Silver Phase Transistion

Martin Armstrong, (released from 11 yrs in prison) has published a 3/1/2011 Newsletter "HOW and WHEN" which I just found t'day. 11 pages, last couple speak specifically to silver. First serious pre-view wrt. silver starts on page 7--
second column, half-way down. Do kind of hafta read the prior 6 pages to understand the foundation he lays for understanding phases and transition phase price action based upon his ECM theory/observations.

Has several interesting comments re: strength in silver, and pointing out the PHASE TRANSITION action currently going on.

My apologies if this has already been posted. I did look higher on this thread but didn't see it...

http://www.martinarmstrong.org/files...03-01-2011.pdf

A phase transition is the transformation of a thermodynamic system from one phase or state of matter to another.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_transition

Silver is in a phase transition from one state or level to another.....

well, Jeez, silver is 3/4 of the way to $50.

ever been on a one-day car trip when you were 3/4 of the way there ?

that last 1/4 goes by real fast. silver only has to increase in price by 33%.

http://www.kitco.com/charts/historicalsilver.html

and, looking at the historical charts, silver got to $25 solidly back in November 2010.

5 months ago. to get from $25 to $37.50 was about a 50% increase.

in other words, at the current rate of increase, silver will be at $50 in fewer than 5 months. :o

i wonder if the past typical "summer pullback" will happen this year.

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Originally Posted by Hugginator

Waitin for a pullback ;)
:ROFL:

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I was just peeking in for a sec and saw the price of silver..then decided to look at this thread...and was skiming and this post really cracked me up! I had to post and say thanks


Edit to add...so much that i decided to start a tread..... ;D

Paradigm Shift



-- Posted Tuesday, 29 March 2011 Source: GoldSeek.com

]As an investor, sometimes the best action you can take is no action. Jason Hamlin of the Gold Stock Bull newsletter didn't start snapping up stocks on news of disaster in Japan and military attacks in Libya. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Jason tells why he's holding his ground and how macro issues spanning the globe could push precious metal prices.

The Gold Report: Jason, the gold price fell dramatically after the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Were you buying in the dip, and if so, what were you buying?

Jason Hamlin: I wasn't buying or selling mining shares on the news out of Japan, but did add to my physical stockpile on the dip. Not a really exciting strategy, but I already had a decent amount of exposure to equities. There was a lot of risk and uncertainty in the market after the news out of Japan, so I decided to wait and watch how things progressed. Equities have rallied pretty well, but I am not convinced that we're out of the woods yet.

TGR: Did you panic at all when gold went down to $1,380/oz.?

JH: No, especially with the amount of physical buying in recent months. It seems like every dip has been met by an overwhelming demand for physical gold and silver. I feel that we have entered a new paradigm in which there will be shorter and shallower corrections than witnessed during the past decade.

TGR: There is definitely a lot of international upheaval. What impact do you think the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya will have on the gold price in the near term?

JH: I'd like to point out that the no-fly zone was used as a justification for missile strikes; it was a much more aggressive policy than the simple no-fly zone that was originally proposed. It was also done without congressional approval, which I view as a continued violation of the Constitution, which states that only Congress can declare war. I question the political and moral authority of the West to be doing this, especially considering that the U.S. is broke and must borrow $1.6 trillion per year to cover its budget shortfall.

Economically, the ease and swiftness with which the U.S. decided to do this, and with little debate, translates into more fear and uncertainty in the markets. It will prove bullish for precious metals and oil, both in terms of the fear trade and the inflationary impact. Investors are increasingly viewing gold and silver as a better safe-haven investment than dollars or bonds, which have served this function for mainstream investors in the past. I see this trend accelerating in the coming months and years as more investors lose faith in the U.S. dollar and the U.S. government's ability to repay its exploding debt, which has topped 100% of the gross domestic product by some estimates.

TGR: We're not at 200% yet!

JH: Not quite as bad as Japan, but the 90% to 100% range is typically where most economists say interest payments become such a burden that it becomes hard to get the fiscal house in order.

TGR: On Friday, Goldman Sachs set a three-month target price for gold of $1,480/oz. Are you comfortable with that number?

JH: I quit paying attention to anything Goldman Sachs had to say a long time ago, particularly when it comes to forecasting the gold price. They have consistently under-forecasted and underestimated the precious metals market by a wide margin. I essentially view Goldman Sachs and the big investment banks as financial terrorists who should be jailed, not respected institutions deserving of the slightest iota of creditability. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department might not want to go after them, but it's pretty clear to me that they disregarded their fiduciary duty and don't have their clients' best interests in mind. Taking their forecasts or analysis to be factual or relevant seems foolhardy.

Also, three months is really too short term to predict the price of gold with any degree of accuracy. However, I believe gold has a good chance of hitting $1,800/oz. by year-end. That's been my target. Gold could then easily pass its official inflationary adjusted high of $2,300/oz. next year. The true inflation-adjusted high for gold is somewhat closer to $5,000/oz. if we're not using the suppressed government statistics. I think there's a good chance that gold will surpass that figure before the bull market is over.

TGR: You mean the consumer price index?

JH: Right. The CPI is pretty well understood to be fudged in order to show inflation as lower than it actually is. Anyone who does the grocery shopping for a household knows that inflation is running more than a couple percent annually.

TGR: Let's talk about silver. Silver has closed the silver:gold ratio, or the number of silver ounces it takes to buy an ounce of gold, to 40:1. Historically, it's been much closer than that, but this is as close as we have seen in recent memory. That raises the question: is silver closing the gap a little too quickly—and overheating?

JH: I believe silver is likely to continue outperforming gold for the remainder of this bull market. I think the ratio will most likely revert back to 15:1 at some point in the next few years. Supply and demand fundamentals dictate such a revision.

For example, 95% of the gold ever mined is still in existence, whereas about 95% of the silver ever mined has been destroyed or used in such small quantities that it can't be economically recovered. The industrial uses of silver continue to increase, including high-tech electronics, solar and wind energy systems, batteries, medical and military applications, and even water purification. Silver truly is irreplaceable in many of today's critical applications.

In the past several months, there have been signs of shortages. Overall, the physical demand is overwhelming the supply. Even absent a short squeeze, the fundamentals dictate a much higher price for silver both in absolute terms and in relation to the gold price.

There is also another perspective on that ratio. If it's based on production of silver versus gold, the ratio would be closer to 10:1. Comparing overall demand to overall mine production, there is a shortfall of 100 to 200 Moz. of silver every year. There's actually less silver bullion aboveground available for investment than there is gold bullion. As the hedge fund manager Eric Sprott said, "There is 75 times more dollars worth of gold to buy than silver."

Despite these statistics, there is an increasing percentage of investor dollars flowing into silver, which is still 30% below its all-time nominal high, even though gold is about 70% above its 1980 price. The numbers just don't add up.

I don't think silver is closing the gap too quickly, but rather that the gold:silver ratio is likely to fall even lower over the next few years.

TGR: Okay. How far off is $40/oz. silver?

JH: Silver is approaching $40 rather quickly, but I prefer to steer clear of short-term predictions. That's just a guessing game. However, I do think silver will likely pass $50 by year end.

TGR: That would be truly remarkable. Given the current market conditions, what sort of junior mining plays are you seeking these days?

JH: My focus is on junior miners that appear undervalued relative to their peers and under-appreciated by the market. I do a good deal of fundamental research and cross-analysis. I look for miners that are well financed, with high-grade drill results, open strike zones, and management that has a track record of moving projects from exploration into production. I like companies that have a clear plan, either for moving into production, entering into a joint venture or being acquired by a surrounding major within a few years.

TGR: There's a lot going on politically and financially around the globe right now. There is unrest in the Middle East, and Japan is grappling with the aftermath of natural disasters, as well as staggering national debt. What advice do you give investors in light of those macro conditions?

JH: I believe that investors should have a good hedge against inflation, and that their portfolios should be diversified across various commodities. Investors should also have some of their assets out of dollars and out of the banking system entirely. I am growing increasingly concerned that another currency or financial crisis is coming down the line. It's critical to balance where assets are placed and to have physical gold and silver in your possession. The financial landscape is deteriorating in the U.S., as well as many other countries.

TGR: Jason, thanks for the insights.
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1301378700.php

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Originally Posted by gunDriller

well, Jeez, silver is 3/4 of the way to $50.

ever been on a one-day car trip when you were 3/4 of the way there ?

that last 1/4 goes by real fast. silver only has to increase in price by 33%.

http://www.kitco.com/charts/historicalsilver.html

and, looking at the historical charts, silver got to $25 solidly back in November 2010.

5 months ago. to get from $25 to $37.50 was about a 50% increase.

in other words, at the current rate of increase, silver will be at $50 in fewer than 5 months. :o

i wonder if the past typical "summer pullback" will happen this year.

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I would say for sure that the first $50 is the hardest for silver. ;D

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Originally Posted by StackerKen

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hugginator

Waitin for a pullback ;)
:ROFL:

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Edit to add...so much that i decided to start a tread..... ;D

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Great we need a bit more life around here.... |--0--|

http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1301340431.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=DhsNsTlJfH4


WB: JPM is in worse shape then we ever dared to hope.

This is what I am now hearing from traders on the floor. These traders are not even sure if Blythe knows the full extent of JPM’s silver exposure.

When I first started to realize that JPM has shorted far more silver than they could ever hope to cover, my first question was “why would they do that?” Not only that, why do it with a commodity where you must report your positions through the COT and Bank Participation Report? After all,the whole world can see what you are doing. [my added comment: Ted Butler included!]

Now I know the answer. According to Max Keiser and now a couple of other independent sources, it seems the reasons why first Bear Stearns and now JPM are so desperate to manipulate the price of silver down is due to the fact that BS and JPM shorted billions (yes billions not millions) in ounces of silver through their derivatives.

Just like Joe Conason at AIG, silver shorting through derivatives have caused literally billions in losses not the millions that we know about publicly. That is why JPM has been so desperate to manipulate the price of silver downward so blatantly. If I am right about this, then JPM will be dead when silver hits $60 or so. Based upon the COT and BPR, if silver hits $60, JPM will lose around an additional $6 billion dollars, a large number but not nearly large enough to bring down mighty JPM.

But what is not known is that due to the way that its derivatives are written, JPM’s losses are exponentional once silver breaks $36 or so. Rumors has it that JPM could be losing as much as $40 billion once silver is above $50. It has something to do with how the derivatives are written with payment tied to the price of silver.

Since JPM was a price manipulator with respectt to the price of silver, JPM assumed that any derivative payments tied to silver would be less than they would be tied to some other index like the CPI or TIPS implied inflation index. JPM’s inability to hold down the price of silver relative to other measures of inflation will cause unbelievable losses due to a mismatch in their derivative structures.

In essence,JPM has bet (a huge amount)through derivatives that silver will never outperform inflation. And why not,since JPM assumed that it will always be able to manipulate the price of silver. We have now come to understand that JPM’s loss exposure to silver is much greater than we have ever dared to hope.

WB: In an effort to clear up some recent confusion regarding my latest posting, I will try to explain what I have recently uncovered.

JPM’s current short silver position is estimated to be approximately 150 million ounces down from the recent 180 million ounces in August. The losses from these positions are easy to figure out. For every $10 rise in the price of silver, JPM will lose $1.5 billion. But what I have recently discovered is that through its derivative positions, JPM will lose about 5 times that amount ounce the price of silver is above $36. And ounce silver is above $45 dollars, JPM’s losses will increase to 8 times the amount of losses in their short positions. The reason is that as the price of silver increases, certain provisions get activated which multiplies the losses.

One reader asks the question why isnt the price of JPM going down to reflect the losses in silver. My answer is that the price of silver is not high enough to begin to trigger losses in their derivative positions. But once silver approaches this critical level say around $36, then you should begin to see the price of JPM stock begin to reflect these losses.

In fact, traders are saying that once the price of silver surpasses the stock price of JPM, then for every dollar the price of silver go up, JPM should lose around 70 cents or so. This means that if silver hits $60, JPM will be a single digit stock.

JPM market cap is around $170 billion. If silver losses are as great as $40 billion in cash , then JPM will be insolvent. Period.

Peter H.

maxkeiser.com/2011/03/09/jp-morgans-losses-are-exponentional-once-silver-breaks-36/

One of Lindsay Williams better clips.......at the end he is saying(with proof) that the elite are now buying...............you guessed it .....SILVER


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=HMMu0ID1yYI

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Originally Posted by Serpo

One of Lindsay Williams better clips.......at the end he is saying(with proof) that the elite are now buying...............you guessed it .....SILVER


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=HMMu0ID1yYI

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Takes too long to download. But what took them so long? Was $10 2 1/2 years ago too cheap, or was $4-5/oz 10-12 years ago too cheap? Can't waste expensive vault space with something as ridiculously cheap as silver?

