it looks to me as though several are on the verge of a break out..and today was a very much down day on the US general stockmarket.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon trawling through junior miners charts, and it does seem to vary a lot..a few that increased most late last year seem to be having most difficulty breaking resistance . Anway at least 3 or 4 have been trading within a very tight trading range today...not what I would expect from a rise into the silver '18's, but sometimes a precursor to other more volatile things.

CDE and the Canadian counterpart CDM seem to be on the verge of breaking out tomorrow.. has been hit hard by the tech fund margin sell off.

On junior shares generally, people seem to love investments that havent suffered dilution, and then moan when the shares are volatile to the downside on profit taking and fear. Silver has a 1987 history of falling with the general market, this has probably coloured action a lot this winter along with tax loss selling and TSX seasonal trends. Risk is another issue, some people are trying to escape dilution and mining cost issues, via the etf. So if the more risky juniors break out -up, against the general market (falling) that has to make a statement, especially if the return is several times better than the etf, and if the producers start to set their own price that will also send a very clear message to the market.

I don't think funds are shorting the juniors, junior minors are generally illiquid. if anything more like to be majors, but from an article I read yesterday (Moriarty - 321 Gold) there's no sign of any major shorting of Canadian Juniors...if memory serves, the average he stated was only about 2%. That would be 1m shares short against 50m issued shares, or 5m shares short against 250m. Not exactly hedge fund stuff, but bearing in mind the outcome of a 400k buy on ECU with silver on a run ,that would create 'some' momentum.

Volatility to the upside also has its benefits