from the latest got gold report:

COMEX is Big, but Not the Only Game in the World

We have always maintained that the obvious advantage of granting unlimited
exemptions to the short side while restricting the long side results in the opportunity
for abusive trading by the much more powerful short side from time to time.
However, we also maintain that the effects of that dominance, however inconvenient
or destabilizing, are and always will be temporary.

Over time nothing and no one, not even the largest of the largest
commercial “hedgers” can override the laws of global
supply/demand/liquidity. That is just another way of saying that sooner or
later even the COMEX answers to the global price of metal.

Things may be changing fairly soon as position limits will be regulated directly by the
CFTC if what we read about the new regime under CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler and
about the 2,300 pages of Dodd-Frank “FinReg” is accurate. While some analysts
seem to be hopeful that the new onslaught of government regulation will have
positive effects in their view, we are not nearly so certain or hopeful.

Indeed, we suspect that once it becomes clear what the CFTC will end up doing in
the area of exemptions for hedgers, we fully expect to hear screams of indignation
from the analysts who now think Mr. Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs exec, will
suddenly decide to put equal position limits on the bullion banks as they do the
speculators.

We can say without reservation right now, that is not going to happen. “Hedging” is
sacrosanct to the bullion bankers who managed to get gold and silver exempted from
the part of the new mountain of regulation that deals with banks trading in OTC
swaps. Gensler has banking and hedging ingrained in his DNA.

Not that it really matters all that much for the price of silver in the long run.

http://www.gotgoldreportsubscription.com/COT20100731.pdf