What is the evidence the elite started buying silver?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neuro

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Serpo

One of Lindsay Williams better clips.......at the end he is saying(with proof) that the elite are now buying...............you guessed it .....SILVER


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=HMMu0ID1yYI

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Takes too long to download. But what took them so long? Was $10 2 1/2 years ago too cheap, or was $4-5/oz 10-12 years ago too cheap? Can't waste expensive vault space with something as ridiculously cheap as silver?
In Jan the mint sold of 6mil oz silver.
What is the evidence the elite started buying silver?

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Thats a pity because this is a interesting piece from LW as he isnt waffling so much.

So he mentions insiders selling their own stock thru sept,oct to jan of this year,massive amounts apparently.Then in dec/jan the US mint sold record breaking amounts of silver.
He is saying the elite insiders are the ones buying

Ok so the mint was selling some $200 million worth of silver in January, from the mint. Certainly that is a lot of silver, but I personally know a few of the elites here in Istanbul who could buy that amount on their own. I am pretty sure if there really was an elite insider plot to buy physical silver, we would see NONE available at APMEX and the other retailers. But they appear to be pretty well stocked last I checked anyway. No doubt the time will come, but it isn't now. Thanks for giving the essence of that slow loading video though!

[size=10pt][size=10pt]Jim Rogers : Don't sell your silver CNBC 31 March 2011 [/size][/size]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=jraKFphvZcE

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Originally Posted by Neuro

Ok so the mint was selling some $200 million worth of silver in January, from the mint. Certainly that is a lot of silver, but I personally know a few of the elites here in Istanbul who could buy that amount on their own. I am pretty sure if there really was an elite insider plot to buy physical silver, we would see NONE available at APMEX and the other retailers. But they appear to be pretty well stocked last I checked anyway. No doubt the time will come, but it isn't now. Thanks for giving the essence of that slow loading video though!

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I think it was a lot to what they normally sell


It was only slow to load as it new it was LW.....LOL

http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1301924290.php

And so far during this precious metals bull market, silver has not made a major top independent of gold. So the state of the gold market and how it is not showing signs of a major top could be a flaw in the theory that silver is about to make a major top.

mAJOR DOC ON SILVER

https://doc-00-00-docsviewer.googleu...bgj3q10vjn2fke

More money being spent on silver than gold at the moment

Every day one third of yearly out put of silver is traded everyday on comex


http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingwor...ic_Sprott.html

also.......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdlXot0ZEgo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfmMa...feature=relmfu

.
Silver punched through $40 overnight in Asian trade and held its gains going into London and into New York. That is quite remarkable given the fact that runs toward round numbers can engender profit taking as price targets are reached. If it holds its gains above $40, it could begin accelerating towards $50 relatively quickly. I will want to see how it fares as it nears the close of pit session trading.

http://traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/

chart......

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hh6H-1b5v7...apshot-618.png

Silver ready to pass $50-an-ounce this week to set new all-time high

By: Peter Cooper

http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1303133251.php
-- Posted 18 April, 2011 | Share this article | Discuss This Article - Comments: 2 Source: SilverSeek.com

Silver looks set for a sprint past its all-time high of $50 established 31 years ago this week. But with Goldman Sachs now advising its clients to get out of commodities and Glencore, the world’s largest commodities trader launching its $11 billion IPO most probably on Thursday, the end of this surge could come quickly.

Latecomers to the silver party would then face the prospect of selling at a lower level or waiting for the next upswing in this extremely volatile commodity. Market gyrations to date have favored a buy-and-hold approach over market timing, which particularly for silver is very difficult, if not impossible to get right.

Traders say there is presently greatly increased buying pressure but that is being met by a large amount of selling. If this was really the top of a bull market there would not be these sellers left in the market.

Global correction

What are the prospects for the precious metals in the next global financial markets’ sell-off? It is impossible to say for sure. But we do know that there is plenty of cash sat on the sidelines waiting for a correction to buy these metals.

Any dip is therefore likely to be seized upon as a buying opportunity. That should make the dips shallower than in the 2008 sell-off. It is even possible that cash flows so quickly back into precious metals that they advance to new highs while pretty much everything else in the investment universe is down on the floor.

This after all is the protection afforded by precious metals and why people buy a money that cannot be printed or inflated away by central bankers and politicians.

And the biggest dilemma for investors in any financial market correction today is that when they sell they will end up largely with a very unwanted currency, the US dollar. Will they not thus decide to bail out of it as quickly as possible?

Real money

And into what? Well, what about the only sound money left on the planet? Gold and silver. Now the stock of silver is so small relative to gold that the impact on prices will be greatest for the shiniest of all metals.

So this week should be a landmark for silver investors but those cashing out immediately might find that their short term profits very soon look rather small compared with the upside still to come.

ArabianMoney has forecast a target of $320-an-ounce for silver (click here). $50 silver is just another step on this road. Silver is still very cheap. The total market capitalization of commodity trading giant Glencore will be around twice as much as all the silver stored in the entire world!




$50 silver - The Price Point of Liberty

By: Jack Mullen

http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1303153473.php
-- Posted 18 April, 2011 | Share this article | Source: SilverSeek.com

$50 dollar silver is the first sign of blue sky after a devastating storm. It's the morning after sunshine bringing people out of hiding and together again for the process of rebuilding with the promise of a new start.



For more than 100 years the United States has been at the center of a war being waged around the clock by a cult-of-evil clawing and biting like a rabid dog at the heart of civilization. It has been an epic struggle of an outnumbered, outgunned regiment of courageous defenders of human individuality, dignity, and liberty against a tyranny intent on the enslavement of all humanity. It has been a bloody war, a costly war and even now the battles continue, but the tide is turning, finally, toward the side of good.



This war has been in stealth with the cult-of-evil creating a fictional world being pulled over and smothering the head of humanity. For years this war has involved the creation of a pretended reality that presents lies for all standards of measure of a free society. Recently, like all bubbles, the bubble of pretension has begun to grow exponentially - hiding reality behind a manufactured reality, including a manufactured history of the world - a process that is not sustainable and will soon face the limits of nature ( the real reality) . This fictional reality has reached the proportions of a bubble , not unlike the tulip bubble of 1637 - I would now call this bubble a bubble-of-pretension. The problem with bubbles is they burst and hiding reality is nature's most costly mistake.



Reality is something the criminal class trying to hi-jack the world must, at all costs, hide from the sleeping, drugged, conned and dumbed down public. For the most part hiding reality, especially in the early stages of a bubble-of-pretension has so far been successful but the price is becoming higher. In American alone pacifying the public is a 24-7-365 operation requiring enormous sums of economic energy and decades of dedication to bring about the quickening now underway.



But, I think we have reached a bifurcation point , when the matrix of pretension , consuming enormous and ever growing quantities of energy to maintain escalating lies-of-normalcy, starts to falter. Cracks appear and the engine of deception coughs and gasps for more, more, more -- but energy too is a thing of nature and sooner or later the prevaricators use up all the available energy and the false matrix of reality begins to collapse. It's the moment when Caligula realizes men with swords cannot defeat the sea, or when a parliament of thieves cannot another ounce of gold steal. That point is here today, and I think the signs are clear: gold is approaching $1500 and more importantly Silver is about to smash through the most protected price in the history - $50.



I think it bears repeating, $50 silver is the most protected price in recorded history, it is a price that's cost trillions and trillions and millions of lives and untold millions in misery to defend. $50 silver has been defended with all the energy and manpower the cult of evil can muster. The war is not over and the price is still out of reach, but momentum is on the side of humanity. After $50 there's no more resistance - Silver will break free and rise quickly to crush the banking system, the energy and life blood of the enemy. Beyond $50 silver, the dollar and the banking system will collapse quickly. George Soros and the BRIC nations are already aware - the dollar hegemony is cracking and $50 silver is the wedge in the heart of the beast.



For those of us that understand how much wasted and destroyed wealth has been employed to keep the price of silver from rising with inflation while the purchasing power of the fiat currency in which it is priced is destroyed, $50 silver is monumental. This is the day the bubble in pretension bursts - $50 silver, the top is in, not for silver, but for the century of lies and deception and destruction of wealth that will be the legacy of the private banking cartel and their Federal Reserve.



$50 dollar silver is easily $160 dollars short of its inflation adjusted value since the mid nineteen seventies when silver last rose up against the tyrants. The difference between $210 (an estimate of silver's inflation adjusted price) and $50 seems very little, but that $160 has cost the loss of the worlds reserve currency, the fleecing of two+ generations of Americans and peoples worldwide. Hiding the worthlessness of fiat money though metals price suppression has in a way been responsible for WWI, WWII, the massive loss of lives in Russian and China and Germany to psychopathic dictators. That $160 was responsible for the Vietnam war, the death of Kennedy, the Iraq I and Iraq II wars, the war-on-drugs and the Afghan and now Libyan wars. We could go on and say that $160 has cost the lives of all those Americans in the World Trade Centers during 9-11 and the incredible loss of lives to our criminal monopoly controlled health and food industries. We might even get verbose and mention the deaths caused by fluoride poison in the drinking water and the weight gain and cancers caused by our 'diet' supplements such as Aspartame.



While silver sits below $50 the world has suffered trillions and trillions of wealth stolen for false flag wars and then more wealth destroyed in those wars. Trillions of dollars that could have been used pry off the yoke of the psychopaths creating monopolies in every industry facilitating human life. Monopolies selling lies: the pharmaceutical industry selling lies of health, the medical services industry selling lies of treatment, the food industry selling lies of nutrition, the military-industrial industries selling lies of safety and protection, the prison-police industries selling lies of safety and peacefulness and more. Monopolies of law and justice selling lies of righteousness, monopolies of transportation and banking and energy and education; lies sold by monopolist in the pursuit of total domination and the suppression of reality.



But the price of lies and the price of monopoly is the inevitable depletion of all the available resources, be it manpower, money, or the human spirit supporting a willingness to be deceived - eventually they are all depleted. As the peak of pretension is reached and the bubble-of-pretension begins to burst we must make plans take charge of the collapse and work to be sure the evil puffed up in the bubble is evacuated to oblivion as the bubble explodes.



We don't need most of the humans that have been deceived to wake up and join the cause. We only need those of us that are awake to be ready to step in and organize the collapse.



It is in the United States where most of the wealth stolen for pacification has been deployed, because the United States is the only nation on earth with a large armed populace. Not only large and armed, but with a history of documentation and research showing why guns in the hands of people (not guns in the hands of military or militia or police or PERSONS or CITIZENS) is the ONLY way for people: men and women and children, to protect themselves against the onslaught of a cunning and relentless tyranny. It is in America that a small group of awakened humans can take back their freedom and again provide a secure home for liberty - liberty that can again protect the world from the tyranny afoot today.



Oppose gun control at all costs - no freedom or liberty can be protected without the threat of weapons as a last resort. Withdraw your support for the banking system by removing your money and buying physical silver and gold for use later as currency. Use cash for all transactions reducing the flow of money through the banks weakening further the already weak banks. Infiltrate your local governments by running for office, use the power of the local press to remove corruption by writing letters to the editor. Take back our schools -- home school your children, it should only take a generation or two of home schooled children to move back into the mainstream world as leaders and members of government. Do not depend on the United States federal government for any help. The States are the answer. If your state does not support the right to own guns move. Vote with your feet, do not any longer support evil with your tax dollars. Look for states with nullification laws in the works, these states need our support. Take action against intrusion on your liberties, bring lawsuits against fraudulent banking, TSA assault, criminal foreclosures and file claims against sources of health degradation - we need a call to action for class action lawsuits.



More ways to stop the evil: buy radio stations (lots of them cheap and then use them to get the message out), take back our newspapers and television stations from the elite mega corporations. Write blogs, tell your children every day, talk to them about what is happening and what has to happen before it will change. Look for lies, critique movies for hidden messages of the enslavers, filter your water, buy radiation detection equipment and complain when the media lies about radiation, and get off the power grid with solar and wind generators. The power grid is a great controller, If you misbehave or if you need to be taught a lesson, the power will go down.



Lastly take charge of your health and your families health. The medical-pharmaceutical-insurance industry in the United States are not about health, they are not outcome based. The 'pharmamedisurance' model of business is theft through monopoly and wealth through growth of services. Cures are way to health, health through prevention is the solution. Eat organic whole foods with non-GMO contents. Eat less. Supplement the loss of nutrition in foods with high quality natural supplements. Take charge of your own health, read about nutrition and healthy life ideas, and then shrug off your M.D. , stop taking pharmaceutical poisons, decline unnecessary tests. Stand up to the system that is fleecing your health.



With $50 silver signaling the beginning of the end of the banking system, it becomes imperative that we, the awake, prepare for the final confrontation. It is here that we sink or swim -- practice swimming and buy more real, hold in your hands, silver.

