Silver on the See-Saw
By: Charleston Voice | 22 September, 2007
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| As we pointed out to you last week, the Commercials had just then started to go net short. This week they added some more, and are now net short 29,221 contracts. They will be able to add any number without risk as the CFTC looks the other way while the bullion banks underwrite any losses which they may incur. The banks' risk, of course, is underwritten by us. Full Story |
Silver COTs & Barclays
By: Charleston Voice | 17 September, 2007
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| The weekly COTs are a summation of the "long" and "short" positions held by traders (chart below). Each contract represents a 5,000 oz. paper contract to buy or sell silver. The "longs" on this chart are in blue and light yellow while the "commercials" are the maroon bars. Both are scaled left. The trending green line is the number of "open interest" contracts - scale right. As you can see the "commercials" have never gone long and this has persisted for many years. Full Story |
Boil Them in Oil Over a Slow Fire
By: Charleston Voice | 5 June, 2007
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| Well, one thing is settled again, gold and silver have now resumed their appreciation against the US dollar, and most other currencies as well. If that's so then what's wrong with the equity stocks of the precious metals? Why do they still languish or seemingly not keep apace with the rise of G & S? We've always thought and been told that the underlying precious metals stocks are supposed to have 3-to-1 leverage. Again, we have to adorn our Relativity Thinking Cap for clues to an answer. Full Story |
Soooo Close
By: Charleston Voice | 17 May, 2007
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| Yesterday's action in the SLV could very well have been an exhaustion bottom. Don't hold me to it as we could see some follow thru today and early next week. I feel that with yesterday's volume spike (759.4K shares) we're getting our bottoming signal. Look at those previous red vertical volume spikes for past bottoms. But, we still want to see SLV close above its 8-dma (blue line), and for added measure see the 8-dma cross over the 13-dma (red line). Full Story |
Whipsaw Trading & the Silver COTs
By: Charleston Voice | 20 April, 2007
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| I don't know about you, but my total precious metals stock portfolio saw a loss of 4.3% from the high on 4/16 thru yesterday, 4/19. I rode it thru. I hope most of you did likewise. Even a ten percent decline, although they can pull at your gut, are really not enough to trade for a profit. Think about it. A 5% loss is but 5 cents on a dollar. Think about it - could you liquidate your portfolio and buy them all back within that spread? Full Story |
Look Ma, No Froth on Silver!
By: Charleston Voice | 18 April, 2007
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| The beauty of this silver expansion is that it's advancing in baby steps. Yes, on balance the volume is up, which indicates sellers have gone away which is accounted for by the shaded green bars at bottom of price chart. What's nice is we have this baby step pullback this current week with a red-shaded bar without rocketing volume which appears at cyclical peaks. We've yet to see weekly volumes up to nearly 3 million shares where past corrections have occurred. Full Story |
Oil Producers are Getting Screwed
By: Charleston Voice | 4 April, 2007
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| For the kicker, I've added the silver price (green dotted line). For a while the silver price seemed to travel right along at the Bollinger Band's middle line, but NEVER since Sep '05 has it gone below it! That's one observation. Not sure it means anything. But one thing I see that does seem meaningful: when the red Ratio line approaches the upper Bollinger boundary (blue line) it's time to expect a correction in silver at any time. Full Story |
Silver/Oil Correlation, Silver Refining, and Coins
By: Charleston Voice | 24 March, 2007
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| Silver & crude oil pretty much move in tandem. However, in 2005 there was a divergence with oil climbing (due to Katrina?), and silver declining. As most of you know I use the weekly MACD & SlowSTO as useful indicators as well. The XOI (oil index) gave us a white bullish candle for the week as well as a positive turn in the MACD. Silver faded at week's end & failed to give us an upturn in the MACD. The SlowSTO is poised to cross, however. Maybe next week. Full Story |
Silver Sun Rising
By: Charleston Voice | 3 March, 2007
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| In a bull market of anything it's very hazardous to short any participating component. You may want to sell and wait for a re-entry point at a lower price, but I would caution anyone not to go short with precious funds. As for gold and silver there are just too many imponderables out in the world today to think they will ever go down long enough for you to move in and out briskly. Full Story |
Plain Vanilla Gold Stocks May Not be the Best Flavor Best in your Cone
By: Charleston Voice | 20 January, 2007
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| From hitting a Ratio high of over 46 in late 2003, the number of silver ounces to "buy" the HUI has now hit its lower channel bottom of 24. In silver terms, the HUI has never been cheaper since 2001 when the Ratio was 10, and silver was on life support and being given last rites. Only in 2002 has the Ratio been lower at 20ish. Gold stocks are cheap. Full Story |
Silver Stocks, Gold Indexes, and the SLV
By: Charleston Voice | 18 January, 2007
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| There would be little disagreement that silver outperforms gold in a precious metals (pm) bull market. There is also an argument that pm stocks give the investor additional leverage to outperform the metals. It is said the gold stocks outperform the gold metal by a ratio of 3-to-1. Maybe so. But, what has been overlooked by most is that silver as represented by SLV-ETF not only outperforms gold, it also shames the HUI, GDX & GDM by an easily recognizable graphic margin. Full Story |
Trading Silver - Profitably
By: Charleston Voice | 14 January, 2007
