In case you think it is all just the world situation that is causing the bloodbath. Here is a snippet from Ed Steer this morning.

Before heading into my stories today, here's what silver analyst Ted Butler had to say about the Comex trading action during last Friday's trading day in silver..."Quite frankly, I don't think I have witnessed a more blatant manipulative takedown as what occurred on the Comex on Thursday evening and into Friday morning [Eastern time]. The vicious sell-off for no economic justification was simply outrageous. So outrageous, that I don't know how it could not be judged as manipulative by any level of regulatory standard. I know many of you observed the same thing...and felt the same way. I want to be very careful about not overstating what I observed, but it was clearly a deliberate case of disruptive trading when liquidity conditions were thin. This disruptive trading was also clearly intended to induce as much speculative long liquidation as possible."

I'm sure Ted will have much the same thing to say to me on the phone this morning, when we discuss what went on in the forty-five minute period between 11:30 p.m. and 12:15 a.m. Eastern time last night and this morning...which is 12:30 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. Hong Kong time in their Tuesday afternoon. I would bet serious dollars that JPMorgan was at the center of that bid-pulling scenario...just as they were last Friday.

Of course they hit gold as well...but it was the speculative silver longs that the bullion banks were really after...and they got them pretty good. There was big volume in both metals over that time period.