50 Factors Launching Gold



By: Jim Willie CB, GoldenJackass.com


-- Posted Tuesday, 19 April 2011 | Share this article | Source: GoldSeek.com

Edification is not the word that comes to mind when observing an interview with Larry Fink of Blackstone this morning on network financial news. It was inspirational if not humorous, and somewhat pathetic. Of course the interviewer treated him like royalty, when just a syndicate captain, a Made Man. As a cog within the US financial hierarchy, he was asked why Gold is approaching record price levels near $1500 per ounce. He gave his best 10-second answer, showing no depth of comprehension but an excellent grip of propaganda laced with simplistic distortion. He said, "GOLD IS RISING FROM ALL THE GLOBAL INSTABILITY, AND NOT FROM INFLATION AT ALL." Sounds good, but it lacks much reflection of the world of reality burdened by complexity and interconnectivity that the enlightened perceive. At least he did not babble about Gold being in an asset bubble. It cannot, since Gold is money. It is curious that all the analysts, bankers, fund managers, corporate chieftains who did not advise on Gold investment over the last ten years are precisely whom the financial network news appeals to for guidance in the current monster Gold bull run. They knew nothing before, and they know nothing now. The major US news networks carry the Obama water while the USCongressional members carry the USBanker robes and show respect with genuflection before the priests. But guys like Fink are their harlot squires. Poor Ben Bernanke, despite his high priest position, does not gather a fraction of respect that Alan Greenspan did even though Alan presided over the collapse. The wild card possibly later this year or 2012 will be a national movement to force mandatory wage gains, and thus avert a national economic collapse. The squeeze is on in a powerful manner to both businesses and households.



ANOTHER STRONG GOLD BREAKOUT

As long as Quantitative Easing programs are in place and actively pursued, Gold & Silver prices will soar. The programs are urged by exploding budget deficits and absent USTBond demand. That translates to a ruined USDollar currency. Gold & Silver respond to the debasement and ruin. Efforts will become ridiculously stretched to save the USDollar, but will fail. QE will go global and secretive, assuring tremendous additional gains in the Gold & Silver price. No effort to liquidate the big USbanks will occur, thus assuring the process will continue until systemic breakdown then failure. The more extraordinary the measures to save the embattled insolvent fraudulent USDollar, the more the Gold & Silver price will soar. It is that simple. Gold & Silver will soar as long as central banks continue to put monetary inflation machinery to work. They are attempting to provide artificial but coordinated USTreasury Bond demand. In the process their efforts will continue to push the cost structure up further. In my view, since the Japan natural disaster hit with financial fallout, the Global QE is very much in effect, but not recognized as a global phenomenon. It pushes up Gold in uniform fashion worldwide.





50 FACTORS POWERING THE GOLD BULL



1) USFed is stuck at 0% for over two years and printing $1.7 trillion in Quantitative Easing, otherwise called monetary hyper inflation. They are not finished destroying both money and capital.

2) USFed tripled its balance sheet, with over half of it bonds of exaggerated value, while it gobbled up toxic mortgage bonds as buyer of last resort. The mortgage bonds have turned worthless. The USFed waits for a housing revival to bail itself out, but it will not arrive.

3) Debt monetization has gone haywire, as over 70% of USTBond sales from the USFed printing press. The QE was urgently needed, since legitimate buyers vanished. Even the primary dealers have been reimbursed in open market operations within a few weeks.

4) PIMCO has shed its entire USTreasury Bond holdings, seeing no value. They joined many foreign creditors in an unannounced buyer boycott in disgusted reaction to QE which is essentially a compulsory unilateral debt writedown.

5) Growing USGovt deficits have run over $1.5 trillion annually, with absent cuts, obscene entitlements, endless war. The prevailing short-term 0% interest rates are out of synch with exploding debt supply and rising price inflation.



6) Unfunded USGovt liabilities total nearly $100 trillion for medicare, social security, pensions, and more. The obligations are never included in the official debt. It represents insult to injury within insolvency.

7) Standard & Poors warned that USGovt could lose AAA rating in lousy credit outlook, one chance in three within the next two years. Ironically, the announcement came on the day when the USGovt exceeded its debt limit. The network news missed it.

8) State & Municipal debt have collapsed, as 41 states have huge shortfalls, and four large states are broken. They might receive a federal bailout. It could be called QE3, maybe QE4.

9) Coordinated USTBond purchases from Japanese sales have relieved the USFed, as other major central banks act as global monetarist agents. The sales by Japan are vast and growing. Witness the last phase in unwind of Yen Carry Trade, where 0% borrowed Japanese money funded the USTreasury Bonds and US Stocks.

10) Quantitative Easing, a catch word for extreme monetary inflation and debt monetization, has become engrained into global central bank policy, soon hidden. It is so controversial and deadly to the global financial structures that it will go hidden, and attempt to avoid the furious anger in feedback by global leaders. This is the most important and powerful of all 50 factors in my view.



11) The FedFunds Rate is stuck near 0%, yet the actual CPI is near 10%, for a real rate of interest of minus 9%. Historically a negative real rate of interest has been the primary fuel for a Gold bull. This time the fuel has been applied for a longer period of time, and a bigger negative real rate than ever.

12) The USGovt claims to have 8000 tons of Gold in reserve, but it is all in Deep Storage, as in unmined ore bodies. The collateral for the USDollar and USTreasury debt is vacant. It is in raw form like in the Rocky Mountain range or Sierra Nevada range.

13) Fast rising food prices, fast rising gasoline prices, and fast rising metals, coffee, sugar, and cotton serve as testament to broad price inflation. So far it has shown up on the cost structure. Either the business sector will vanish from a cost squeeze or pass on higher costs as end product and service price increases.

14) The entire world seeks to protect wealth from the ravages of inflation & the American sponsored QE by buying Gold & Silver. The rest of the world can spot price inflation more effectively than the US population. The United States is subjected to the world's broadest and most pervasive propaganda in the industrialized world.

15) The European sovereign debt breakdown with high bond yields in PIIGS nations points out the broken debt foundation to the monetary system. The solutions like with Greece in May 2010 were a sham, nothing but a bandaid and cup of elixir. Spain is next to experience major shocks that destabilize all of Europe again, this time much bigger than Greece. The Portuguese Govt debt rises toward 10% on the 10-year yield, while the Greek Govt debt has risen to reach 20% on the 2-year yield.



16) Germany is pushing for Southern Europe bank climax in their Euro Central Bank rate hike. Europe will be pushed to crisis this year, orchestrated by the impatient and angry Germans. They have no more appetitive for $300 to $400 billion in annual welfare to the broken nations in Southern Europe.

17) Isolation of the USFed and Bank of England and Bank of Japan has come. The small rate hike by the European Central Bank separated them finally. The Anglos with their Japanese lackeys are the only central banks not raising rates. With isolation comes all the earmarks on the path to the Third World.

18) The shortage of gold is acute, as 51 million gold bars have been sold forward versus the 11 million held by the COMEX in inventory. Be sure that hundreds of millions of nonexistent fractionalized gold ounces are polluting the system. Word is getting out that the COMEX is empty of precious metals.

19) Such extreme Silver shortage has befallen the COMEX that the corrupted metals exchange routinely offers cash settlement in silver with a 25% bonus if a non-disclosure agreement is signed. The practice cannot be kept under wraps, as some hedge funds push for fat returns in under two months holding positions with delivery demanded.

20) China has begun grand initiatives to replace its precious metal stockpiles. They are pursuing the Yuan currency to become a global reserve currency. As they build collateral for the Yuan, they are also elevating Silver as reserves asset.



21) A global shortage of Gold & Silver has been realized in national mint production. From the United States to Canada to Australia to Germany, shortages exist. Many interruptions will continue amidst the shortages, which feed the publicity.

22) The Teddy Roosevelt stockpile of 6 million Silver ounces was depleted in 2003. He saw the strategic importance of Silver for industrial and military applications. The USEconomy and USMilitary will turn into importers on the global market.

23) The betrayal of China by USGovt in Gold & Silver leases is a story coming out slowly. The deal was cut in 1999, associated with Most Favored Nation granted to China. But the Wall Street firms broke the deal, betrayed the Chinese, and angered them into highly motivated action. No longer are the Chinese big steady USTBond buyers, part of the deal also.

24) Every single US financial market has been undermined and corrupted from grotesque intervention, constant props, and fraudulent activity. The degradation has occurred under the watchful eyes of compromised regulators. Fraud like the Flash Crash and NYSE front running by Goldman Sachs is protected by the FBI henchmen.

25) The USEconomy operates on a global credit card, enabling it to live beyond its means. The USGovt exploits the compulsory foreign extension of credit in USTBonds, by virtue of the USDollar acting as global reserve currency. Foreign nations are compelled to participate but that is changing.



26) The USMilitary conducts endless war adventures for syndicate profits. They use the USTreasury Bond as a credit card. The wars cost of $1 billion per day is considered so sacred, that it is off the table in USGovt budget call negotiations, debates, and agreements.

27) Narcotics funds have proliferated under the USMilitary aegis. The vertically integrated narcotics industry is the primary plank of nation building in Afghanistan. The funds keep the big US banks alive from vast money laundering.

28) No big US bank liquidations have occurred, despite their deep insolvency. Any restructure toward recovery would have the liquidations are the first step. The USEconomy is stuck in a deteriorating swamp since the Too Big To Fail mantra prevents the urgent but missing step.

29) The unprosecuted multi-$trillion bond fraud over the last decade has harmed the US image, prestige, and leadership. The main perpetrators are the Wall Street bankers and their lieutenants appointed at Fannie Mae and elsewhere. They bankers most culpable remain in charge at the USDept Treasury and other key supporting posts like the FDIC, SEC, and CFTC.

30) The ugly daughters Fannie Mae and AIG are forever entombed in the USGovt. They operate as black hole expenses whose fraud must be contained. The costs involved are in the $trillions, all hidden from view like the fraud. Fannie Mae remains the main clearinghouse for several $trillion fraud programs still in operation.



31) The US banking system cannot serve as an effective credit engine dispenser, an important function within any modern economy. It is deeply insolvent, and growing more insolvent as the property market sinks lower in valuation. The banks lack reserves, and hide their condition by means of the FASB permission to use fraudulent accounting.

32) The big US banks are beneficiary of continuous secret slush fund support from the USGovt and USFed. Their sources and replenishments have been gradually revealed. The TARP Fund event will go down in modern history as the greatest theft the world has ever seen, easily eclipsing the biggest mortgage bond fraud in history.

33) The insolvent big US banks continue to sit at the USGovt teat. The vast umbilical cord of banker welfare has not gone away. Goldman Sachs still is in control of the funding machinery.

34) The shadow banking system based upon credit derivatives keeps interest rates near 0%. The usury cost of money is artificially low near nothing. As money costs nothing, capital is actively and rapidly destroyed.

35) A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USGovt. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USMilitary. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the USCongress. A vast crime syndicate has taken control of the US press networks.



36) A chronic decline of the US housing sector keeps the USEconomy in a grand decline with constant deterioration. With one million bank owned homes in inventory, a huge unsold overhang of supply prevents any recovery of housing prices. Home equity continues to drain, and bank balance sheets continue to erode.

37) Over 11 million US homes stand in negative equity. The sum equals to 23.1% of households. They will not participate much in the USEconomy, except when given handouts. They have become downtrodden.

38) The USEconomy will not benefit from a export surge. The US industrial base has no critical mass after 30 years of dispatch to the Pacific Rim & China. The industry must contend with rising costs in offset to the falling USDollar, which is cited as providing the mythical benefit. Then can export in droves if they do so at a loss.

39) A global revolt against the USDollar is in its third years. The global players work to avoid the US$ usage in trade settlement. Several bilateral swap facilities flourish, mostly with China. If China supplies products, then the Yuan currency will be elevated to global reserve currency.

40) Global anger and resentment over three decades has spilled over. The World Bank and IMF have been routinely used by the US bankers to safeguard the USDollar and Anglo banker hegemony. Neither financial agency commands the respect of yesteryear.



41) A middle phase has begun in a powerful Global Paradigm Shift. The transfer moves power East where the wealth engines of industry lie, far from the fraudulent banking centers. The next decade will feature the Chinese as bankers, since their war chest contains over $3 trillion.

42) The crumbling global monetary system was built on toxic sovereign debt. Legal tender has been nothing more than denominated debt posing as legitimate by legal decree. That is what word FIAT means. The system is gradually breaking in an irreversible manner.

43) The global central bank franchise system has been discredited. It is a failure, which is not recognized by the bank leaders still in charge. The stepwise process of ruin continues with a new sector falling every few months. Next might be municipal bonds.

44) Witness the final phase of a systemic cycle, as the monetary system has run its course. It is saturated with debt from faulty design. The deception cited in the mainstream media focuses upon the credit cycle which will renew. It will not. It will break of its own weight and lost confidence.

45) The recognition has grown substantially that suppression of the Gold price has been the anchor holding fiat system together. The Chinese realize that Gold, when removed, leads to the collapse of the US financial system. They realize it more than the US public. But the syndicate in control of the USGovt understands the concept very well, as they designed the system.



46) The institution of a high level global barter system might soon take root. Gold will sit at its central core, providing stability. No deadbeat nations will participate. That includes the United States and several European nations. The barter system will be as effective as elegant.