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| For quite some time as most of you know I have relied on the weekly MACD and other indicators to trade. This weekend I have gone back to the books. I re-read Dennis Turner's 1975 book, Trading Silver - Profitably. I'd figured his strategies would have long since been antiquated especially since his computer models were accomplished with the archaic Fortran programming. Not so...or so it seems. Also, Turner was working with silver prices in the $1.40 range area!! In your dreams silver bug. Full Story |
Silver and the Canadian Dollar
By: Charleston Voice | 11 January, 2007
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| As you can see silver (and gold) correlate very closely with the C$. The attendant indicators are telling us the C$ is right at their lower boundary extremes, signaling a reverse soon may be imminent. A reversal to the upside for the C$ means a rising silver price in US dollars. So, US$ owners will get a 2-fold hit. Full Story |
Pundits, Pundits Everywhere, but Not a Drop of Sense
By: Charleston Voice | 5 January, 2007
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| So, for right now I'm in the silver juniors/explorers with both feet. Only a little loose change remains in the till. Optimistically, I'm seeing the volumes are waning, an indication that the flushing is finishing. GLD & SLV are still being unloaded, yes, but when you compare gold/silver equity volumes of today with the week before Christmas and May we are in better shape. I will tell you this, that although I may have committed prematurely, there's no other place I'd rather be. Imagine if you had to make a decision to buy now? Would you? Full Story |
Are Central Bank Cat Burglars Out there Buying Our Silver?
By: Charleston Voice | 24 December, 2006
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| Silver has been outperforming gold, albeit with fits and hesitations since 1990 when the ratio went to just over 100. Since 2003 the Ratio favoring silver has declined from 84 to about 48 where it is today. We can't repeat history exactly, but we certainly should use it as a guide. The cyclical trough for the Ratio was "14" in 1980. Full Story |
Review of the Gold/Silver Ratio
By: Charleston Voice | 20 December, 2006
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| Let's see where we are since our last posting two days ago on the G/S Ratio on SilverSeek. We were looking for a Fib pullback to 1.98. In Fib terms that's a 62% pullback. It's gone to as low as 2.008 as you can see on the Daily chart on the left below. Note that the same indicators are still in transitional mode territory, i.e., below their threshold baselines. Recall that we must see the Wm%R peek above -80, a black-over-red line crossover for the SlowSTO, and the MACD vertical bars turn up. None of these have occurred...yet. Full Story |
Sailing the Silver Seas with an Empty Hold(well, almost)
By: Charleston Voice | 18 December, 2006
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| As nearly all of you know when the precious metals do their dosey-dos, silver does the steeper swan dive off the high board. As a consequence of silver being more volatile than gold, you can now get more silver for your gold. But, who wants to do that if they're both declining in dollar terms? We spend dollars, but unlike the 19th century speculators we can't do the switch and then take our additional ounce booty to market and buy things. If you're retired like me, my spending dollars have to come out of my IRA, and with the inflation demon raging I need more of them with each withdrawal. Full Story |
What's the Story on Silver Coin Melts & Coin Premiums?
By: Charleston Voice | 12 November, 2006
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| From what I can gather the best informed and collective opinion is that $500 million (face value) in pre-1964 90% US silver coins remain in existence. They have not gone into the previous silver melts. I believe those remaining to be in very 'safe hands'. This best guestimate is outside of the number of silver dollars remaining. I say this because those that held back in the 1980 melt have since 'camouflaged the pre-1964 coins with bullion eagles, bars and other bullion-related silver. Full Story |
Smashing Silver
By: Charleston Voice | 19 April, 2006
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| Have you ever taken a mallet to sterling heirloom flatware and pulverized it to piece of mangled junk? I have. You have to do this to get the plaster filling out of the handles before it's weighed for its value. Candlesticks, server sets, it doesn't matter; cash is worth more to the owner than any family heritage sentimentality. Once weighed, the customer paid, the sterling was tossed in one of numerous garbage cans. One for the forks, knives, spoons, another for the candlesticks and larger pieces. Of course the donor would have to sign a liability waiver, for once that mallet hits the heirloom its antiquity value is no more. Full Story |
Silver Margins
By: Charleston Voice | 14 April, 2006
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| Slamming silver now will simply delay the day of reckoning - just as another hurricane will wreak havoc on our energy supplies again - more silver will not be brought into the supply chain. Mining operating expenses will not be counterbalanced by a predictable and rising price for their gold or silver. They'll know that with each bull cycle move the banking cartel is there ready to knock it back down. How does a miner work his plan with a regulatory environment like this? We are being forced to live and cope with perpetual crises not of our own making. Full Story |
Bonging the Silver Gong
By: Charleston Voice | 13 April, 2006
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| If you think your silver (and gold and copper) stocks and physical holdings of same are safe because you don't play the paper futures and options markets, listen up! This year, 2006, that gong has been rung five times in a concerted effort to sound the death knell for silver's spectacular rise. So far agents of the banking cartel, the COMEX, CBOT, and NYMEX, have been unable to halt its rise. They did it with natural gas bringing it down from $15 to $6.50, and they can and will do it to silver, gold, and any other commodity that threatens their fiat monetary system. Full Story |
Yes, In My Back Yard! (YIMBY), Puleez!
