silver has had a good run, but ed steer of casey research expects it may end badly again:

The Commitment of Traders report [for positions held at the end of trading on Tuesday, May 19th] was awful. In gold, the U.S. bullion banks went short against all comers...adding another 11,885 contracts to their short position. They are now net short 18.3 million ounces of gold...and to make matters worse, both Ted and I agree that there has been a further deterioration of at least another 3 million ounces [30,000+ contracts sold short] in the three days since the Tuesday cut-off for this COT report. This is the worst COT report for gold since before the commodities 'crash' that began after the July 2008 long weekend. This is a screaming danger signal. The biggest net short position that I can ever remember seeing was about 25.6 million ounces. There's nothing to say that this condition can't persist for a while longer...but it has [in the past] always ended exactly the same way...and that's badly. Please re-read my Friday rant for further clarification, as I do not wish to repeat myself here.

Silver was an even bigger disappointment. Here, the bullion banks also went short against all comers as well. This time it was to the tune of 4,496 contracts. There has been huge deterioration in silver in just the last three weeks. However, since the Tuesday cut-off for this COT, it appears that the big shorts have been going out of their way not to add to their silver short positions...and are keeping the price contained with as little shorting as possible. That's why we've seen such big run-ups in price with such small volume...and open interest changes. Friday's silver price run-up, Thursday's open interest numbers [above] and Wednesday's o.i. numbers from my rant yesterday and Wednesday, clearly shows this. Frankly, I don't know what to make of it...but I expect we'll find out soon enough.

http://www.caseyresearch.com/display...