47) The movements spread like wildfire in several US states to reinstitute gold as money. In a few states, led by Utah and Virginia, progress has been made for Gold to satisfy debts, public & private. Consider the movement to be in parallel to the Tenth Amendment movements.

48) Anglo bankers have lost control in global banking politics. The phased out G-7 Meeting is evidence. China has wrested control of G-20 Meeting, and has dictated much of its agenda in the last few meetings. The US has been reduced to a diminutive Bernanke and Geithner being ignored in the corner.

49) New loud stirrings by Saudi Arabia seek a new security protector. If security is no longer provided by the USMilitary, then the entire defacto Petro-Dollar standard is put at risk. Remove the crude oil sales in USDollars exclusively, and the US sinks into the Third World with a USDollar currency that cannot stand on its own wretched wrecked fundamentals.

50) The IMF solution to use SDR basket as global reserve is a final desperate ploy. By fashioning a basket of major currencies in a basket, they attempt to enforce a price fixing regime. It is a hidden FOREX currency exchange rate price fixing gambit that will invite a Gold price advance in uniform manner across the currencies bound together. This ploy is being planned in order to prevent the USDollar from dying a horrible death at the expense of the other major currencies. By that is meant at the expense of the other major economies which would otherwise have to operate at very high exchange rates.



THE BIGGEST UPCOMING NEW FACTORS

Introduction of a New Nordic Euro currency is near its introduction. The implementation with a Gold component will send Southern European banks into the abyss, marred by default. The new currency has the support from Russia and China, even the Persian Gulf. In my view, it is a USDollar killer. The first nations to institute a new monetary system for banks and commerce will be the survivors. The rest will slide into the darkness of the Third World.



Gold & Silver seem to be the only assets rising in price, an extension of a terrific 2010 decade. The exceptions are farmland and the US Stock market. However, stock valuations are propped by constant and admitted USGovt support. Their efforts are mere attempts to keep pace with the USDollar decline, as stocks merely maintain a constant purchase power.



A hidden overarching hand seeks the global Gold Standard as the bonafide solution. Darwin is at work, but Adam Smith turns a new chapter. The crumbling monetary solution demands a solution. Further investment in the current system assures a devastating decline into the abyss of insolvency and ruin.

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldenJackass/1303243200.php

$5,000 Gold and $300 Silver are Credible Numbers



-- Posted Tuesday, 19 April 2011 | Share this article | Source: GoldSeek.com

By James West



Q: What do CNBC, George Soros, Warren Buffet and every other mainstream investment commentator on the price of gold have in common for the last ten years?



A: They are all wrong.



All the time, every year, ten out of ten years in a row. If you continue to pay attention to such disinformation, you will lose money. Definitely. No question. Guaranteed.



Each and every year, their vapid comments on the future gold price prove to be complete bollocks, yet year after year, and day after day, millions of readers watchers and listeners tune in for another dose of horribly incorrect information.



These days, the number of perpetually inaccurate predictions forecasting an end to the gold boom are thoroughly drowned out by the now multitudinous voices screaming from the rooftops for gold to go much higher. About 90 percent of that is the herd mentality at work. Early predictions for $1,000 gold, which seemed extreme and outlandish just two years ago, turned out to be very conservative. So its easy now to lay claim to being “the one who predicted the gold bull market”.



Bandwagon riders aside, there are compelling reasons to support a much higher gold price, and more importantly, a narrowing of the ratio between the gold price and the silver price. One year ago, the silver to gold ratio was 63 ounces of silver for every ounce of gold. Today that ratio is 35:1. Its fallen by nearly half in one year.



In terms of pure performance, whereas gold has delivered a solid gain of 26.51% in the course of the last year, silver has outshone gold spectacularly, turning in a gain of 123.55%, making it the commodity trade of the year by far. The effect of that performance is to dramatically alter the perception of investors in terms of its desirability as a precious metal. Its long been a psychological barrier to silver’s progress, in my opinion, that a precious metal could be had so cheap.



But as the prices of both monetary metals grows, and their price differentials narrow, investors want an idea of where the future is heading in terms of these prices. Can they continue to grow so dramatically in price, or is there a point at which their price appreciation curve will level out and become more incremental? Or, is there a point at this the upward price curves will plunge steeply downward? And at what point, if every, will the price curves of silver and gold converge? What exactly is the appropriate ratio of gold versus silver? Do we buy bullion, coins, ETF’s, Gold Funds, Senior Miners or Junior Explorers? Which is safest? Which is riskiest?



First lets consider the ratio question. If the ratio suggested in the title were to become reality, that would mean a ratio of only ten ounces of silver to buy one ounce of gold. If the ratio curve were to continue climbing in favour silver at the present rate, it would approach 10:1 within another year.



But if the ratio were to reflect numbers pegged to certain fundamental realities, then perhaps we could deduce a more rational price differential with better certainty. According to John Stephenson’s Little Book of Commodity Investing, there is 16 times more silver in the earth’s crust than gold.



So on that basis alone, the correct price ratio is arguably 16:1. Silver bulls like to point out that silver is unique among monetary metals because of its wide ranging industrial applications, as well as in photography and jewelry. As the silver price continues to consolidate its price differential with gold, it is likely that process modification and substitution will occur wherever possible in the manufacturing supply chain to replace silver, which will dampen industrial demand. Thanks to silver’s unique chemical attributes, however, that effect will be muted.



2009 statistics from the Silver Institute show that global supply of silver was more or less equal to the global demand for silver from all classes including manufacturing and bullion minting. Government stocks of silver are estimated to have fallen by 13.7 million ounces over the course of 2009, to reach their lowest levels in more than a decade. Russia again accounted for the bulk of government sales, with China and India essentially absent from the market in 2009. Regarding China, Gold Fields Mineral Services states that after years of heavy sales, its silver stocks have been reduced significantly.



If the silver ratio is heading to 16:1, that implies a near term price range of $90 - $100 per ounce.



If gold goes to $5,000 an ounce, and the silver/gold price ratio remains 16:1, there’s silver at $312.50 per ounce.



And what, pray tell, is coming down the pike to support a gold price of $5,000?



First and foremost, the United States dollar.



The whole global financial system is trapped in a situation whereby we have no choice but to permit the United States to continue counterfeiting money. There is no single political force or voice or even prospect with the knowledge and the power to put a stop to the insanity into which we continue to spiral on a daily basis. That means, despite the unanimous chorus from the financial media mainstream, which anesthetizes the human race in an effort to thwart violent protest by design, the fabrication of electronic dollars will continue apace. For years.



In terms of strict nominal value, that implies a proportional increase in the prices of, well, everything. Inflation is the direct outcome of monetary expansion in the absence of economic growth. Therefore, gold and silver will be direct beneficiaries of such policy.



At the same time, sovereign and large capital pool (LCP) investors in U.S. debt are seeking to exit their holdings of U.S. dollars, The world’s largest bond fund, PIMCO, and its acerbic chief Bill Gross, are now shorting the U.S. dollar. China has stated repeatedly that it will reduce its holdings of U.S. debt. This is sending a signal to the rest of the sovereign wealth and LCPs that the U.S. dollar should be abandoned. That means, when the convulsions that seize the global financial system, such as that of 2008, manifest themselves, investors will flee less and less to the U.S. dollar, and more and more to other currencies – especially gold and silver.



So not only does the price of gold appreciate in strictly nominal terms, but demand for it is growing even as it grows exponentially in price. That’s why, given this illogical yet nevertheless existing stupidity, the more expensive gold and silver get, the greater will be their demand as a replacement for U.S. dollar denominated safe haven asset classes.



The third major factor that is going to drive gold to $5,000 and silver through $300 is related to the first two. Governments, always reactive and never proactive, will eventually start to ratify gold and silver as official currency alternatives as a result of public pressure.



The decision by the people of Utah to do just that was big news recently, even though technically and legally, it always was legal tender in that state. It is this final legitimizing step by regional governments that will open the eyes of the otherwise hypnotized American public. For now, the move is painted as fringe by the idiotic mainstream, who are unwitting pawns for the financial services industry – U.S. Federal Reserve – U.S. Treasury trio of economic under-miners.



But contrary to global public perception, this has been a recurring theme in the United States economy, pretty much from day 1.



The Daily Astorian, a newspaper of the day in Astoria, Oregon, on May 9th, 1876 published a story the following of which is an excerpt:



The people of this country are tolerably familiar with depreciated money. The great mass of them have had nothing else for the last fourteen years. We are accustomed to depreciated Greenbacks, National Bank Notes, Nickels and Silver, and there are those living who can recall the time when Gold was worth less than Silver.



The biggest perpetrators of what we, the people, must soon designate as criminals, else suffer the continuing consequences of no jobs and no future, are the United States Federal Reserve, the United States Treasury, The Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, and the Securities Exchange Commission.



“Oh but wait,” say some. “The United States Federal Reserve is not a government body….its private.” And? The Federal Reserve is nothing more and nothing less than the off-balance sheet entity of the U.S. Treasury that permits the illegal fabrication of dollars out of thin air without prosecution. Of course this off-balance sheet entity is not an official government body. It was designed that way, exactly as Enron set up LJM L.P., to hide losses and perform sundry distasteful and illegal acts in an effort to support its parent entity.



When an entity is formed specifically to operate outside of the publicly elected offices of government, but is given dominion over the most important property of the voting public – its money – and when that entity acts in direct opposition to the interests of the public to whom it owes a fiduciary duty, then its status as government or private really becomes irrelevant. All that matters in terms of its identity is its treasonous and fraudulent activity.



The management of Enron went to jail for their larcenous culture of hiding from shareholders the true extent of their losses, and the illegal nature of their everyday operations. With a bit of luck and perseverance, the same fate will yet befall Bernanke, Paulson, Summers, Rubin, Geithner, Gensler, Shapiro and the rest of the Ivy league thieves. In the meantime, the best defense against their intentional destruction of the United States currency is selling dollars to buy gold for capital preservation and silver for low-risk capital appreciation.



The day will come when, instead of teaching that these leaders were nobly trying to ease the pain of financial forces beyond their control, today’s politicians will instead be accurately portrayed as naïve, negligent, and just plain stupid populists whose ignorance of real economic matters was exactly the ingredient necessary to permit the psychopathic and misanthropic banking community to form the financial policies of their governments. Unfortunately, the only ones likely to be alive by the time that happens are now in diapers.

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1303222405.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aGtU...layer_embedded

Resource guru Sprott: Silver could go higher than almost anyone believes

Thursday, 21 April 2011 9:15

From Eric Sprott and Andrew Morris

Follow The Money

You know silver’s doing well when the commentators start giving it the ‘gold’ treatment. Silver’s recent rise has been so spectacular that it’s caught many investors off guard. It’s natural to be sceptical when you don’t know the fundamentals driving strong performance, and many pundits and commentators have been quick to downplay it as a result - much like they do towards gold when it enjoys a run. Silver is also an awkward metal for them to categorize. Is it a commodity, a monetary metal, or both? And which side is driving demand? If it’s industrial demand, that’s ok, because that’s bullish. But if it’s investment demand for silver as ‘money’, well then that’s sort of bearish, isn’t it? The fact remains that most commentators have failed to grasp the monetary shifts that silver is signaling today, and in doing so they’ve failed to appreciate just how high it could actually go.

The financial media’s failure to grasp the benefits of precious metals ownership continues to perplex us, and it’s not just the commentators who are prone to perpetual disbelief. The sell side analysts are equally as irresolute. According to Bloomberg, the ‘expert’ consensus silver price forecast for 2011 is $29.50, representing a 31% discount from the current spot price. This same group of analysts also predicts prices will decline another 25% in 2012 and a further 9% in 2013 to $20 an ounce. When you consider that the silver price has appreciated by over 21% annually over the past 10 years, these forecasts suggest a very dramatic change in the long-term trend. Will this reversal come true? Probably not. These were the same analysts who predicted that spot silver prices would average $18.65 this year - so they’ve missed the mark by over 100% thus far.

We don’t mean to bash the silver analyst community, and there are several whom we highly respect, but it is important for silver investors to appreciate that these price forecasts are being plugged into financial models that dictate equity valuations. These models are used by traders, bankers, analysts, and portfolio managers to derive valuations for silver stocks and create asset allocations for portfolios. To anyone questioning current silver equity valuations, we would ask: what price assumptions are you using? Of course we as allocators of capital are thankful for this phenomenon, as it allows us to buy our favourite silver stocks on the cheap, knowing full well that the herd will be following behind in due course as those backward-looking forecasts get ratcheted higher.

How can we be so confident that the price of silver will continue on its upward trajectory? Our thesis is premised on the most rudimentary of economic principles – supply and demand.

