Silver analyst Ted Butler had his weekly review for his paying subscribers on Saturday...and here are three free paragraphs.

"Since the price lows of late December, we have added $250 to the price of gold on a 65,000 contract increase in the net speculative long/commercial short position on the COMEX. This is the equivalent of 6.5 million oz of gold. While these are paper ounces, from a quantity perspective, it dwarfs any verifiable change in ownership in physical ounces, such as in ETFs. Simply put – we went up $250 in gold because speculators bought and commercials sold 65,000 net contracts on the COMEX and the speculators were more aggressive. Where does that leave us and where do we go from here?"

"Back in December, it was easy to call for higher prices in gold and silver because of the very bullish COT set up and I hoped I had conveyed that at the time. There was little additional speculative selling that the commercials could rig at that time. Now, it's different. There is enough potential speculative selling in place that the commercials could arrange for prices to decline enough to trigger off that selling. Does that mean that the commercials will definitely rig prices lower now? No, not necessarily. But they could. The commercials could also be forced to buy back shorts in gold, as happened to them this past August amid soaring prices. My point is that it is different now than it was in late December, when it looked like a sure trip north in price. We may be headed much higher from here; it’s just that I can’t say that with certainty. I wish I could, but I can’t. I can tell you if we go down big in the relative near term, it will be because of the dirty rotten commercials rigging prices lower. But they may not be able to pull that off, so we have to be prepared for that as well."

As for silver, we are nowhere near the favorable COT set up that existed in late December. We could go down, we could go up. Both price possibilities have occurred in the past from similar COT readings. If we go down, it will be solely due to commercial rigging, same as always. But there are some very compelling factors pointing to higher silver prices, including the tight physical situation. In fact, the obvious and outrageous short position of JPMorgan has become so extreme that it could serve as the catalyst for a price explosion."