ed steer from casey research comments on this week's decline in gold and silver prices:

http://caseyresearch.com/displayDrp....

Since the start of the week, gold has lost $40 and silver is down $1.15. These losses have nothing to do with changes in supply or demand, as 90% of the the time the price is determined by what is happening between the tech funds in the Non-Commercial category, and the bullion banks in the Commercial category. The interplay between these two groups of traders determines the price...it's as simple as that. If the tech funds are buying and the bullion banks are going short against them...the price rises. If the tech funds are pitching their longs and the bullion banks are covering their shorts, the price declines. It's as simple as that. Virtually nothing else matters.

This clean out that we are having right now is identical to the many that we've had in the past, and all have involved the same participants. When the bullion banks have flushed as many longs as they think they're going to get, then the bottom will be in...and we're close now.

As Ted said to me on the phone today..."most of the damage has been done--but has all the damage the boyz can do, been done?" Good question. As I said in my interview with Al Korelin on the weekend, sometime before the end of August (options expiry is on the 26th) the bottom will be in.

The shares got smashed again. It's obvious that a lot of gold bugs...or pseudo gold bugs...have exceeded their pain thresholds and chucked everything. Ted Butler has always said that before the bullion banks let the prices go, the last take down (if this is it) would be ugly. He was right. I also mentioned to Al Korelin that I would wait until I saw how things turned out this week before investing a dollar. Now that I've seen it...it's the time to commit...now that there's blood in the streets. Sure, we may spend a little time below the 200-day moving averages. But if it were me...I'd be buying now.

I've always been a buy-and-hold type of investor...which has not stood me in good stead in this precious metals market. I expect that I will be taking a significant chunk of my money off the table when we get to the top of this next leg up...which should be quite spectacular.