as a result.

The Palmarejo mine in the Chihuahua State of Mexico led the company's increase in gold production for the quarter, gaining from 3,791 ounces in 2009 in the same quarter, to 25,792 ounces in the first quarter in 2010. Palmarejo generated 22,577 ounces of that.

In its first year full year of operation, Palmarejo is expected to produce about 109,000 ounces of gold.

Silver production was down slightly in the first quarter, dropping from 3,533,233 ounces in 2009 to 3,432,157 ounces this year.

Coeur d'Alene had a net loss of $8.02 million or a loss of ten cents a share. Last year in the same quarter the company had earnings of $6.06 million or 10 cents a share.

The losses included the retirement of $7.9 million in debt, and fair value adjustments of $4.3 million, among other things.

Coeur d'Alene CEO Dennis Wheeler said in a news release that the company is positioned to generate record metal sales and cash flows for its shareholders, based on production starting in July at Kensington, one of three "new, large long-life mines."

Pan American Silver (TSE:PAA) Production Update

Pan American Silver (TSE:PAA) released an update of its silver and gold production for the latest quarter,

Gold production increased to 27,896 ounces, a nice 34 percent rise over the same quarter last year.

Silver production surged to 5.5 million ounces, an increase of 13 percent over the same quarter in 2009.

So far for the year, silver production is about 3 percent behind estimates for 2010 for the first quarter, while gold production is up by close to 8,000 ounces.

Gold production was driven largely from the better than expected results from the Manantial Espejo mine in Argentina. Lower cash costs were also related to better prices of gold than projected.

For silver, production is expected to pick up and estimates of 23.4 million ounces should be achieved for the year, said the company.

Silver Manipulated to Protect Dollar?

Silver Short Squeeze Could Be Imminent
PR Newswire

FORT LEE, N.J., April 3

FORT LEE, N.J., April 3 /PRNewswire/ — The National Inflation Association today issued a silver update to its http://inflation.us members:

On December 11th, 2009 NIA declared silver the best investment for the next decade. In our December 11th article, we said that it wasn't a coincidence that the very day Bear Stearns failed was the same day silver reached its multi-decade high of over $21 per ounce. We went on to say, "The reason why we believe the Federal Reserve was so eager to orchestrate a bailout of Bear Stearns, is because Bear Stearns was on the verge of being forced to cover their silver short position."

JP Morgan took over the concentrated short position in silver from Bear Stearns and gained complete control over the paper price of silver. Within weeks, JP Morgan was able to manipulate the price of silver down to below $9 per ounce. NIA believes they were able to drive the price of silver down through "naked short selling," selling paper silver that is unbacked by physical silver.

On February 5th, we witnessed another sharp decline in silver prices, which NIA described on February 7th as being "just a temporary wash out, before a huge surge in silver prices later in 2010." Since then, silver prices have rebounded by 18%. The temporary wash out that occurred on February 5th was predicted by independent metals trader Andrew Maguire, who came out this week exposing the fraud that is taking place in the paper silver market.

On February 3rd, Andrew Maguire wrote Eliud Ramirez, a senior investigator for the CFTC's Enforcement Division, giving him the "heads up" for a "manipulative event" signaled for February 5th. He warned the CFTC that JP Morgan was about to manipulate down the price of silver after the release of non-farm payroll data on February 5th. Andrew said that the takedown would happen regardless of if employment was better or worse than expected and the price of silver would be flushed to below $15 per ounce. During the next couple of days, silver was crushed from $16.17 per ounce down to a low of $14.62 per ounce.

Despite all of the evidence given by Andrew Maguire to the CFTC of gold and silver manipulation, Andrew wasn't allowed to speak at last week's CFTC hearing on limiting gold and silver positions held by banks like JP Morgan. Bill Murphy of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) was allowed to speak (within a five-minute time constraint) and present some of Andrew Maguire's evidence, but right when his presentation began there was a technical failure of the live television broadcast, which was mysteriously fixed as soon as he was done speaking. Bill Murphy was scheduled for several mainstream media television interviews after the CFTC hearings, but they were all abruptly cancelled at once.

