Things we can see:

Most all of us feel/agree that the price of silver is manipulated, although many of us differ materially on the degree and effect of that manipulation.

The price of silver far outstripped the price of gold, especially in the last six months or so.

It is really easy for anyone interested in investing in silver to do so through the SLV or similar etf's.

Almost uniformly, the silver stocks came no where near keeping up with the price of silver and, if fact, even SLW was left behind in the last couple of weeks of April.

Most of the well known commentators and silver "experts" kept pumping out articles that encouraged the more experienced folk (ie, us) to stay the course and that there was no bubble or overbought condition. All kinds of arguments were used to support those views, and, while many made sense, they were wrong. Other, opposite types of arguments that also made sense (all depends on one's audience as to what makes sense!), turned out to be right.

Things I would conclude from the above:

Many investors with limited knowledge in precious metal investment (essentially, new investors to our arena), jumped on the bandwagon in the last several months, and especially in the last several weeks, using mainly SLV, as one might expect, and thereby bloating SLV, causing it, in turn, to purchase more metal, thus raising the price there as well. Many others, bought physical, thus keeping the ball rolling in both paper and physical worlds.

The more savvy investors, who have sufficient experience and knowledge to play the miners, did not bid up the price of most mining stocks, and, certainly, the new investors wanted no part of traditional or exploration mining stocks, understandably, but a few were adventurous enought to try something like SLW, once explained to them.

POS and SLV got way ahead of themselves and poof! Now, no one could have known when that would happen, however, the manipulation part comes in as far as lighting the match to the fuse. In the past, such attempts fizzled, this time, kaboom!

Acknowledging that we "know" the silver market is manipulated, we also must accept what has happened in that we knew the commensurate risk. I don't think one can complain 24/7 that a market is manipulated, remain in it heavily, then be upset only at the manipulators/regulators for getting burned. I think one has to be either upset with oneself as well, or, just look at it as part of the risk of playing in a heavily manipulated arena.

Where do we go from here:

Damn, the most important thing of all, and I've really not much of a clue. Fortunately for most of the rest of you, you seem to know exactly what's going to happen. I can see the pos going either way, with maybe a little more chance of going down further than seeing a recovery in the days and weeks ahead. Perhaps Armstrong will hit the nail on the head.

As far as ECU, I see a stock that traded at a higher market cap with fewer proven resources and a far lower price of silver (even assuming more carnage), on the verge of announcing what could be very big news. If it's big and positive, I want to be in the stock. Can't guarantee that it will soar, not after watching this market and this stock for so long, but I like our chances, but we should at least get some significant bump in price, especially from currently depressed levels.