Silver

Theo Stromer published a pictorial on CNN looking at cooperative mining in Bolivia, as well as the damage caused to the environment and the miners themselves in a region that lacks modern safeguards.

The company is sticking to plans to spend $680 million this year including ramping up production at its Noche Buena mine. The firm has five operating mines and this year forecasts 41 million ounces of silver produced and 460,000 ounces of gold.

This week we have meetings involving the ECB and the Federal Reserve followed by the job numbers on Friday. These meetings, summits, announcements have an effect on the investment community in that investment funds tend to stay on the sidelines until the direction of the markets becomes clear.

US Silver's (TSX-V:USA) board of directors has spurned an unsolicited all-cash take-over bid from Hecla Mining Company (NYSE:HL) and unanimously recommended that shareholders reject the offer by instead voting for the combination of US Silver with RX Gold (TSX-V:RXE).

A report indicating weak sentiment on the part of Australian mining companies would appear to substantiate warnings that Australia's flourishing resources sector is headed for a slowdown.

Despite being in a bull market for the past decade, precious metals are still widely under-owned by historical standards. The percentage of wealth held in gold and silver today fails in comparison to the last bull market thirty years ago.

Eric Sprott announced that his company has $200 million committed to his self-named Sprott Physical Silver Trust, and the announcement will help silver, which has been in the "doldrums."

BHP's board was to make a decision on the $30 billion project this year, but a newspaper report over the weekend said a decision will not be made until 2014 and BHP's uranium division "confirmed the deferral and said a recruitment freeze was now in place".

Silver Wheaton will be paying less than $4 an ounce to take the precious metal of Barrick's hands.