Didnt the Hunt brothers loose a fortune trying to corner the market in silver?

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Old James

Nothing really surprising there. With the world slow down in electronics and automotive production the demand for these metals will have fallen, and lower demand means lower prices.

And of course China has joined the "not growing so fast" club, so they will be living off their vast stock piles...

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I have to say that in the longer term, say 10-25 year time-frame, I don't see anything but upside on most commodities. Pretty simple math to me, not sure the exact percentages, but something like 20 odd percent of the worlds population live like us in the developed (1st) world, and many of the rest would like to have a similar lifestyle. There are a finite amount of resources, (see what happened ($) over the last 10 years or so when China's engine was running on all 8 cylinders, and India is just barely starting to get revved up, comparitively) and unless we somehow get a handle on population growth, which I am dubious of in the short-mid term, (baring some type of pandemic, ala the bubonic plague with 30-50% mortality to knock the population back down to a sustainable level) they will become more scarce. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next 100 years, and if I'm lucky, I'll live to see 1/2 of that. Our foreign (and by extension military) policy is often geared towards critical resource procurement, such as oil, but as other items get more scarce/expensive, it will be interesting to see how we, and other countries like China, the EU, and to a lesser extent Russia, will interact globally to these shortages. Hopefully one of us will find ET, who turns out to be friendly, and helps lead us out of the mess we're getting ourselves into. ;-)

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Wembly: yes since pretty much september of 2011 when gold topped out over $1900 gold and silver have been in what we call a "D wave correction" - it is normal and healthy after the 2 1/2 year "c wave" advance that preceded it, which took gold from around $800 to $1900. So we went up over 100% in the 3 years prior, then we take a little less than a year to correct from 1900 to about 1600 (not a very large correction percentage wise, but stagnant as far as making gains for the whole time period).
It is during these pullbacks like the one we have been seeing since september 2011 that people like myself do the buying and loading up, and it is during the c wave advances that we sell and take profits. healthy assets that are trending upwards move in a "3 steps up, 1 step down, 2 steps up, 1 step down, 3 steps up..." kind of pattern. so when you post a 1 year chart like you have, it is not telling the whole story. even if you weren't to take profits during the rally, had you bought in 2007-2010 as my clients and i have been doing, you would still be in very large profits even in the context of this pullback. and since we offloaded the majority of our position in april of 2011 (a good few months before gold topped out- so we didn't get out at exactly the top but clearly made out very well considering our early entries), we have had the cash to be re-loading our gold and silver positions from December 2011 through the present, as we are currently still adding to our positions at these levels.
Once the next round of quantitive easing/stimulus or whatever they want to call the next round of money printing and debasement begins (likely before the election in an attempt to inflate stock prices and make obama look good) you will see gold begin its next c wave advance (sharp rally).
Lastly, the US dollar has been relatively stronger over the past few months thanks to an exceptionally weak Euro, and since the US dollar moves inversely to asset price measured in us dollars, gold and oil for example appear lower when measured in a stronger US dollar, but in terms of other currencies is at or near all time highs. that high price is raising real demand and therfore putting a floor on gold prices just above $1500 at the moment, even in dollars. bottom line: given the catalyst, which is keynsian federal reserve and ECB bankers continuosly printing money in order to attempt to fix problems that they in reality are only making worse, will give you higher commodity prices all across the board in the near future. most importantly, oil and food prices, which when they get high enough will push the world economy further into the abyss. all the while wealthy people who are in the know are moving their wealth out of cash with its record low interest rates, and into real assets like real estate, gold, and stocks which are gaining value while the dishonest tax of currency devaluation steals the purchasing power from cash holders.
those most at risk are retirees, pensioners, and those on fixed incomes or those who aren't getting a raise. the reason they are worst off is because while their income stays the same, the prices of the things they need to buy to survive are rising thanks to inflation (currently inflation isn't that bad, you haven't seen nothing yet if you think it is bad right now).
so investment in real assets, for example gold, helps protect savings from inflation because the value of the gold rises with inflation, versus the dollar/euro. if you were to put aside an ounce of gold, and the $1600 it costs in us dollars presently, and in 3-5 years take that $1600 and that ounce of gold and try to buy some gas or food, you will more than likely find that the ounce of gold will buy you more gas or food than the $1600 will.
I apologize if my thoughts weren't neatly organized as i just let them flow from my head to my fingertips, but i hope this helps you to better understand what I was saying earlier.

EDIT: here is a chart of gold over 10 years, notice the chart wembly posted is only the most recent downtrend within the overall larger picture.



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Furthermore, here is a chart from mid 2005-mid2008 to help display the distinct 4 wave ABCD pattern that gold tends to move in, courtesy of Gary Savage @ www.smartmoneytrackerpremium.com
This should help explain the context of the correction since September 2011, for any of you who are interested.

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