One of the key indicators that we’ve been monitoring is the gold/silver ratio. Much has been written about the ratio of late, and we won’t go into great detail on the subject, other than to note that the last time money was synonymous with defined amounts of gold and silver, the ratio was set at 16-to-one. In fact, for most of the past millennium, one ounce of gold would have been convertible to somewhere between 10 and 16 ounces of silver - an amount roughly in line with the relative occurrence of each mineral within the earth’s crust.1 For the better part of the past century, due to the world’s abandonment of bimetallism and then the gold standard, the gold/silver ratio has fluctuated widely, twice reaching lows near the 15-to-one mark and a high of 100-to-one back in the early 1990’s. The most recent high reached in the latter part of 2009 was nearly 80-to-one. Since then the ratio has been tumbling to where it stands now at 35-to-one – which reflects the incredible outperformance of silver over that time period. In our opinion, this ratio will continue to move lower, driven by nothing more than basic supply/demand fundamentals.

The US Mint, which is the world’s largest silver and gold coin manufacturer, recently reported that it had sold 13 million ounces of silver coins and 370 thousand ounces of gold coins on a year-to-date basis.2 This means that the US Mint is now selling roughly equal amounts of silver and gold in dollars so far this year. Furthermore, bullion dealers like Sprott Money and GoldMoney have confirmed with us that they are now selling more silver than gold in dollar terms. For additional confirmation of this investment trend, just look at the flows for the two largest gold and silver ETFs. Investors have withdrawn approximately $3 billion from the GLD so far this year while the SLV has seen net inflows of $370 million over the same period. Dollar for dollar, investors are allocating as much if not more money to silver than to gold. And why shouldn’t they? Silver is much more of a "precious" metal than the current ratio of 35-to-one would suggest.
To explain, we must first address mine supply. In 2010, the world mined approximately 736 million ounces of silver and 85 million ounces of gold.3 The world also produced an additional 215 million ounces of silver and 53 million ounces of gold from recycled scrap.4 Adding both together brings us 951 million ounces of silver and 139 million ounces of gold supply, for a ratio of nine ounces of silver to one ounce of gold.

Interestingly, this 9-to-one ratio is very similar to the ratio of available in-situ silver and gold reserves. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that there are current in-situ reserves of approximately 16.4 billion ounces of silver versus 1.6 billion ounces for gold, or about a 10-to-one ratio.5

The case for silver is even more compelling when one considers the ramifications of its dual role as both an investment and industrial metal. Last year, non-investment demand for silver (which includes industrial, photographic, and silverware demand) totaled approximately 610 million ounces.6 This represents approximately 64% of primary supply, leaving approximately 341 million ounces to satisfy investment demand.7 On the gold side, industrial usage totaled 13 million ounces, or about 10% of primary supply, leaving approximately 125 million ounces left over for investment demand.8 So, after netting out the industrial usage the primary supply left over for investment demand is about 2.7 times that for gold. However, if we convert those ounces to dollars at current prices, we’re left with $15 billion worth of silver available for investment versus $186 billion worth of gold, or a one-to-13 ratio of silver to gold! This means that in terms of primary supply, silver only has 8% of the capacity for investment that gold does despite having equal if not more dollars flowing into it.

Now, it’s true that another potential source of supply is the very silver that investors already own - and at the right silver price these inventories of silver and gold bullion may be sold into the market to supplement any supply shortfalls. As we’ve noted previously, however, due to decades of underinvestment, the amount of silver bullion inventories are actually extremely small, even compared to those of gold.9 Recent estimates suggest that reported silver bullion inventories stand at roughly 1.2 billion ounces versus 2.2 billion ounces of gold bullion, or roughly a 0.5-to-one ratio.10 To put that amount in perspective, consider that at present there is only $52 billion worth of silver bullion/coins and over $3.3 trillion worth of gold in inventory which could potentially be recirculated into the market. Converting this to a ratio, you get a one-to-63 ratio of silver to gold inventories. So how is silver still priced at 35-to-one?!

All indications lead us to believe that there is now roughly an equal amount of investment flowing into silver and gold on a dollar-for-dollar basis. And although the price ratio of silver to gold has fallen substantially since the highs of 2009, our analysis strongly suggests that this ratio must move lower to restore a fundamental balance between supply and demand. Only time will tell how much lower it will go, but we would not be surprised to see it hit single digits before settling into a more sustainable equilibrium.

What the so-called silver ‘experts’ neglect to account for in their models and projections is that the fiat money experiment has failed. And in this context, we believe the Market has assigned world reserve currency status to gold - not USD, not EUR, and not JPY. In our opinion, gold’s continued appreciation vis-à-vis every currency is assured because the great flight from fiat has only just begun. Like gold, silver also has a long monetary history, and as such, investors are now also buying silver as protection from the ravages of fiat currency debasement. Yet, when compared to gold, it is silver that offers the most attractive value proposition by virtue of the gross mispricing of its scarcity, which, we might add, has existed for many years. Thus, in our opinion, as this new bimetallic standard takes root, silver investors will continue to be justly rewarded with marked outperformance. We truly believe that this is the investment opportunity of a lifetime, and increasingly so, others are taking heed. What is clear to us is that with equal investment dollars now flowing into silver and gold, the current 35-to-one ratio is unsustainable and has only one direction to go: lower.

Read More: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/eri...-single-digits

A common refrain with many precious metals commentators (including myself) is that “one day” there will be an investor “mania” in this sector, where prices will finally explode into some sort of parabolic “top”.

For those who have wasted any of their time reading the gold-bubble babble currently on display on a daily basis in the mainstream media, “no” the day when gold and/or silver reach “bubble” status is not even currently visible on the most distant horizon. Put another way, as John Williams of Shadowstats.com tells us, just to “equal” its 1980-high (in “real”, inflation-adjusted dollars), gold would have to rise to $7,500/oz. Meanwhile, at its historic 15:1 price-ratio with gold (the average for the last 5,000 years), that would put the price of silver at $500/oz.

Naturally, the fundamentals for gold and silver are much, much, much more “bullish” today than they were in 1980 – when our economies first had their ties to “good money” totally severed. Thus, $7,500/oz for gold and $500/oz for silver should not be seen as any kind of “price ceiling”, but rather more of an intermediate price target.

With the bankers doing everything they possibly can to drive the values of their fiat currencies to zero, then the “long-term price targets” for gold and silver are simply “infinity”: the “price” of gold and silver, when defined in terms of worthless paper. However, there is one event which could interfere with this progression: if investor “mania” should hit the sector before the bankers’ fiat-paper has been deemed worthless by the masses.

Ironically, I view such a “mania” as the worst thing that could happen to this sector, should it take place before the final implosion of the bankers’ paper empire. The reason such a development is to be thoroughly dreaded is because of the inevitable progression of all manias.

As prices explode to what seem to be excessive levels (even though those prices are defined in already-worthless paper), there would/will be a clear, intermediate “top” in the market. By definition, that peak would represent “irrationally” high prices for gold and silver. In the current context, for gold and silver prices to be “irrational” that would likely imply a sudden spike to a five-digit number for gold, and a four-digit number for silver.

Expanding on this irony, such a price-explosion in the precious metals sector would present precious metals investors with a terrible dilemma. On the one hand, all such manic peaks are followed by a “crash” – even in the case of precious metals, where “mania prices” would still undervalue precious metals versus worthless, fiat paper.

Thus over the short or even medium term, investors would know that they would be about to experience an horrific plunge in the value of one of their assets. The obvious, rational response to such a parameter is to sell – and take profits.

Conversely, those knowledgeable investors in this sector would also know that after the inevitable crash, that precious metals would immediately boomerang back up again – eventually exceeding any “peak” experienced during the original mania. This would cause precious metals investors to want to hold onto their assets – and simply absorb a crash.

Having already been through the Crash of ’08, and having watched my portfolio plunge toward zero once, I can say on behalf of all investors who were subjected to this that it is not a pleasant experience. And yet it would still likely be preferable to the “danger” of taking profits at the peak of the mania.

The problem with liquidating any of our precious metals holdings, even if we realize enormous (paper) “profits” is the paper. Making a 1000% gain, or a 10,000% gain in our precious metals holdings means nothing if that paper plunges to zero the next day. Thus anyone attempting to lock-in profits during a mania-phase runs the enormous risk of not being able to convert their paper back into precious metals – before the paper loses its remaining market value.

In talking about any potential, premature “mania”, Western commentators like myself are implicitly referring to their own domestic markets (along with the other Western markets with which we have more cultural and analytical familiarity). However, I would argue that if there is a premature mania in the precious metals sector, that it is much more likely to originate in the East than in the West.

There are three, very persuasive reasons to view an Eastern “mania” as a much more probable event:

1) Asian cultures (most notably China and India) have much stronger cultural and economic attachments to precious metals.

2) Asian cultures (most notably China and India) are currently buying gold and silver in much greater quantities, and with much greater enthusiasm than the average Westerner.

3) Asian cultures (most notably China and India) have vast pools of savings and incomes which are steadily rising (in real dollars), in contrast to the four-decade slide in the real incomes of the average Western citizen.

Expanding on this reasoning, the “herd” behavior which all market manias represent is obviously a much more likely phenomenon when the target of the herd is a good to which the herd-members already have a deep cultural and economic attachment. Looked at from the opposite perspective, with the average Western citizen having “forgotten” our own cultural attachment to precious metals, and having totally severed our own economic connection to precious metals, it would be much more improbable to see “gold and silver mania” sweep through Western cultures.

Indeed, despite a ten-year bull market which already represents one of the best bull-markets in the last half-century, precious metals represents roughly a 1% holding in the average, Western portfolio. You cannot get any more oblivious to the obvious appeal of gold and silver than that. Thus clearly on this basis alone, Asian “mania” is a much more likely event.

This is reinforced by the extremely robust (near-rabid?) buying of gold and silver by Indian and Chinese citizens, especially over the last year. While the gold-buying of Indians isn’t necessarily overwhelming in terms of total quantities, what is extremely bullish (and impressive) for the sector is that for once Indians have kept up their buying of gold even as it pushes to one new high after another. Typically, Indians have been extremely price-sensitive to this market, and demand often plummets when prices spike. This decisive change of behavior by the Indian gold-buyer is certainly a highly noteworthy development. Meanwhile, Chinese gold-buying simply moves relentlessly higher, quarter after quarter.

With silver, the explosion in Asian interest is even more remarkable. Last year, silver-buying in India sky-rocketed by over 500%, while silver-buying in China soared by roughly 400%. This has had a huge impact in the dynamics of the global silver market, where (as Eric Sprott tells us) China has gone from being a net exporter of roughly 100 million ounces per year to being a net importer of 112 million ounces in 2010. This change in behavior in one market by itself accounts for 25% of global silver production.

Let me repeat this, to ensure that people understand this precisely. I am not saying that “Chinese demand” totals 25% of global silver supply. I am saying that the recent increase in Chinese demand represents 25% of global silver production – on top of all the silver which China was consuming before this spike in silver demand. With the total Chinese appetite for silver representing around 1/3rd of annual, global production, that doesn’t leave much for the rest of the world – especially when the silver-lovers in India are ratcheting-up their own buying at an ever faster rate.

Most importantly, with the vast savings and sharply rising incomes in China and India, this huge surge in gold and silver buying has taken place without any leveraged-debt being accumulated. This is of tremendous significance, since all bubbles (by definition) require large amounts of leveraged-debt to exist – otherwise there is simply not a “bubble”. This allows an enormous building of momentum to take place in this market, over a long period of time. It is ultimately the momentum itself which takes on a life of its own in a “mania”, and thus the longer and stronger that the buying momentum from China and India persists, the more likely that this “momentum” will evolve into mania.

Concluding that China and India would almost certainly represent the origination of any “mania” in the gold and/or silver markets is literally only half the story here. The other half would be to hypothetically examine how such a mania would evolve – and what would happen once it had concluded.

I’ll cover those topics in the conclusion to this piece.

http://www.bullionbullscanada.com/in...ary&Itemid=131

http://www.marketwatch.com/Community...horts-subtitle


There is compelling new proof of a silver (and gold) price manipulation. The evidence connects the investment bank JP Morgan Chase, the dominant force in world commodity trading, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the primary commodity regulator, and the U.S. Treasury Department, the arranger of every conceivable bailout.

This week, I received a copy of a letter, dated October 8, sent from the CFTC to a California Congressman, Gary G. Miller. It discussed allegations of a silver market manipulation because of the data in the monthly Bank Participation Report. The data in that report for August showed that one or two U.S. banks held a massive short position in COMEX silver futures of 33,805 contracts, or more than 169 million ounces. This is equal to 25% of annual world mine production, and was up more than five-fold from the prior month’s report. After this position was established, silver prices fell more than 50%, in spite of a widespread shortage in retail forms of investment silver. Never before had there been a such a large concentrated position in any market, including every manipulation case in the CFTC’s history. Concentration and manipulation go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other.

The letter was sent to me by a reader who had the foresight to write to his Congressman. Of course, the CFTC denied that a silver manipulation existed, as they always have. This proves that the Commission responds much quicker to a member of Congress than it does to hundreds of ordinary citizens and investors. In the future, should you decide to write to the CFTC, be sure to do so through your elected representatives.

