The US employment numbers came out this morning, and they were disappointing. But disappointing does not begin to describe the situation I read about today in Europe. I have just finished up with my conference in Carlsbad, California and am getting back to the room late. I have to get up in a few hours (4 AM is rather obscene) to fly to Tulsa to see my daughter graduate from university, but wanted to drop you a note as I normally do on Friday night. But given the time and the need for some sleep, tonight I will draw your attention to the writing of a few friends and some of the more interesting charts I saw at the conference. It will be a shorter letter than usual, but we will uncover a few real nuggets; and next week I will be back to a more normal writing schedule.

On May 22 I will be doing a webinar with my conference co-host, Jon Sundt of Altegris Investments, where we will talk about what we heard at the conference and some of the material I covered in my speech. This webinar will be a great way for those not able to attend the SIC conference to get a sense of its scope and depth. Because of the nature of the material, and due to SEC regulations, we will need to limit the webinar to accredited investors. If you have already registered at my Accredited Investor website, you should be getting an invitation. If you have not registered and would like to listen in, you can go to www.mauldincircle.com/ and sign up. The call will be at 11 AM Central Time. (In this regard, I am president and a registered representative of Millennium Wave Securities, LLC, member FINRA.)

Also, I will be in Atlanta May 23 (details at the end of the letter). And now for some "nugget hunting."