Pic,

Fear is in firm control of the stock markets nowadays. Sell first ask questions later. Strength is being sold quickly.

There was a report on BNN this morning about the unusually large percentage of cash sitting on the sidelines. I didn't catch if it was just Canadian funds but that tells me a good portion of the selling has been done, not counting the shorting that's ongoing.

No question there's shorting of gold & resource stocks, then using the proceeds to prop the USD & DOW

Have we seen the bottom yet? Hard to imagine JPMs getting sold down more here but my lack of imagination has never prevented it before. : ) There is downside remaining in many energy stocks and JPMs might also get dragged down only because gold & silver have a tendancy to follow oil down.

It's perverse that most JPMs didn't track the runup in gold & silver but still get hammered when PM prices dip.

Personally I'm sitting on more than 30% cash and am not expecting any serious buying in the juniors until we get into the fall at the earliest. I think some exceptionally good news will attract modest buying in the odd junior but there needs to be some vestige of stablility restored to the banking sector before the JPM sector as a whole will begin to reflect its value.

When the fear subsides, the cash on the sidelines will flow back into the big caps first. If the markets can stabilize for a month or two, the juniors will recover. JMHO

Cheers

RWT