this is from ed steer of casey research, who notes that with silver at this level, jp morgan could easily drive the price down through its 50-day moving average, resulting in further short-term deterioration:

As I said on Friday, the 50-day moving averages had still not been taken out to the downside on either metal. And as I also pointed out, despite the $2 decline in silver prices in the last week or so, the COT in silver actually showed [unbelieveable?] deterioration...and I feared that because of the huge Treasury auction this week, that the boyz still had the ammunition [tech and small trader longs] to take gold and silver down hard. They may be in the process of doing just that. Will they? Can they?....sure, if they want to. Look what they did yesterday. A quick message to their floor traders to fold their arms...or the electronic equivalent thereof...and "Bob's your Uncle!"

As of yesterday, the 50-day moving average for silver was $12.30...and for gold it was $901.34. These are chip shots for the boyz...and if they really play their cards right we could get a 'super spike' to the downside in both metals. It wouldn't last long, but it would be enough to force the tech and small traders holding longs, to liquidate them. Let's see how the PPT and JPMorgan et al play this over the next couple of days.

Open interest changes for Friday, you ask? Gold o.i. rose 3,418 contracts to 373,399 and silver o.i. was down 198 contracts to 92,109. Another 119 contracts were delivered in gold yesterday...now up to 1,383 for the month. And in silver, another 135 contracts were delivered...with the Bank of Nova Scotia issuing them all...and JPMorgan [64 contracts] and Goldman Sachs [39 contracts] being the largest stoppers. Comex silver warehouse stocks fell a hair over 500,000 ounces...and there were no changes to the GLD and SLV yesterday either. However, over in Switzerland, their gold ETF added another 50,011 ounces during the prior week...and their silver stash added another 1,189,590 ounces. Now don't forget that in the 'week that was' the SLV took out about five million ounces at the same time that the Swiss were adding to their stockpile. No wonder Ted Butler thinks that something isn't quite right with the SLV. I also noted that the U.S. Mint has once again updated their numbers for the gold and silver eagles. For March in gold, they are now up to 47,000...and in silver it's now up to 1,075,000. And lastly...in an e-mail from Ted Butler yesterday morning came this little 'nugget'...if you'll pardon the pun..."I noticed some unusual trading in the March/May silver switch today...and see March closed a penny premium to the May. There was definitely demand for the delivery month [March] today." Well, golly gee, if there was big silver demand yesterday...with silver slipping slightly into backwardation...that totally explains why the price got hammered by JPMorgan...LOL!!! Take the blue pill...then call me when you're '10 feet tall'.

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