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Gold has traded in a range of $1,530 to $1,547 so far today…as of 8:50 am Pacific, the yellow metal is down $8 an ounce at $1,537…Silver is also off its lows of the day, trading at $36.56 (down 58 cents)…crude oil has reversed and is now up $1.54 a barrel at $100.63… OPEC talks broke off this morning without an agreement to raise output after Saudi Arabia failed to convince the cartel to lift production…Secretary General Abdullah El-Badri said the effective decision was no change in policy and that OPEC hoped to meet again in three months’ time…Gulf Arab delegates said Iran, Venezuela and Algeria refused to consider an output increase…non-Gulf delegates said Saudi Arabia had proposed an increase on top of April supplies that was too high for them to contemplate…yesterday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected world oil consumption would rise by 1.7 million barrels per day to 88.43 million bpd in the second half of this year…the latest monthly report is up 300,000 bpd from its growth forecast in May when the agency had actually cut its oil demand outlook…the U.S. Dollar Index is up nearly one-third of a point to 73.94…speaking at a banking conference in Atlanta yesterday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the U.S. economy had suffered a “loss of momentum” but that he still expected growth to pick up again…the Fed will no doubt be keeping a very close eye on what develops in Congress with regard to fiscal policy and the debt situation…what was unthinkable just a few months ago is seeping into the Republican mainstream, that a brief U.S. default might be an acceptable price to pay if it forces the White House and Democrats to deal with runaway spending…an increasing number of Republicans do not believe the Obama administration’s dire predictions of economic “catastrophe” if the debt limit is not increased…they argue a period of technical default can be managed without plunging markets into chaos…establishment Republicans including Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor who announced his presidential candidacy last month, are backing a short-term default if it leads to deep, immediate spending cuts…Canadian David Frum, National Post columnist, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and a Republican advocate for raising the debt limit, is quoted this morning as saying, “I have yet to meet one Republican who actually says a failure to raise the debt limit scares them…it is deeply, deeply troubling the number of Republicans I now talk to – and I include the mainstream – who think a technical default is manageable”…the CDNX is down for the eighth straight day and appears to want to test its May low of 1957 which wouldn’t be such a bad thing…volumes are low, sentiment is bearish and that’s when huge profits are born for those with nerves of steel who can find some bargains – and there are bargains out there…as of 8:50 am Pacific, the Index is off 29 points at 1975 but this is no time to panic or throw good stocks overboard in our view…Gold Bullion Development (GBB, TSX-V) came out with news this morning on its Castle Silver Mine Property near Cobalt, Ontario…GBB has completed a 43-101 report on the property and drilling, which is still ongoing, has intersected several significant vein structures…GBB is in the process of spinning out the Castle asset into a separate publicly-traded company but no updated timeline was given on that in this morning’s release…the stock is up a penny-and-a-half at 47  cents after falling as low as 44.5 cents…Silver Quest Resources (SQI, TSX-V), which we warned was in technically overbought territory when it was trading slightly above $1, is off another 6 pennies to 89 cents this morning…previous resistance in the low 80’s should provide strong support – SQI is a strong play given its 25% interest in the northern portion of the Blackwater deposit and its presence in the Yukon where it has just started a major exploration program…a couple of other situations to watch…Golden Predator (GPD, TSX-V) is a company with excellent prospects in the Yukon…GPD is off a nickel at $1.00…it has been as low as 97 cents this morning, just above its 100-day moving average (SMA) which has been rising and providing strong support over the last nine months…Visible Gold Mines (VGD, TSX-V) is off half a penny at 23 cents, giving it a market cap of only $11 million…VGD is drilling aggressively in northwestern Quebec and has approximately $7 million in the bank…the company’s Joutel Project, a significant former producer of Gold and Silver, covers nearly 500 square miles and will be the major focus of the company’s exploration in the second half of this year…with a strong geological team, VGD is well positioned for success…the company is drilling at least 40,000 metres this year, so it’s hard to imagine they won’t generate excitement at some point…in the non-resource area, iSign Media Solutions (ISD, TSX-V) continues to shine…the stock has a terrific looking chart (far from overbought at the moment) and ISD is up another 2 pennies at 63 cents, bucking the overall market weakness…those with a stomach for volatility and risk may wish to consider Intertainment Media Inc. (INT, TSX-V) which has been hammered hard to the point of being very oversold from a technical perspective…shorts have been attacking the stock and at some point they will have to cover…INT is down another 12 cents to 73 cents on nearly 7 million CDNX shares…