Great Panther Extends High Grade Gold Mineralization at its Topia Mine

Great Panther Silver (TSX: GPR) is celebrating Victoria Day in Canada (5/24/10) and Memorial Day in the United States (5/31/10) with the release of initial assay results from the Company’s 6,000 meter drill program at Topia.

The first target drilled was the gold-rich Recompensa Vein, drill highlights from which include an intersection of 89.1g/t gold, 150g/t silver, 1.67% lead, and 1.57% zinc over 0.17m (true width 0.14m) in hole ST10-100. In the most easterly hole, ST10-101, there are multiple intersections of mineralized veins, with the Recompensa Vein averaging 9.1g/t gold, 601g/t silver, 12.8% lead, and 15.3% zinc over 0.28m (true width 0.27m). To the north, in the footwall of the Recompensa Vein there are three significant intersections that are believed to be part of the Oliva Vein system. One of these returned 7.34g/t gold, 496g/t silver, 2.5% lead, and 3.17% zinc over 0.16m (true width 0.15m). To the west, the Recompensa and Oliva Veins are interpreted to merge together. The Recompensa Vein has now been extended horizontally to a strike length of approximately 500 metres and vertically by another 50-60 metres below the current mine workings. Several more drill holes have been planned to test the Recompensa / Oliva Veins in the coming months.

Presently the drill is on the La Prieta concession, purchased by Great Panther in 2009 and never before drilled, while the Company awaits assay results from drilling completed at the Don Benito, Cantarranas, El Rosario, and San Gregorio Veins. Mineral resource updates will commence on all viable areas on the completion of drilling, with the potential addition of four to five new veins to the Topia resource. Added mineral resources will play an important role in the Company’s plans to increase production 20% per year from 2010 to 2012.

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Inflation vs. Gold vs. Deflation

JOHANNESBURG - US core consumer price inflation has fallen to under 1%, the lowest annual rate recorded in 49 years, posing a dilemma of sorts for scaremongers warning of hyperinflation, blamed on “incessant printing of money” by central banks. Gold bullion, say the gold bugs, is the answer to fiat money, and the best hedge against rampant inflation.

It seems that if anything, disinflation could be the big issue for investors to fret about. The outcome over which emerges is crucial to practically all investment decisions. Economists generally agree that while a low inflation rate is generally acceptable, disinflation can be positively dangerous. The phenomenon demoralizes everyone, from central bankers to workers, who worry about whether they will soon have no pay at all.

Money Managers Continue to Like Gold Over Cash

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gold is one of the more mysterious assets in the financial markets. It’s volatile at times to the point of inducing vertigo and fans of the precious metal assert, somewhat contradictorily, its prowess as a hedge against both inflation and deflation.

It’s also been one of the best investments of the last several years, outlasting the equity bull market and performing well when so many assets have succumbed to big declines.

That’s why it’s become a key component among the strategies of the world’s largest money managers even as it streaks to never before seen heights of roughly $1,250 an ounce hit last week.

Is Gold the Next Bubble?

It’s been the amazing, runaway boom of the past decade. If you’d put your money into gold at the lows about 10 years ago, you’d have made a nearly 400% return. That’s left pretty much everything else—stocks, China, let alone housing—in the dust.

But with gold now trading near record highs, the big $1,200-an-ounce question is obvious.

Echo Therapeutics Analyst Update Report

In an analyst update report, LifeTech Capital maintained its Strong Speculative Buy rating on Echo Therapeutics (OTCBB: ECTE) with a 12-18 month price target of $4.50.  Below please find highlights from the report, a complete copy of which is available here.

• Echo’s Prelue SkinPrep system (a component of the Symphony system) began clinical trials on April 27, 2010 by partner Ferndale Pharma Group, which licensed Prelue for use with topical lidocaine.  A 510(k) clearance with a U.S. launch is possible by Q4 2010.  Ferndale has guaranteed a minimum royalty of $12.6 million to Echo.
• Echo’s Symphony transdermal continuous glucose monitor (tCGM) system is a unique needle-free, wireless system and is set to begin a pivotal clinical trial in ICU/Critical Care patients in Q4 2010 (following a final pilot trial).  We believe this puts Echo ahead of the curve with respect to toughter FDA standards for hospital use.
• On August 13, 2009, the FDA issued a new warning that hospitals should not use GDH-PQQ glucose testing strips and monitors as they cannot distinguish between glucose and non-glucose sugars resulting in potentially fatal hypoglycemia due to falsely elevated glucose readings.  The glucose test strips covered by the FDA public health warning are manufactured by Roche Diagnostics, Abbot Diabetes Care, and Home Diagnostics.
• FDA Commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg’s letter on June 24, 2009, with CDRH analysis, to the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (and published by The New York Times on July 19th) signaled a new FDA stance to set tougher accuracy goals for glucose meters used in the hospital settiong.  The CDRH analysis suggests that home-use glucose monitors, with up to 20% allowable error rates, are not suitable for ICU/critical care patient monitoring.  The unusual results in the NICE-SUGAR trial have triggered the FDA to require development of glucose monitors more suitable for professional in-hospital use.

