As per usual lately, there was little action in gold in Far East trading on Friday. The ‘top’…such as it was…was at the London a.m. fix. From there, it was downhill all the way…with the real damage coming on the Comex open…again, as per usual. The bottom was in shortly after the London close. From there, a respectable rally cut the losses on the day to only eleven bucks. The silver chart was similar, but this precious metal made it all the way back to virtually unchanged from its inter-day low yesterday. However, the HUI managed to finish slightly positive on the day.

Gold open interest on Thursday fell another 891 contracts to 263,295. Silver o.i. actually rose 794 contracts to 83,297.

The Commitment of Traders report was a huge surprise…and not what I was expecting at all. After the monster price drops on Monday and all the other declines in

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The Plunge Protection Team…also known as the “Insider Bankster Group Joined at the Hip to Hank Paulson”…(IBGJHHP)…is starting to come under scrutiny.

Pretty interesting stuff.

Our friend Chris Powell at GATA just posted the following article:

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Suspicions about Plunge Protection Team break onto CNBC Submitted by cpowell on Wed, 2008-11-19 03:01. Section: Daily Dispatches

9:58p ET Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Cable television network CNBC today could not escape a discussion of the possibility that the U.S. government has been intervening in the stock market to prop it up at crucial moments. The discussion occurred because the issue was pressed by a guest on the network’s morning program — Scott Nations, president of Fortress Trading in Chicago.

Nations could offer little more than his suspicions, but the utter lack of curiosity shown by the other market analysts on the program was deplorable. They rejected the possibility out of hand when plainly they

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Short-term aid, long-term assistance. According to the IHT, this sums up Barack Obama’s attitude toward the government’s role in the US auto industry. Obama is pushing President Bush to use some of the $700 billion bailout package to prop up GM (NYSE:GM).

- The wrangling between Bush and Obama comes in the wake of news that GM’s shares tumbled to 1946 prices, closing down 23% to $3.36, as analysts downgraded the stock on worries it would soon run out of cash and shareholders would be wiped out by any federal bailout.

- GM has 263,000 workers worldwide. If it does go under, that’s a hell of a lot of people joining dole queues.

- This, of course, would have disastrous consequences in the US, where unemployment rates are spiraling. If you take the U6 count of unemployed, which includes “marginally attached” workers and those who are

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John DevaneyJohn Devaney | Hedge Fund ManagerA few days ago I read an odd article within the New York post on John Devaney and how he was supposedly booed off of stage at a recent conference. Click here to read this article now. This seemed far fetched but I figured anything could happen in today's market environment. Here is an excerpt:Devaney, who made no friends after his United Capital Markets' flame-out left investors with zero payout, began to speak during a Monday morning discussion at the conference but soon began a rant on why the markets were wrong and he was right.The crowd began to boo and the microphone was taken away from him, according to several spies in attendance. This morning Mr. Davaney is claiming that this story has been completely fabricated by a ...