What was remarkable (and disturbing) about the letter was that it strongly confirms an analysis I presented in an article dated September 2, titled, "Fact Versus Speculation" http://www.investmentrarities.com/09-02-08.html. (didnt work for me)In that article, I speculated that the shocking increase in the silver short position by one or two U.S. banks was related to the takeover of Bear Stearns by JP Morgan in March.

Here’s a quote from my article, dated September 2.

"I am going to speculate based upon the known facts. Maybe I will be proven correct, maybe not. However, the nature of this speculation is so disturbing, that I hope I am wrong. But I need to state it because if I am close to the mark, the implications for the silver market are profound.

I think the data in the COT and the Bank Participation Reports indicate that the U.S. Government may have bailed out the biggest COMEX silver short by arranging for a U.S. bank to take over their position. This coincides with JP Morgan’s takeover of Bear Stearns. In fact, it would not surprise me if the bailout was JP Morgan taking over Bear Stearns‘ short silver position, at the government‘s request. While this silver bailout (if it happened) was no doubt undertaken with financial system stability in mind, it has disturbing implications of legality and equity"

This is the relevant quote from the CFTC’s Oct 8 letter.

"In effect the increase [in the short position] reflected a one time acquisition of positions that were acquired through a merger in the industry, and not new trading by a bank. Thus, the assertion that there was new activity undertaken by the banks that led to a fall in silver prices is not correct since the "new" activity reflected in the CFTC’s report was in essence positions that had already existed in the market prior to July 1st."

The CFTC clearly confirms, in effect, that the big silver short position was related to JP Morgan’s takeover of Bear Stearns, since no other merger provides a plausible explanation. However, the Commission is not speaking truthfully about an increase in the concentrated short position. The CFTC’s own data, in weekly Commitment of Traders Reports (COT), show a sizable increase in concentrated short positions of some 12,000 contracts (60 million ounces) from levels before July 1st to the August Bank Participation Report.

More importantly, the real issue is not about when the one or two U.S. banks increased their short position, but how large that short position grew in the August Bank Participation Report. The CFTC is deceiving a U.S. Congressman by attempting to reduce the argument to when the short position was increased, not the obscene and manipulative size of the position. This is deception through omission and misrepresentation. What difference does it make when the manipulative position was established? The issue is how can a short position of 25% of the world production of any commodity, held by one or two U.S. banks, not be manipulative?

Bear Stearns held the largest concentrated short position in COMEX silver (and gold) futures at the time of its forced merger with JP Morgan in March. That position was not discovered until the publishing of the August Bank Participation Report followed by the October 8 letter from the CFTC to Congressman Miller. Furthermore, Bear Stearns had no legitimate backing to the short silver position, either in actual metal or cash. Otherwise it could have been delivered against or bought back, just as would have happened were it a long position.

The price of silver at the time of Bear Stearns implosion was $20 to $21 an ounce. A free market covering of a concentrated short position of this size would have driven silver prices to the $50 or $100 level and would have exposed the long-term manipulation. Rather than let the free market deal with the required short covering of such an uneconomic and unbacked short position, government authorities arranged to have the short position transferred to JP Morgan. This was undertaken by the U.S. Treasury Department, along with taxpayer guarantees against loss to Morgan worth billions of dollars. This was done, no doubt, to save the financial system from imploding. This was also patently illegal, as it aided and abetted the silver manipulation.

I’m sure the motive behind the illegal transfer of the silver short position was the mistaken assumption by Treasury that an explosion in the price of silver (and gold) would threaten overall financial stability. Well guess what - they succeeded in crushing the price of gold and silver, but to no avail, as financial stability has been shattered.

JP Morgan was not just an accommodative good corporate citizen in the illegal transfer of the manipulative silver (and gold) COMEX short position. In addition to undisclosed government guarantees against loss, JP Morgan was given free reign to liquidate the COMEX short position at their discretion, knowing full-well the regulators would look the other way, no matter what dirty tricks were necessary to cause the price to collapse. Nor was JP Morgan a neutral agent in the silver price collapse. Data from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) http://www.occ.gov/deriv/deriv.htm indicates that JP Morgan held a much larger Over The Counter (OTC) derivatives position in silver and gold than was transferred to them from Bear Stearns.

My analysis shows that Morgan has made many billions of dollars, perhaps tens of billions, from their downward engineering of silver and gold prices from their combined COMEX and OTC short positions. They have used that engineered price decline to buy back as many short positions as possible. If investors are wondering what caused the destruction of billions of dollars in gold and silver values, metal and share price alike, look no further than JP Morgan, and the government officials who enabled them.

There can be no question that the CFTC is complicit in all these illegal activities. Same with the CME Group, owner of the NYMEX/COMEX. It is not possible that they are not privy and an active party to this successful downward manipulation. To think that officials at the CFTC, from the top of the agency, to staffers and even the Inspector General, have taken oaths of office to uphold commodity law and then have allowed that law to be repeatedly violated is beyond repugnant. That they have knowingly participated in an organized cover-up of this manipulation and have taken to lying to a Congressman calls for criminal prosecution.

As bad as this is, it gets worse. The downward manipulation of the price of silver, initiated by the U.S. Treasury, undertaken by JP Morgan Chase and sanctioned and aided by the CFTC and the CME Group has proven so successful in destroying investment values that the low price of silver is now threatening to destroy tens of thousands of jobs of those who mine silver for a living, here in the US and throughout the world. Who do these people think they are that they can allow the artificial paper price to alter real supply/demand fundamentals? Those in charge of enforcing the law have enriched a few sleazy bankers who trade toxic paper derivatives at the expense of tens of thousands of innocent investors and now ordinary workers. This should make your blood boil.

.http://treo.typepad.com/.a/6a0120a60...d3cc970b-popup

Serpo,

could it be possible that the reply#105 of yours up above was genuinely originally composed and posted Nov 8th-ish 2009? That's how many days ago, approximately 892 days are according to some of the charts at that link.

Was that researcher 'early' in his / her understanding or what!!!

Thanks.

Looks that way Beefsteak...history in the making ,the game has been up for a while I guess and about to unfold.Exciting times.Take a look at this..............http://13minutes-after-midnight.blog...g-bell_22.html

100% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.
Silver Market Update originally published May 1st, 2011

Monday, 2 May 2011 4:47

The big question on the minds of silver investors and especially silver traders is whether the meltup in silver has run its course, or whether it has further to go. On Monday last week we saw temporary burnout with a Reversal Day showing up on the chart at a point where silver was fantastically overbought. On the basis of this, and also the extremely bullish public opinion on silver and extremely bearish public opinion on the dollar (the public are normally wrong) it was reasonable to conclude that silver had either topped out or that a correction was imminent, and that is what we did conclude. However, the situation is now complicated by the fact that the latest COT figures reveal that Commercial short and Large Spec long positions have been dramatically scaled back just over the past week, which is not what you would expect to see ahead of a drop - what should happen is that Commercial short positions either ramp up or least remain constant. This latest COT chart by itself portends another upleg soon. To make life even more interesting we had a bizarre divergence between the performance of gold and silver on Friday, with gold soaring and silver reacting back by about 50 cents. Even though they theoretically shouldn't, gold and silver normally move as if joined at the hip in their day to day fluctuations, so this huge divergence was most unusual. What can we put it down to? - well, silver has stalled out at its 1980 highs, and even though the 1980 highs are 31 years ago so we wouldn't expect much resistance at this level as very few will have held on for all those years, it is still a psychologically important level because a break above it means silver attaining new all time highs, and these highs happen to coincide with major "round number" resistance at the $50 level. Therefore, if silver gets above this level we can expect the meltup to accelerate even more, and the COT chart does suggest that this level will soon fall. This is why silver held back on Friday even as gold advanced strongly - the $50 level is hugely important.





To say that silver's uptrend looks unsustainable on its long-term charts would rank as one of the understatements of the year, given how incredibly overbought it is on its MACD indicator, yet, as we have observed the latest COT chart does suggest another upleg. You have all heard the saying "Be careful what you wish for - (because you might not like the consequences if it comes true), and that is certainly the case here, for if silver's meltup continues, and gold moves into meltup mode too, which may have just started on Friday, then it probably means a collapse in the dollar - not a drop, a COLLAPSE, that will have disastrous consequences for the US economy and way of life as a result of inflation ramping up in the direction of hyperinflation, which will collapse living standards in the US and destroy the middle class (what's left of it), most of whom will suddenly find gas unaffordable and food very costly. It will be back to commuting to work on a bus, if you are lucky enough to have a job, that is, and if you happen to live near a bus route. Look on the bright side, it will at least help to conserve the world's oil supplies.



Obviously, if you are long silver or silver stocks, you will want to milk the meltup for all it's worth - after all, it would be a shame to sell now and then have silver tack another say $30 in a matter of just weeks. But at the same time, you don't want to be around if the wheel suddenly comes off, especially given that when silver drops it drops like a rock. The way to handle this? - simple - stay long and buy yourself cheap protection in the form of out-of-the-money Put options in silver itself, or Call options in something like the ProShares Ultrashort Silver, code ZSL. The cost of these options is peanuts compared to what you will save yourself if silver should suddenly tank.

www.clivemaund.com/article.php?art_id=67

http://tfmetalsreport.blogspot.com/

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/ano...er-brinAnother Decline In Registered Silver Brings Total Comex Physical To Multi-Year Lows
Tyler Durden's picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2011 17:05 -0400



One would think that following the total "annihilation" (as it has already been pegged by some) in silver over the past few days, that Comex would promptly reverse its "temporary" reclassification of Registered into Eligible silver, or so the believers in Comex holdings claim. Which is why to our surprise we noticed that today, the Comex announced that the ongoing inverse reclassification from Registered into Eligible continues, with Scotia Mocatta seeing another 186 thousand ounces of physical silver moving into that dark pool known as "eligible" holdings.

This, following on the footsteps of last week's massive reclass action, which saw 20% of the Comex Registered silver being shifted away, means that today's Comex physical silver has now fallen to a fresh multi-year low of just 33.152 million ounces. Add to this the fact that there was another withdrawal of 300k ounces from Brinks, and one may wonder just how "justified" the fall in silver price has been over the past 2 days.

And for those who enjoy seeing long-term charts below, courtesy of 24 hour gold, is a long-term chart showing Registered silver inventories at the Comex. It kinda speaks for itself.gs-total-comex-physical-multi-year-lows

NUTS to all of you ‘top pickers!’

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1304432068.php

http://fx5186.wordpress.com/



Gold Index is Topping with a 7-Month “Three-Peaks and Domed-House” Pattern

Last week I introduced an intermediate term “Three Peaks and the Domed House“ pattern on the gold index, and indicated that gold index was sharply approaching the “Roof” phase of the domed house. On Friday the gold index reached my price target 1540 and even over-shot to 1568 that made a distinct figure for the “Roof” phase. Let’s review what my model says. With my modified version of George Lindsay’s basic model, the “Three Peaks and the Domed House” pattern can be divided into five major phases:

1) Three Peaks phase,
2) Basement phase,
3) First Floor phase,
4) Roof phase, and
5) Plunge phase.

This modified version, using “phase-counting”, is a macro approach to Lindsay’s basic model, and it is different from the classical micro approach using “number-counting” from 1 to 28.
In the following daily chart, the gold index developed the “Three Peaks” phase from last November to last December. It had a separating decline to reach a low at 1308 and formed the “Basement” phase (bear trap) in the late of this January. Then it started a rapid advance in February and built the “First Floor” of the Domed House in March.

Since the early of April, the gold index has been in another rapid advance, and now it is in the “Roof” phase (bull trap) that is the top of the pattern. On Friday the current advance reached my price target 1540 that was a projection based on a measure move with the same length and duration of the advance move right before the “First Floor” phase. In the “Roof” phase of the domed house, the most typically phenomenon is that almost everyone gets very bullish and truly believes much higher prices will come, or even expects shooting the moon. A very good article written by Lorimer Wilson last week documented such an extreme bullish sentiment: 128 Analysts Believe Gold will Go to $5000 or More!

The true range of the gold index on Friday increased dramatically, which indicates that gold prices could become very volatile. Several fireworks should be typical in the “Roof” phase. Based on the model, the next move of the gold index should roll over into the “Plunge” phase which is the last phase of the “Three-Peaks and the Domed House” pattern, with a potential sharp decline of 17% down to the 1290 level for a consolidation, most likely in the time span of May and June. This phase usually has two consecutive powerful down waves, and the second wave is much more severe than the first wave. Please note this model will end as the “Plunge” phase matures and it has no further projection either in the upside or downside after the “Plunge” phase.




Silver Index is in an 8-Month Bump-and-Run Reversal Top Pattern

Silver index is forming a Bump-and-Run Reversal Top pattern in an 8-month time span as shown in the daily chart below. This pattern typically occurs when excessive speculation drives prices up steeply. According to Thomas Bulkowski, this pattern consists of three main phases:

1. A lead-in phase in which a lead-in trend line connecting the lows has a slope angle of about 30 degrees. Prices move in an orderly manner and the range of price oscillation defines the lead-in hight between the lead-in trend line and the warning line which is parallel to the lead-in trend line.