By: Charleston Voice | 1 April, 2006
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| Do you have one of these monuments or its equivalent in your backyard? No, me neither. Monuments are just stone anyway. What gave it its prominence has long since been dug up, played-out, and hauled away. It took only 21 years to completely deplete the greatest single mining strike in history. A portion of the plentiful booty went to establishing the Hearst publishing empire. Full Story |
Give Me the Real Thing
By: Charleston Voice | 31 March, 2006
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| I don't know about you, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around this whole ETF thing. Whether it be gold, silver, copper, oil, or any of the other commodities yet to be represented in the vehicles known as ETF derivatives, I just can't grasp buying something physical and given slips of paper. In every instance I am required to sell my ETF paper to get the dollars and then go on a hunt of my own in the world of real commerce to get the real thing. The ETFs are not 'showing me the beef'. Full Story |
Beware the Banking Cartel and the Collaborating CFTC
By: Charleston Voice | 27 March, 2006
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| I relate this experience to let you know that the silver paper market controls the physical price. And, being paper means control by the banking cartel and their co-conspirators at the government regulating agencies. I learned my lesson cheap, very cheap. I believe to this day that April 1987, just like 1980, were periods that the US Govt (under Federal Reserve control) was terrified that there was to be a worldwide flight from the US dollar. Full Story |
It's High Noon, Do You Know Where Your Silver Will Come From?
By: Charleston Voice | 4 January, 2006
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| What we're looking at here is information snipped from the Silver Institute web site. The intent before you is to prompt focus on the sources of the 70% of world annual silver production that comes as a by-product of other metals mining. Copper mining gives us 26% of our world silver. Silver "gurus" should be on top of the developing labor strife at the Codelco mine in Chile, the world's largest copper mine. Full Story |
Peak Copper Means Peak Silver
By: Charleston Voice | 29 December, 2005
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| Thinking about this event should give us "silver bugs" something to think about. The primary source of silver is as a by-product of copper, lead and zinc mining. Those mines dig up 70% of our silver supply. That's fine and dandy except what happens if copper becomes so expensive to mine that mines are unable to dig deeper as needed to reach the more difficult deposits? Full Story |
Signposts to Where?
By: Charleston Voice | 17 October, 2005
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| We are in my view, which may prove myopic, set up for a powerful run-up in silver, or at the very worst - decline less than gold. We are just now crossing the ".00" threshold on the MACD Histogram. As stated earlier, I do not rely on the MACD so much as a "sell" indicator, but as an "entry" indicator, and to the right you'll see that the bars have been turning down since the Ratio touched 64.98. The swap back to gold will give us an "entry" when the bars turn back up positive. Full Story |
Time and Time Again
By: Charleston Voice | 9 October, 2005
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| As most of you know I like to follow the market elements with weekly MACD charts. On the Gold/Silver Ratio chart the strength has swung to favoring silver over gold as evidenced by the top MACD Histogram tipping over in early September. And now with the lower MACD indicator chart having the slower white smooth line poised to cross over the lighter purple line we should really pick up steam. Don't forget that silver's volatility works both ways - greater gains percentage-wise to the upside as well as greater pullbacks. So, then, if silver is to outperform gold then BOTH metals will rally. Full Story |
Pre-Mature Call on Silver
By: Charleston Voice | 25 September, 2005
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| Last week I was euphoric about silver coming on strong on the back of gold. Didn't happen. In fact silver may be poised to pull back from here. Please understand I am not feeding these commentaries as outright sell or buy suggestions, only for adding new monies. I'm not selling my silver or gold even when the cows do come home. Root Hog or Die! Full Story |
Silver's Walkin' in High Cotton
By: Charleston Voice | 2 February, 2005
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| Silver is taking the lead in the recovering precious metals. The weekly MACD Histogram bars are now convincingly turned up for the metal and are co-incident with the leading silver stock, SSRI, which also has uptrending bars. We feel silver's hitting 95.4% of its 200-dma on January 4th at a close of $6.40 will be the low for this cycle. You can see the 200-dma trends for all the measured components on the middle chart of this transmission. Full Story |