this is from ed steer of casey research:

Silver, which is the real centre of the universe for the bullion banks, was bludgeoned. What I said on Saturday, is worth repeating here..."But the bullion banks will, as they have in the past, most likely use their gargantuan gold short position to beat the living crap out of the silver price once again." It was certainly "mission accomplished" yesterday, as silver was clocked for 81 cents...by far the biggest percentage loss [-5.46%] in the precious metals complex. Monday's high price mark was around 2:00 p.m. in Hong Kong...with the low coming at the close of electronic trading in New York's afternoon at 5:15 p.m. yesterday. Silver's highest New York price occurred at 9:00 a.m. on the dot yesterday...just like gold's.

click to enlarge

Ted Butler and I were both disappointed with Friday's changes in open interest. Considering the beating gold and silver took, we both expected a far more impressive set of numbers...but we didn't get them. Gold o.i. only dropped 4,736 contracts to 383,603...on volume of 111,839. And silver o.i. actually rose! Only by 196 contracts [to 109,232 on volume of 34,681 contracts] but on such a big price decline, this was unexpected. Ted and I both agree that these criminals [the bullion banks...mostly JPMorgan] can hide their tracks by going long instead of covering their shorts...this would skew the open interest numbers. After the licking that both metals got yesterday, I'm expecting some big drops in open interest when the numbers become available from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange later this morning. If we don't get it, then we've probably still got a lot of down-side pain ahead of us.

At this point in time, I have to ask myself...how far along are we in this liquidation process? It's the "same old, same old" routine that's been going on for the last decade...and that Ted Butler and I have been writing about for weeks now. And so, dear reader, what's happening at the moment should be no surprise to you at all. The bullion banks are panicking the tech funds [and small traders] into puking up their longs while JPMorgan et al ring the cash register and make fat profits as they close out their short positions. It will be over when the bullion banks have covered as many of their short positions as they can. The only unknowns...how long it will take [a couple of weeks or a couple of months]...and what the gold and silver prices will be when we get there.