Harvey Organ @ http://harveyorgan.blogspot.com/

The total silver comex open interest fell by 4952 contracts to 136,560 from 141,512. Although it is clear that the target of the raid was silver, the drop in OI is astonishing. There are two scenarios here:

1. the longs had enough and pitched without rolling

2. some cash settlements occurred.

At first glance, I thought that the longs had rolled but I was totally surprised that they did not. They pitched.

Why? Silver was holding nicely at just under $33.00 and the longs have been resolute for a while. I am beginning to sense that some cash settlements occurred on Thursday. This would be risky to the banking cartel because the ex- long holders could again some into the market by buying a March contract.

Maybe that is why the open interest declined by such a wide margin versus gold who endured the same raid.

Of course, all eyes were focused on the front March contract. The open interest for March declined from 28,275 to 14,259 pretty close to what I thought. My guess is that the OI for Monday will turn out to be around 8000 or 40 million oz. Let us wait and see.

The estimated volume on Friday was a huge 102,404 contracts. The confirmed volume on Thursday was a monstrous 140,409. Totally unbelievable. In oz this represents 700 million oz of silver or 1 years annual production if you include China production or 115% of annual production ex China. My goodness the bankers have a lot of nerve to use all of that unbacked fire power.