2. A bump phase where, after prices cross above the warning line, excessive speculation kicks in and the bump phase starts with fast rising prices following a sharp trend line slope with 45 degrees or more until prices reach a bump height with at least twice the lead-in height. Once the second parallel line gets crossed over, it serves as a sell line. Silver currently is in the bump phase, and its uptrend may continue as long as prices stay above the sell line.

3. A run phase in which prices break below the sell line often causing a bearish reversal to happen. Based on the current projection, the price level of the sell line on Silver index is near 46. If it breaks down 46, the silver index could run into a very ugly sharp decline down to the 39 level or even down more to the 33 level, that should correspond to the “Plunge” phase of the gold index.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Serpo

This phase usually has two consecutive powerful down waves, and the second wave is much more severe than the first wave.

---

:boohoo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elzmz...mbedded#at=529

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKQOX...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocQ8b...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQCuo...eature=related

I project that by the end of this year the dollar will be worthless, food shortages will escalate, and riots/gangs will take over our inner cities. You need to liquidate your dollar based assets now and purchase hard commodities like silver, food, temporary shelter, seeds and other supplies you will need when the grid comes down.

Don't be a sheep. They get eaten by the wolves.

Gold will be confiscated. Silver can't be confiscated because it has too many other uses. The Satanic Psychopaths do not want you to own silver, thus the manipulation of spot prices to the downside. They are also buying up every ounce they can get their hands on, thus the price manipulation to the down side and shrinking silver inventories. Many companies have already gone out of business and the COMEX supplies of silver are down a whopping 38% over the past 2 weeks!

"The supply situation in the silver market gets more interesting by the day.

Registered COMEX silver inventories have fallen to multiyear lows at 29,631,268 ounces. In the last 5 days they fell from 32,132,903 ounces to Tuesday’s holdings of 29,631,268 ounces. As can be seen in the table below registered silver inventories fell every single day last week leading to a sharp fall of 8.4% in 5 days.

Registered metals are those metals which meet the standards for delivery under the silver futures contracts and for which a receipt from an Exchange-approved depository or warehouse has been issued. Eligible metals are those which meet the delivery standards as stated in the rules for which no receipt from an Exchange-approved warehouse has been issued.

This is a long term trend that has been seen since the early 1990s when total COMEX silver stockpiles were over 101.45 million ounces.

However, the scale of the drop in inventories since early 2008 is significant and the trend has accelerated in recent weeks.

Registered silver inventories are down a sharp 38.5% in just two weeks – from 41,044,280 to 29,631,268. (Source)


That my friend, is the definition of price manipulation. Supply is down, demand is up and prices go down? This is Phase 1 of the Illuminati silver shortage plan. They don't want you to have any, so they buy up whatever they can while shorting the spot price of silver through Put Options. Phase 2 will begin shortly. Prices will escalate substantially and you will no longer be able to afford silver bullion.

http://www.moneyteachers.org/Silver+Shortage.htm

Comex shortage of silver bullion will be a gamechanger...

Caveat Venditor!

By: Eric Sprott & Andrew Morris

The recent bear raid on silver has left many concerned about the sustainability of its historic run. Silver, being a relatively obscure market for most mainstream commentators, attracted much attention in the ensuing days following the May 1 takedown. Indeed, though the 30% drop in silver occurred over only four days, seemingly all eyes were on silver, with commentators who could’ve cared less about the silver market only a couple of months ago, suddenly tripping all over one another to make the bubble call. Silver bubble 2.0? Hardly. Anyone who has been fortunate to have been invested in silver over the past few years would unfortunately be used to such blatant takedowns. The Chinese don’t call it the "Devil’s Metal" for no good reason. With so much talk these days about the risks of investing in silver, we think that perhaps it may be timely for us to weigh in on the matter. The silver market is riskier than ever, but for reasons the vast majority of pedestrian commentators have failed to grasp.

There is no doubt that speculative dollars have been flowing into the silver market. We note that in April record trading volumes were registered in the SLV1, Comex futures2, LBMA transfers3, and the Shanghai Gold Exchange futures4. In fact, converting the average daily trading volume in the aforementioned silver instruments to the amount of ounces of silver they are supposed to represent, there were on average, over 1.1 billion ounces worth of silver traded every day in the month of April5. Truly a staggering number when contrasted against the actual amount of silver available for investment. To wit, the world will only supply about 979 million ounces this year from mine and recycling of scrap, of which it is estimated that 657 million ounces will be used up for non-investment purposes6. So in effect, that leaves roughly only 322 million ounces available this year for investment purposes. Converting to days (recall that at least 1.1 billion ounces traded each day) it leaves only about 1.3 million ounces per trading day of available supply. So, we are essentially trading the amount of physical silver actually available for investment, 891 times over each day! It really begs the question; just what are people trading in these markets?

Consider the largest and most prominent of those markets - the Comex, which we believe has owned an effective monopoly on silver price discovery for decades. In fact, the Comex churned over 800 million ounces of silver futures and options on average each day in April7. Indeed, notwithstanding the massive but very opaque over-the-counter silver derivatives market, trading on the Comex dwarfs both the physical and the other (known) paper silver markets, combined. Despite its dynamics being relatively complex and generally not well understood by most, the world’s financial community continues to view trading on the Comex as representative of the fundamentals for the physical silver markets. A market built on a high amount of leverage, both the buyers and sellers of Comex futures and options contracts are able to establish a position in "silver" with pennies on the dollar in collateral and even more astonishingly, no physical silver backing the contracts at all. The following charts illustrate just how unreal these markets have become.

Chart A:
paper_chart1_june2011.jpg
Source: Bloomberg, Sprott Asset Management

Chart B:
paper_chart_2_june2011.jpg
Source: Bloomberg, Sprott Asset Management

In chart A, we compare the total open interest in Comex futures and option contracts to the actual amount of silver held in registered inventories able to be delivered against those contracts, since 2009. In chart B, with the steeply-sloping line shows the ratio of open interest (i.e. paper silver ounces) per ounce of physical silver held in inventory. We believe the historical trend of rising open interest and falling inventories deserves considerable attention from anyone attempting to understand the silver market. And though we do note that since October 2010 the trend of rising open interest appears to have abated, the inventories have been evaporating steadily and thus the ratio of the two measures has continued to trend higher. In fact, since 2009 the ratio of paper silver to physical silver has increased fourfold from approximately 8 times to almost 33 times, where it stands today.

What is the significance of this discord between paper and physical supply on the Comex? Recall, that over 800 million ounces traded each day in April on that market. Further, consider that as at the end of April there were only 33 million ounces of registered inventories to back up all of that paper trading. Just imagine if a mere 5% of all of that buying actually stood for delivery; the entire inventories would be more than wiped out. Yet despite the steady erosion of these already scant Comex inventories - a characteristic which would surely be interpreted as most bullish in other commodity markets - the price of silver has actually declined since April. We endeavour to provide a framework for understanding this phenomenon below.

Those who were following the developments in the silver market in April and May (we note that there were many who were) will likely recall that the CME Group raised both initial and maintenance margins five times within less than a two week span effectively raising the minimum amount of capital required to participate in the silver futures market by 84%8. This is significant due to the amount of leverage in the futures market and also due to the losses resulting from the precipitous selloff which began on Sunday, May 1st, when several thousand contracts were wantonly dumped onto the very thinly traded after-hours silver futures market causing the silver price to plunge 13% within the span of less than 15 minutes9.

For example, consider a hypothetical speculative trader who went long, say 200 July 2011 SI futures contracts on April 28th. At that time this trader would have been required to post an initial margin of $2.565 million for a position of one million ounces of "silver" and thus would have been levered 18.5 times10. Below we present what the trade blotter for this trader might look like over the next few days assuming he maintained his position.

paper_0611128_table1.jpg

Following the initial trade, each day the trader’s positions would be marked-to-market and any losses or gains would be applied against his account’s equity balance. Should the losses on the position bring the equity balance below the maintenance margin level, the trader would be required to deposit the additional capital required to bring the equity in the account back up to at least the initial margin requirement level.

While the margin increases alone would have forced a decision for this leveraged long to either post the additional margin or close enough positions to bring margin balances in line with substantially higher requirements, the trader was actually fighting a battle on two fronts. This is because in addition to the margin increases, the trader was also experiencing massive losses to his capital due to a rapidly falling silver price. So it is also important to consider the extent of losses to the trader’s equity following the precipitous drop which began on the evening of May 1st. In our scenario, before finding a bottom around May 17th, the cumulative losses would have amounted to over $14 million, or over five times the initial margin deposit of $2.565 million that was required to take on the position on April 28th. This meant that with margin call after margin call, the capital committed to the position ballooned almost 700% by the time the silver price finally bottomed in mid May. The significance of such a dramatic erosion of capital on a leveraged position cannot be overstated, particularly in the context of rising margin requirements. The CME Group would know this very well, and so it strikes us as particularly suspect that they would continue to raise margin rates in the face of such a sharp selloff. A selloff, we might add, which emanated from highly unusual trading activity on May 1st that, in our opinion, just reeks of manipulation. How else can one explain the dumping of several thousand SI futures contracts within the course of 15 minutes, in one of the most illiquid hours of trading, without seemingly any regard for price or a fundamental catalyst to speak of11? Though we will let the reader connect the dots as to what the intent of the CME Group and the seller’s of SI futures contracts on May 1st really was, we can certainly observe what effect these actions had on the market by looking further into the weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) reports published by the CFTC.

The COT provides us with the weekly open interest held by various categories of silver futures market participants, and thus gives us clues as to how these participants reacted in response to these margin increases and ensuing volatility. We present the following table showing net open interest for the various categories, converted into silver ounces, which we obtained from the COT report for selected dates.

paper_0611128_table2.jpg

First, note how in the three weeks following the margin hikes, the speculative12 net long position dropped from 212.7 million ounces to 170.1 million. This very clearly indicates that the speculative longs, when faced with rising margin requirements and losses to capital, did close out a substantial amount of their long positions. The commercials who were short those 212.7 million ounces appear to have been taking every opportunity to cover their own positions. Rather than shorting further into the ensuing weakness, the commercials covered approximately 42.6 million ounces in the three week period.

Another piece of information gleaned from the COT data is that despite what many commentators were hailing as a bubble caused by excessive speculation in the futures markets, the net speculative long positions had in fact been dropping over time. Even during the April run up preceding the five margin hikes, the net speculative long position actually decreased by 23%.

That commercial short position deserves further mention. What is unique and of interest to many silver market observers is not only the size of the short position on the Comex, which is dominated by those "commercials", but also the concentration of the short interest. We provide the percentage of the total open interest held by the four largest short sellers on a net basis in the table above. Note that the net position of the four largest equates to 29% of the total open interest as of May 17th. Further we would also note that the concentrated short interest of the big four, though still quite high has actually dropped substantially over the past year coinciding with the signing of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the resultant public discourse on position limits. Comments from CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton acknowledging the "repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver markets," and that, "violations to the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) have taken place in silver markets and that any such violation of the law in this regard should be prosecuted," perhaps have also had an impact on the behavior of silver market participants.13 And though the CFTC’s investigation into the silver futures and options market remains open after three years, we remain hopeful that its findings will further serve the interests of the investing public who rightly expect a fair and transparent silver market void of manipulative forces.

Could the drop in open interest and the reduction of the concentration in the commercial short open interest be perceived as an indication that those top four short-sellers are positioning for the inevitable imposition of position limits rules? Perhaps, and if so, it would follow that likely the short sellers seized the opportunity to further reduce their "liabilities" by buying up contracts in early May at a 30% discount.

Let there be no mistake, we view the current setup as extremely bullish. In our view, whatever froth and excess was present in the paper markets has likely been shaken out in the recent selloff. The remaining longs do not seem willing to part with their silver at these prices. These are the strong hands with longer time horizons that are likely not overly leveraged or are willing and able to withstand substantial volatility. Moreover, perhaps the "game" on the paper silver markets which has been meticulously documented over decades by Ted Butler14 and others, will soon be coming to an end.

What is perhaps most important is that despite what has recently transpired in the paper silver markets, the robust demand fundamentals for silver have not changed in our view. For confirmation of this, look no further than the physical silver market (i.e. the real silver market) which is providing us with evidence almost daily of a sustained bull market for physical silver. The US Mint recently stated that, "demand for American Silver Eagle Coins remains at unprecedented high levels."15 Likewise for the Perth Mint16, the Austrian Mint17, and the Royal Canadian Mint18 as well. The Chinese, who were net exporters of silver only four years ago, imported 300% more silver in 2010 than 2009 and such large quantities of imports are expected to continue19. Last year, Indian silver imports increased nearly six-fold, and this year consumption is expected to rise nearly 43% according to the Bombay Bullion Association20. In Utah, silver (along with gold, of course) will now be accepted in weight value as legal tender21. According to Hugo Salinas-Price, a prominent Mexican billionaire, there is now "very strong support for the monetization of silver" in the Mexican congress22. We suspect the Europeans are likely to account for an increasing amount of silver purchases going forward as well. In fact, we just can’t imagine a better outlook for silver fundamentals. This really makes us question who could be short such massive quantities of silver and why? Particularly in those leveraged paper silver markets, where as we demonstrated, only a fraction of the outstanding notional ounces are actually available in physical quantity.

