It could also be that JPM and HSBC want to lure a maximum of longs into the trap to blow them out of the water at the expiry date with their virtually unlimited shorting capacity, this is what we have seen for years with each major options expiry date.

Unless the longs at last will insist on physical delivery, even at a temporarily slightly higher price, then the shorts will be blown away and the Comex with them, and the Silver price would get lift off, but with the automatically triggered orders they would have to redefine their computer program trigger parameters in time and the Comex would almost certainly change the rules with immediate effect to protect their captured manipulative virtual market and JPM.