Matt Badiali: Smart Money Holds Gold and Buys Majors

As he watches the price of gold march inexorably toward $2,000 (and beyond), and keeps an eye on developments in the Western world, S&A Resource Report Editor Matt Badiali tells Gold Report readers in this exclusive interview that it’s time to make space in the safe for gold. That’s gold to hold, preferably to pass on to one’s heirs, but if need be to pay for one’s meat and potatoes. As for investments in these troubled times, he’s hot about investors adding shares of the booming senior gold mining stocks to their portfolios because “we’re going to see them really soar.”

The Gold Report: A recent issue of Stansberry Digest addressed how the European bailout will influence the U.S. dollar—or, as some would put it, the U.S. dollar implosion. How do the paper currency issues afoot in Europe set up gold for a bull run?

Matt Badiali: First of all, if you think of the Fed as a company, they can print as many shares in the form of money as they want, but the underlying value of the whole company doesn’t change. So that means the value of every share that they print or every dollar that they print has to get smaller to reflect its portion of the whole. At least with a share, you know that you own a piece of a company. It used to be that every dollar issued was backed up; you could take it in and you could get something—like gold or silver—for it. Paper currencies now are really IOUs that aren’t backed by anything. There’s really not much holding them up.

Legendary Investor, Seth Klarman, Is More Worried Than Ever

Seth Klarman is worth listening to, especially when markets go mad.

Mr. Klarman is president of the Baupost Group, an investment firm in Boston that manages $22 billion. His three private partnerships have returned an annual average of around 19% since inception in 1983—and nearly 17% annually over the past decade, as stocks went nowhere.

To measure Mr. Klarman’s importance as an investor, you need only see the value his rivals place upon his words. You could have earned at least a 20% average annual return since 1991—better than twice the performance of the market—merely by buying and holding Mr. Klarman’s book, “Margin of Safety”: Published that year at a cover price of $25, hard copies now fetch up to $2,400.

Ken Gerbino: Gold and Greece – Not What You Think

BEVERLY HILLS - There is so much hysteria in the hard money camp on Greece and the European Union that one had better start looking at the facts otherwise it could cost you a lot of money.

Before discussing the Euro, Greece and Gold, let me go over some important concepts:

The economic problems faced by all countries are rooted in paper money systems. In fact, paper money systems are one of the root causes of socialism and socialist thought. Paper money also gives capitalism a bad name. Right now the temporary solutions from bail-outs and printing money will change the short and medium term outlook for many investments. These changes must be analyzed properly. The long term will always get worse from these bail out policies, but making money in the markets means having the good sense not to get carried away by hysteria from the press and gold coin shops (although everyone should buy some gold and silver coins).

BMO Reckons Silver Will Outperform This Year

RENO, NV - BMO Research forecasts silver to average US$18.72/oz this year, $20/oz in 2011 and decline to $18/oz in 2012, with the long-term silver price projected to average $14/oz.

10 Gold Charts Commercial Investment Firms Never Want Clients to See

Here are 10 gold charts that every global commercial investment firm is terrified to show their clients. When priced in ounces of gold, major western stock market indexes have performed horribly over the last 8 ½ years. Since, 2002, the US S&P 500 has lost a whopping 78% of its value. The Australia ASX All Ordinaries Composite (similar to the US S&P 500 index) and the UK FTSE indexes have not fared much better, respectively declining 70% and 77% in value. So despite all the hoopla about record runs in global stock market indexes in 2009, the great bubble machines operated by Central Banks have guaranteed that it may take another 20 or 30 additional years before investors break even in nearly every developed stock market index and even some emerging stock market indexes when the returns of these indexes are measured in gold.

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