We have a very tough time understanding those bearish arguments against silver. We look at the real silver market, and based on the supply and demand data coming from the real, physical markets for silver, the fundamentals are only getting stronger. And yet there exists another silver market, which as we’ve shown, is not very connected to the physical realm at all. And though silver investors have for decades suffered the tyranny of a rigged paper monopoly over silver price discovery, it appears to us that the tides are turning. In the age of QE to infinity, investors are being more scrupulous with their capital and as such they are demanding physical silver in quantity. With more and more dollars flowing into the silver markets and a finite supply of physical to meet that demand, the theoretical losses for the paper silver short-sellers are near infinite. And with such a skewed and obvious risk/reward payoff vastly favoring the longs, we pose the following question. Who is most at risk in the silver markets: the buyers of a scarce and real asset that serves a growing multitude of purposes, or the sellers, who are short a quantity of silver which may very well not even be obtainable at anywhere near current prices? Let the Seller Beware!

For more information about Sprott Asset Management’s views on silver and its silver bullion funds, please visit www.sprott.com.

http://www.tfmetalsreport.com/blog/1...-turdite-video

Caveat Venditor!

By: Eric Sprott & Andrew Morris

The recent bear raid on silver has left many concerned about the sustainability of its historic run. Silver, being a relatively obscure market for most mainstream commentators, attracted much attention in the ensuing days following the May 1 takedown. Indeed, though the 30% drop in silver occurred over only four days, seemingly all eyes were on silver, with commentators who could’ve cared less about the silver market only a couple of months ago, suddenly tripping all over one another to make the bubble call. Silver bubble 2.0? Hardly. Anyone who has been fortunate to have been invested in silver over the past few years would unfortunately be used to such blatant takedowns. The Chinese don’t call it the "Devil’s Metal" for no good reason. With so much talk these days about the risks of investing in silver, we think that perhaps it may be timely for us to weigh in on the matter. The silver market is riskier than ever, but for reasons the vast majority of pedestrian commentators have failed to grasp.

There is no doubt that speculative dollars have been flowing into the silver market. We note that in April record trading volumes were registered in the SLV1, Comex futures2, LBMA transfers3, and the Shanghai Gold Exchange futures4. In fact, converting the average daily trading volume in the aforementioned silver instruments to the amount of ounces of silver they are supposed to represent, there were on average, over 1.1 billion ounces worth of silver traded every day in the month of April5. Truly a staggering number when contrasted against the actual amount of silver available for investment. To wit, the world will only supply about 979 million ounces this year from mine and recycling of scrap, of which it is estimated that 657 million ounces will be used up for non-investment purposes6. So in effect, that leaves roughly only 322 million ounces available this year for investment purposes. Converting to days (recall that at least 1.1 billion ounces traded each day) it leaves only about 1.3 million ounces per trading day of available supply. So, we are essentially trading the amount of physical silver actually available for investment, 891 times over each day! It really begs the question; just what are people trading in these markets?

Consider the largest and most prominent of those markets - the Comex, which we believe has owned an effective monopoly on silver price discovery for decades. In fact, the Comex churned over 800 million ounces of silver futures and options on average each day in April7. Indeed, notwithstanding the massive but very opaque over-the-counter silver derivatives market, trading on the Comex dwarfs both the physical and the other (known) paper silver markets, combined. Despite its dynamics being relatively complex and generally not well understood by most, the world’s financial community continues to view trading on the Comex as representative of the fundamentals for the physical silver markets. A market built on a high amount of leverage, both the buyers and sellers of Comex futures and options contracts are able to establish a position in "silver" with pennies on the dollar in collateral and even more astonishingly, no physical silver backing the contracts at all. The following charts illustrate just how unreal these markets have become.

Chart A:
paper_chart1_june2011.jpg
Source: Bloomberg, Sprott Asset Management

Chart B:
paper_chart_2_june2011.jpg
Source: Bloomberg, Sprott Asset Management

In chart A, we compare the total open interest in Comex futures and option contracts to the actual amount of silver held in registered inventories able to be delivered against those contracts, since 2009. In chart B, with the steeply-sloping line shows the ratio of open interest (i.e. paper silver ounces) per ounce of physical silver held in inventory. We believe the historical trend of rising open interest and falling inventories deserves considerable attention from anyone attempting to understand the silver market. And though we do note that since October 2010 the trend of rising open interest appears to have abated, the inventories have been evaporating steadily and thus the ratio of the two measures has continued to trend higher. In fact, since 2009 the ratio of paper silver to physical silver has increased fourfold from approximately 8 times to almost 33 times, where it stands today.

What is the significance of this discord between paper and physical supply on the Comex? Recall, that over 800 million ounces traded each day in April on that market. Further, consider that as at the end of April there were only 33 million ounces of registered inventories to back up all of that paper trading. Just imagine if a mere 5% of all of that buying actually stood for delivery; the entire inventories would be more than wiped out. Yet despite the steady erosion of these already scant Comex inventories - a characteristic which would surely be interpreted as most bullish in other commodity markets - the price of silver has actually declined since April. We endeavour to provide a framework for understanding this phenomenon below.

Those who were following the developments in the silver market in April and May (we note that there were many who were) will likely recall that the CME Group raised both initial and maintenance margins five times within less than a two week span effectively raising the minimum amount of capital required to participate in the silver futures market by 84%8. This is significant due to the amount of leverage in the futures market and also due to the losses resulting from the precipitous selloff which began on Sunday, May 1st, when several thousand contracts were wantonly dumped onto the very thinly traded after-hours silver futures market causing the silver price to plunge 13% within the span of less than 15 minutes9.

For example, consider a hypothetical speculative trader who went long, say 200 July 2011 SI futures contracts on April 28th. At that time this trader would have been required to post an initial margin of $2.565 million for a position of one million ounces of "silver" and thus would have been levered 18.5 times10. Below we present what the trade blotter for this trader might look like over the next few days assuming he maintained his position.

paper_0611128_table1.jpg

Following the initial trade, each day the trader’s positions would be marked-to-market and any losses or gains would be applied against his account’s equity balance. Should the losses on the position bring the equity balance below the maintenance margin level, the trader would be required to deposit the additional capital required to bring the equity in the account back up to at least the initial margin requirement level.

While the margin increases alone would have forced a decision for this leveraged long to either post the additional margin or close enough positions to bring margin balances in line with substantially higher requirements, the trader was actually fighting a battle on two fronts. This is because in addition to the margin increases, the trader was also experiencing massive losses to his capital due to a rapidly falling silver price. So it is also important to consider the extent of losses to the trader’s equity following the precipitous drop which began on the evening of May 1st. In our scenario, before finding a bottom around May 17th, the cumulative losses would have amounted to over $14 million, or over five times the initial margin deposit of $2.565 million that was required to take on the position on April 28th. This meant that with margin call after margin call, the capital committed to the position ballooned almost 700% by the time the silver price finally bottomed in mid May. The significance of such a dramatic erosion of capital on a leveraged position cannot be overstated, particularly in the context of rising margin requirements. The CME Group would know this very well, and so it strikes us as particularly suspect that they would continue to raise margin rates in the face of such a sharp selloff. A selloff, we might add, which emanated from highly unusual trading activity on May 1st that, in our opinion, just reeks of manipulation. How else can one explain the dumping of several thousand SI futures contracts within the course of 15 minutes, in one of the most illiquid hours of trading, without seemingly any regard for price or a fundamental catalyst to speak of11? Though we will let the reader connect the dots as to what the intent of the CME Group and the seller’s of SI futures contracts on May 1st really was, we can certainly observe what effect these actions had on the market by looking further into the weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) reports published by the CFTC.

The COT provides us with the weekly open interest held by various categories of silver futures market participants, and thus gives us clues as to how these participants reacted in response to these margin increases and ensuing volatility. We present the following table showing net open interest for the various categories, converted into silver ounces, which we obtained from the COT report for selected dates.

paper_0611128_table2.jpg

First, note how in the three weeks following the margin hikes, the speculative12 net long position dropped from 212.7 million ounces to 170.1 million. This very clearly indicates that the speculative longs, when faced with rising margin requirements and losses to capital, did close out a substantial amount of their long positions. The commercials who were short those 212.7 million ounces appear to have been taking every opportunity to cover their own positions. Rather than shorting further into the ensuing weakness, the commercials covered approximately 42.6 million ounces in the three week period.

Another piece of information gleaned from the COT data is that despite what many commentators were hailing as a bubble caused by excessive speculation in the futures markets, the net speculative long positions had in fact been dropping over time. Even during the April run up preceding the five margin hikes, the net speculative long position actually decreased by 23%.

That commercial short position deserves further mention. What is unique and of interest to many silver market observers is not only the size of the short position on the Comex, which is dominated by those "commercials", but also the concentration of the short interest. We provide the percentage of the total open interest held by the four largest short sellers on a net basis in the table above. Note that the net position of the four largest equates to 29% of the total open interest as of May 17th. Further we would also note that the concentrated short interest of the big four, though still quite high has actually dropped substantially over the past year coinciding with the signing of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the resultant public discourse on position limits. Comments from CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton acknowledging the "repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver markets," and that, "violations to the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) have taken place in silver markets and that any such violation of the law in this regard should be prosecuted," perhaps have also had an impact on the behavior of silver market participants.13 And though the CFTC’s investigation into the silver futures and options market remains open after three years, we remain hopeful that its findings will further serve the interests of the investing public who rightly expect a fair and transparent silver market void of manipulative forces.

Could the drop in open interest and the reduction of the concentration in the commercial short open interest be perceived as an indication that those top four short-sellers are positioning for the inevitable imposition of position limits rules? Perhaps, and if so, it would follow that likely the short sellers seized the opportunity to further reduce their "liabilities" by buying up contracts in early May at a 30% discount.

Let there be no mistake, we view the current setup as extremely bullish. In our view, whatever froth and excess was present in the paper markets has likely been shaken out in the recent selloff. The remaining longs do not seem willing to part with their silver at these prices. These are the strong hands with longer time horizons that are likely not overly leveraged or are willing and able to withstand substantial volatility. Moreover, perhaps the "game" on the paper silver markets which has been meticulously documented over decades by Ted Butler14 and others, will soon be coming to an end.

What is perhaps most important is that despite what has recently transpired in the paper silver markets, the robust demand fundamentals for silver have not changed in our view. For confirmation of this, look no further than the physical silver market (i.e. the real silver market) which is providing us with evidence almost daily of a sustained bull market for physical silver. The US Mint recently stated that, "demand for American Silver Eagle Coins remains at unprecedented high levels."15 Likewise for the Perth Mint16, the Austrian Mint17, and the Royal Canadian Mint18 as well. The Chinese, who were net exporters of silver only four years ago, imported 300% more silver in 2010 than 2009 and such large quantities of imports are expected to continue19. Last year, Indian silver imports increased nearly six-fold, and this year consumption is expected to rise nearly 43% according to the Bombay Bullion Association20. In Utah, silver (along with gold, of course) will now be accepted in weight value as legal tender21. According to Hugo Salinas-Price, a prominent Mexican billionaire, there is now "very strong support for the monetization of silver" in the Mexican congress22. We suspect the Europeans are likely to account for an increasing amount of silver purchases going forward as well. In fact, we just can’t imagine a better outlook for silver fundamentals. This really makes us question who could be short such massive quantities of silver and why? Particularly in those leveraged paper silver markets, where as we demonstrated, only a fraction of the outstanding notional ounces are actually available in physical quantity.

We have a very tough time understanding those bearish arguments against silver. We look at the real silver market, and based on the supply and demand data coming from the real, physical markets for silver, the fundamentals are only getting stronger. And yet there exists another silver market, which as we’ve shown, is not very connected to the physical realm at all. And though silver investors have for decades suffered the tyranny of a rigged paper monopoly over silver price discovery, it appears to us that the tides are turning. In the age of QE to infinity, investors are being more scrupulous with their capital and as such they are demanding physical silver in quantity. With more and more dollars flowing into the silver markets and a finite supply of physical to meet that demand, the theoretical losses for the paper silver short-sellers are near infinite. And with such a skewed and obvious risk/reward payoff vastly favoring the longs, we pose the following question. Who is most at risk in the silver markets: the buyers of a scarce and real asset that serves a growing multitude of purposes, or the sellers, who are short a quantity of silver which may very well not even be obtainable at anywhere near current prices? Let the Seller Beware!

For more information about Sprott Asset Management’s views on silver and its silver bullion funds, please visit www.sprott.com.

http://www.tfmetalsreport.com/blog/1...-turdite-video

http://goldsilverpreservewealth.com/...erformance.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Serpo

http://goldsilverpreservewealth.com/...erformance.jpg

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and what do we anticipate form looking at this?