This has the look of official intervention across the board today. Yeah, I know the explanation in the media is 'profit taking' but I dispute that. The markets opened very strong today, and then were reeled in and pushed lower. Once a heavy hand appeared and triggered a rollover, THEN you had some specs deciding to book profits and move to the sidelines.

Consider that copper, platinum, and paladium are getting creamed today, and the uranium stocks and REE stocks are also caught in the crossfire. The dollar is only up marginally, and even that is probably only due to a dead cat bounce and massive dollar buy programs executed behind the scenes.

This has the appearance of the smash job on the PM sector from the French to start the year. That completely backfired on those pinheads, as artificially suppressing the metals prices just drew in more specs and has now created an even more acute shortage at the COMEX. Nice work boys! But that is what we should come to expect from career politicians that have no real life experience and think they can take the same attitude of meddling and interference from the political arean and then impose it on the markets. It didnt work then and it wont work now.

Ironically silver and gold seem to be holding up well today. With each clearly defined smash down the metals just gradually recover and start trending higher. That must have the crooks wringing their hands with anxiety.

ECU is back in the locker for another day. The longs are discouraged by the background noise, and the shorts are running the table for today. I am still sitting on a bid @ $1.12 and I am going to add another even lower this afternoon.

We may even hold $36 silver today despite all the silliness going on around us. Does anyone think that holding silver down a bit is going to discourage Chinese or Indian physical silver buyers? It may fool the clueless dolts in North America that still think clowns like Jeffery Christian know what they are talking about, but the Asians are not interested in timing the market and are not going to be bluffed into 'waiting for a correction'. Just look how physical demand has increased by a multiple at these generational record highs.

I do not think there is any longterm restraint on silver climbing higher because I do not believe any large stockpiles of silver remain and new production will not be sufficient to cover the outstanding shorts already exposed, let alone build a surplus. And I do not think there is any chance that ECU will remain held down indefinitely as silver rises, as long as the company continues to increase production, and continues to improve the efficiency of operations. The drilling will just accelerate the spec interest.

So while I very much hope that my bids get hit, I am not overly concerned about this latest pressure on the sector or on ECU.

cheers!

mike