Hi BigPic!

I do not think it comes down to having enough dollar firepower to rig the game. It is more likely an issue of the structure of the markets. There has been a great washout of the spec longs during the last 2 months. Historically, the manipulation has been designed to take advantage of longs by engineering selloffs that trigger stop loss and technical selling. When the open interest is contracted and there are few spec longs left to flush, the law of diminishing returns kicks in, the shorts are covered, and the playing field is left to roll over and set up the next raid in the future. This correction has about run its course, and we may have some sideways action to consolidate, but otherwise it looks like the open interest is back to more bullish levels.

Silver is stronger than gold right now because the supply/demand fundamentals for physical metal appear to be more important than the influence of the paper futures.

Eventually the grip of the cartel on the metals will be broken by physical demand. Right now the illusion of infinite supply is sufficient to allow a takedown whenever one of the big players decides to run a paper raid. When the metals become in short supply to the point where a delivery failure occurs, the reality will trump the illusion, and the game is done.

cheers!

mike