ed steer of casey research explains how the reversal in gold and silver prices was engineered on wednesday:

The new Commitment of Traders report on Friday didn't show much change. The main reason for that is because there were three days of rising prices last week...combined with two days of falling prices this week...so the result was sort of a wash. All the real damage was done on Wednesday of this past week. The complete info on that day won't be out until next Friday. Ted and I both agree that what happened on Wednesday during Comex floor trading in New York was planned in advance. The PPT knew what Bernanke was going to say at 2:15 that afternoon, and JPMorgan et al were given their marching orders, and that's why the prices blew through the 50-day moving averages to the downside with such severity, both in gold and silver, less than seven hours before the Fed's 'surprise' announcement. They took gold down about $10-12 more than I thought they would...or had to. Ted was happy that they did, because they took the gold price not only well below the 50-day moving average, but they also hit a new low for this move...below the lows of March 10/11. This really blew out a lot of longs in both the Non-Commercial and small trader categories...which was the object of the exercise.

click to enlarge

But, as Ted Butler keeps impressing on me...and is trying to impress on everyone else...is that gold is a side show compared to what's really important to the bullion banks, and that is silver. It is the center of the universe for them, because large quantities are becoming increasingly difficult to find...and '4 or less' bullion banks are short 71% of the entire Comex silver market!!! The number they did on silver during Comex trading on Wednesday was off the charts. JPMorgan et al [by pulling their bids] managed to drop the price below $12 for a few minutes. Thousands of long positions on margin in the Non-Commerical and Nonreportable categories got sold instantly. Silver was gang raped, pure and simple. And the CFTC, SEC and our silver companies do nothing.

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