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Rick was recently a guest on The Financial Survival Network radio program. In this wide-ranging interview, he discusses gold, silver, the dollar’s undeserved safe-haven status, Europe’s crisis, the bogus dollar-swap arrangement and the frightening global geopolitical scene.

Yesterday I published Phil Calderone's still-bullish take on Hecla.  Below is an interesting way to play the stock from my friend Zane Binder.  This is presented caveat emptor, without endorsement or further comment. "Have been researching Hecla and there are many ways to play it. The main question is will they be profitable when their silver production falls from nine to seven million ounces. On top of this one must consider what it will cost to clean up the mess at the closed mine. It'll be closed for the rest of the year, allegedly, but why is only a guesstimate. Worse, things like this often take more than the originally foreseen time. Keep this in mind as you read this (and I'd guess that Hecla will sue the Feds to reopen that worthless pit if the mine can be cleaned up sooner. And will Hecla be fined? Unknown ...) "Anyway, there are many ways to play. First, Hecla has a Series B cumulative convertible preferred (the key word is cumulative) selling for (and redeemable at) $50, it's selling for $53). It can also be converted any time for $15.55 a share. It pays $3.50. If Hecla has to chop off its common and preferred dividends it's a good bet the preferred owners (it's cumulative) will get paid sometime down the road. So far the preferred isn't suffering like the common. If it does tank this will be a decent play (and if it doesn't it's still a halfway decent speculation). "Secondly, the common is amenable to various bear spreads BUT that big gap down is dangerous. The market hates a vacuum and I expect at some point that gap down will be "filled." Beware ... but a short term spread, I believe, may be another, but risky, way to go. "Third, just buying a few calls

[There was some discussion in the chat room this morning concerning Hecla's steep plunge.  The closure of the firm's Lucky Friday mine by regulators has created an excellent buying opportunity, says our friend Phil Calderone.  He spells out the reasons below. Please note that from a Hidden Pivot standpoint, the stock looks like it has further to fall.  The low so far on this morning's nasty gap was 4.25, but HL could fall to as low as 3.72 before reaching hidden support. RA] The oft quoted saying, referring to the Chinese symbol being the same for crises and opportunity, has indeed provided such an opportunity. The single biggest fear for investors in legitimate mining companies (i.e., where the mineral actually exists) is an accident that temporarily halts production. Such an occurrence happened to HL's Lucky Friday mine in December. Today, the company announced that the government regulators are making them keep the mine closed for the rest of this year to repair the damage and make the facility safe to reopen. Naturally, the stock is getting crushed. This is one of the major reasons why I have repeatedly recommended 90% of one's assets be invested in CEF (no mining risk) and only the rest be considered for a speculative trade in HL. The opportunity is that HL still expects to produce 7 million ounces of silver in 2012 versus its earlier projections of 9 to 9.5 million ounces before this development. The silver in the ground doesn't disappear like an oil spill. It is still there. It will cost more to bring out with the added expense of cleaning up and repairing the facility, but their production cost of about one dollar an ounce is insignificant to the price of silver. So, anyone who hasn't bought HL before, gets a

Here's the latest Auerbach & Grayson report from our globetrotting friend Jonathan Auerbach, who searches the world for ground-floor investment opportunities that his colleagues have largely shunned or overlooked: As of January 1, Nigeria has abolished their long-standing fuel subsidies with the result that gas at the pump immediately costs N138-43/liter (~$3.32/gal) from N65/liter (~$1.54/gal). While your evening news may show massive protests along with other local hysteria, take a walk here with us to assess the bottom-line of this critical free-market transformation which will be highly beneficial economically to sub-Sahara's largest economy to be. Just let this sink in...the value of the fuel subsidy was equal to 25% of the annual Nigerian Federal Budget! Its removal now provides significant private-sector incentives to develop up and down stream projects in the energy sector. It clearly will provide reallocation of government revenues to massive infrastructure and residential shortages. Our local partner CSL (soon to release a comprehensive impact piece on this event) see the event as currently FX neutral but later strengthening based on experiences from similar events in other emerging markets (Indonesia and Iran) where the balance of payments was positively impacted by the removal of incentives to import dodgy products in order to collect subsidies. Bottom line: This is going to have magnificent impact on a country where government is truly making great strides on empowering the private sector. You had better have Nigeria on your radar screen and do not lose sight of their impact on the rest of the continent. Yes, that includes Egypt.

Early Friday morning, on the last trading day of the year, we took a look at some favorites, including Comex gold and silver, coffee futures, the E-Mini S&P and the Junior Gold Miner ETF (GDXJ). If you missed the session, you can review the entire 75 minutes of it on this video at your leisure.

To prepare for the New Year, we looked at the charts for the S&P index, gold, silver, T-Bond futures, the euro and the dollar Friday morning. Some of the conclusions will surprise you, and that’s why we are making this recording available to all. The session concludes with a Q&A period during which questions from some of the 150 who attended were answered. The entire recording runs two hours, but stay as long as you like, or fast-forward to the juicy parts.

Our good friends at Auerbach & Grayson are out with a storm warning for stocks and other risky assets in the first quarter.  The dollar, on the other hand, is in a strong primary bull trend that should see significantly higher valuations in the months ahead, according to Richard Ross, A&G's global technical strategist.  Click here for the full 27-page report.

With the eyes of the world on Europe's slow-motion train wreck, is it possible that MF Global, whose troubles were initially spun as an eentsy-weentsy $4B fender-bender, will turn out to be the Black Swan?  The bankrupt broker's saga has taken a fascinating new turn with news this weekend that the trustee plans to seize -- and liquidate -- gold and silver held for customers by MF Global.  Click here for the full story at Jesse's Cafe Americain.

Here's a fascinating item just in from Rick's Picks forum regular Roger Erickson: 3:26 PM Gold leasing rates are at record lows, driven down by French and Italian banks lending the metal in exchange for needed greenbacks. Tuesday's rate of -0.57% suggests a bank would actually have to pay for the privilege of lending its gold for dollars. A comment by 'Youngman': "Double HMMMM..this is why the price of gold and silver are down...you will never know how many times they have loaned one bar to how many entities...Probably in the 100´s....as the bank knows no one will take possession...talk about a scam.."