Silver Editorials & Commentary

Gold functions like an alarm clock. A rising gold price usually indicates that financial uncertainty and volatility are the dominant market themes.

Silver has been selling off relentlessly since the Federal Reserve expanded its third quantitative-easing campaign last week. As that decision was highly inflationary, silver's subsequent weakness has really vexed traders.

Let's take a historical look at daily volatility in the old monetary metals from the early days of the 1969-80 bull market to the present.

We had a great week with markets consolidating recent gains and setting up for higher prices this coming week by the looks of things.

We don't hear much about gold and silver anymore on the news. This time last year you could not go 5 minutes without a TV or radio station talking about them. Why is this?

US Dollar Monthly Bar Failure Chart

US Dollar Monthly Bar Failure Chart

Silver is no doubt tiny on the grand commodities scale. But its attractiveness, spearheaded by a 1000%+ bull-to-date gain to its latest high, has spawned a wide range of products for investors to partake in.

With less than three months left until the end of the year, let's do a quick recap. Silver may not be as shiny as gold, but it has been no pushover to the yellow metal.

Silver has certainly enjoyed an impressive run of late, catapulting nearly a third higher since mid-summer. Because this surge looks nearly vertical on short-term charts, some traders are getting nervous about this rally's staying power.

The price of silver reached a 5-month high this past week as investor interest seems to have been rekindled in both gold and silver as belief in financial markets increases that the latest round of monetary easing from the Federal Reserve - QE3 - will soon be o

[Before reading this update on Fractal Silver, you might wish to skim through my recent public article, "Fractal Gold Review and Update" since it discusses key timing issues that this article is based upon.]

After being sucked into the general commodities correction, silver has been relentlessly drifting lower since late February. But this weakness has forced the white metal down to a very bullish place technically.

In the Wednesday stock report we took an indepth look at gold to see what the chart patterns were telling us. Tonight I want to look at silver as there is a chart pattern similar to the gold rectangle that no one is seeing at the moment.

On Friday the price action in gold caught the attention of most market participants as gold put in a monster move to the upside in light of risk assets such as the S&P500 selling off sharply.

We now have a Bullish Extreme in the USD. Over the last 5 years, Bullish extremes have been very good indicators that a top was within a hand's reach.

In early May of 2012, the Silver to Gold Ratio (SGR), or the number of ounces of silver that one ounce of gold will buy is looking really good. How is that?

The past couple months investors have been focusing on the equities market. And rightly so with stocks running higher and higher.

Do you think that depositors in Cyprus are being taxed? That their money is being taken from them to go to the government in Cyprus or to Europe? Most analysis of the Cyprus bailout is wrong on this point.

Gold and silver are very close to entering the mania phase of this bull market. In order for gold and silver to go into the mania phase, value has to be diverted from somewhere, and that "somewhere" is most likely stocks.

This week may provide some trading opportunities for us if all goes well now that most traders are investors are all giddy about stocks again.

The week was interesting as we basically stalled out for the most part with many US indexes and stocks, especially coming onto the end of the week.

Analysis Of The Long-Term Silver Chart Suggests Significantly Higher Prices

Below, is an extract of my Silver Premium Update for 25 January 2012:

I have received numerous emails asking about silver. This article was prompted by a question enquiring what the silver price might be if my gold forecast of $4,500 proved to be correct.

The new year started off with a bang with precious metals out-shining the competition. Is this a harbinger of things to come? We think so and we are not alone.

I think you will admit that we are in the middle of one major crazy financial mess.

Let's be frank here. I spend between 12 and 15 hours a day working in front of my computer screens watching markets and charts and reading news and reports from all over the world.

You'd think I'd have a clue. I don't.

We are at the edge of a major economic crisis. Our monetary system is the underlying cause of this major crisis. The massive debt bubble created by our monetary system is about to burst.

Once upon a time, the Chinese government forbade ownership of all precious metals.

Many investors pigeon-hole themselves as "inflationists" or "deflationists", where an inflationist is someone who expects more inflation over the years immediately ahead and a deflationist is someone who expects deflation.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how gold was starting to top and that everyone should expect a very sharp drop to the low $1600 area.

When examining the present situation in silver, what everyone needs to know, first and foremost, is that technical analysis is an exercise in futility in a manipulated market.

A Cup and Handle pattern is a bullish continuation pattern that represents a period of consolidation followed by an eventual breakout, which is the continuation of the previous trend. Typically these patterns last months and not weeks or days.

I had two purposes in writing today's commentary. The most obvious intent is to help people avoid committing financial suicide in our real estate markets.

It's the thick of summer now and I'm trying to take it pretty easy this weekend and perhaps another weekend or two while the warm weather is here.

When I first began examining supply/demand data on the silver market several years ago, I was somewhat hesitant to form conclusions, as silver (and gold) have traits which are very different than ordinary commodities - which affects supply/demand analysis.

I welcome the Internet debate on the question whether the Mint should be opened to gold and silver.