A couple of days after the CFTC meeting, Andrew Maguire and his wife were involved in a bizarre hit-and-run car accident in London where a second car coming out of a side street struck their vehicle, which resulted in a police chase using helicopters and patrol cars before the suspect was nabbed. Andrew and his wife were released from the hospital with minor injuries. (NIA does not believe in conspiracy theories but when you consider that this is a potential multi-trillion dollar fraud that could bring down the world's financial system, it really makes you think.)

The silver market provides a window into what is happening in the gold market. Because the silver market is very small and its short position is so concentrated, its price is easier to manipulate than gold, but the same manipulation is taking place in gold on a much larger but less noticeable scale. In our opinion, the CFTC is under pressure not to do anything about the manipulation because the lower gold and silver prices are, the stronger the U.S. dollar appears to be. If we saw an explosion to the upside in gold and silver prices, it would result in a complete loss of confidence in the U.S. dollar.

NIA believes the precious metals markets are currently being artificially suppressed by paper gold and silver that doesn't physically exist. At last week's CFTC hearings, Jeffrey Christian of the CPM Group admitted that banks have leveraged their physical bullion by 100 to 1. This means for every 100 ounces of paper gold/silver that trade, there could be as little as 1 ounce of physical gold/silver in the vaults backing it. However, Mr. Christian sees no problem with this because he says "it has been persistently that way for decades" and there are "any number of mechanisms allowing for cash settlements."

What Mr. Christian fails to realize is, most investors around the world holding paper gold/silver believe they own physical gold/silver. There will come a time when these investors don't want cash settlements in U.S. dollars, but they will want the physical precious metals themselves. When investors around the globe eventually call for physical delivery of their precious metals, NIA believes it will result in the biggest short squeeze in the history of all commodities.

The physical silver market is now more tight than ever before. In the first quarter of 2010, the U.S. mint sold 9,023,500 American Silver Eagles, the most since the coin debuted in 1986 and up from 8,299,000 sold in the fourth quarter of 2009. All U.S. silver mines combined are currently producing only 40 million ounces of silver annually. This means the U.S. needs to use almost all of its silver production just to keep up with the demand for American Silver Eagle coins.

Silver closed this week at a 10-week high of $17.89 per ounce and a major short squeeze to the upside could be imminent. With the spotlight now on JP Morgan, NIA believes they will be less likely to naked short silver at these levels and manipulate the price down like in February. With the mainstream media blackout, it is important for NIA members to work harder than ever to spread the word and help expose what could be the largest fraud in the history of the world.

To receive NIA's latest updates about inflation and the economy, sign-up for the free NIA newsletter at: http://inflation.us

About us:

The National Inflation Association is an organization that is dedicated to preparing Americans for hyperinflation. The NIA offers free membership at http://www.inflation.us and provides its members with articles about the economy and inflation, news stories, important charts not shown by the mainstream media; YouTube videos featuring Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and others; and profiles of gold, silver, and agriculture companies that we believe could prosper in an inflationary environment.

Contact: Gerard Adams, 1-888-99-NIA US (1888-996-4287), editor@inflation.us

SOURCE National Inflation Association

Contact
Gerard Adams, +1-888-99-NIA US (+1-888-996-4287), editor@inflation.us

Minefinders (TSE:MFL) Has Upside Potential

Minefinders Future Prospects

Minefinders (TSE:MFL) has been experience increased scrutiny after turning their first quarterly profit, based on extracting gold and silver from the Dolores mine in Mexico.

One positive looking ahead for the company is it's trading near the level before the turned profitable and constructed a road to the Dolores mining project.

Some wonder why it isn't increasing in share price because they are now profitable and seemingly have worked through the challenges of the start-up. The answer could be investors simply haven't heard that much about them, or aren't quiet sure they are ready for the big time.

I think if their next quarter is also profitable, they will get a long look from potential investors.

The company is also free now to pursue higher grades of gold and silver, which should generate better revenue and profits.

There is the thought of building a mill to increase production of higher-grade silver, which could be another positive step toward long-term profitability, although it could cut into profits over the short haul.

The mine has an estimated life of 15 years, and the addition of a mill could extend or shorten it, depending on whether there are more resources added because of the mill, or it could shorten it because of improved and quicker processing.

Dolores is located close to Chihuahua, Mexico.