This is more like it. Gold and silver took off early, were then crushed with yet another waterfall takedown, but this time both precious metals went right back up and made new highs. The buying in both gold and silver was relentless until their closes with new highs constantly being made as the Comex trading session wore on.

What's going on?

*The analysis presented here of late was right on the money ... that the move down in gold was orchestrated by The Gold Cartel to take it out of the spotlight as the Fed prepared to take quantitative easing into the spotlight. The crushing of the gold price followed immediately by the Bullard comments was NO FLUKE. See today's Barron's/Forsythe article below. A quote from it:

"IN WHAT MAY BE PREPARATORY STEP for a major shift in the U.S. monetary policy, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard warned the U.S. is closer to succumbing to a Japanese-style deflation than any recent time, which he urged be countered with "quantitative easing."

*The aggressive assault on gold was done with some urgency ... continued waterfall attacks on the price the likes of which us veteran gold watchers have not seen before.

*It was done to coincide with the August option expiry and the first notice day of the August contract in order to flush out spec longs and allow the Fed accommodating Gold Cartel to cover short positions.

You think The Gold Cartel has chutzpah? Andrew Maguire explains the modus operandi to the CFTC before, and at, GATA's presentation to them on March 25, 2010 ... telling them how JP Morgan and others in the cabal kill the price at option expiry time. I believe they then have proceeded to do the same thing the next four option expirations regarding gold and silver. Talk about arrogance and little regard for the authorities.

*The gold market is all about the physical market versus The Gold Cartel. At some point a collapsing dollar will be a major factor re gold, but this will most likely occur when The Gold Cartel is begging for mercy.

*The pundits who fail to take into account the manipulation of the gold market will continue to get the big picture analysis of this market wrong.

*This is why it is so important to know what GATA knows about gold and silver. How weird that our analysis has been so right for a decade, and still, few will go there. Few will even talk about it.

*The US economic news continues to be lousy and likely to worsen, which will bring on more calls for QE. The groundwork has been laid. As this understanding takes greater hold, more and more investors will jump on the gold/silver bandwagon.

*Perhaps my short term silver analysis wasn't so wrong after all. It only took a couple of days for silver to soar back to $18. It went all the way to $18.11 before getting the standard, kill the excitement JP Morgan drill ... selling off going into the close. Odds remain high now that the sharp 80 cent takedown of silver WAS a KILLER MOVE, one which has cleaned out the weak longs, and is now set up for a spectacular move to the upside.

*All the base metals were higher today and continue to surge. Silver was taken down to accommodate the raid on gold. It is now playing catch up with the base metals and other commodity markets. As mentioned yesterday with silver at $17.60, it was way too cheap to stay down there.

*Dave, Chuck and Michel's call of a precious metals bottom in the past couple of days was the correct one.

*Gold should really fly once it takes out $1200...