Viewpoints

This commentary presents only the viewpoints of the Optimist, and it is intended only for perspective and entertainment.  Please do not interpret any portion of this work as investment advice.  If any of the concepts discussed here appeal to you, then you must do the work to decide if and when and how you should invest.  The Optimist does not ask for any profits you make, and he cannot be liable for any losses incurred as a result of your investment decisions.  The Optimist wishes you the best of luck in whatever you decide to do or not to do.

Another painful day of depressing drops in the prices of silver and gold.  My view is that year end tax loss selling is a significant contributor to the current weakness in PM prices.  On 12/26, I posted this:

On 12/15, after silver completed a reversal day to the upside and the charts looked like the new bottom was in place, I was asked about the technical perspective for that bottom.  Here was my reply:

I remain convinced that 2012 will be much more friendly to silver and gold bulls than the second half of 2011.  Keep the faith!  Happy New Year to all!!!

With silver and gold prices down sharply, i have been asked about trading the gold silver ratio.  Here is my reply:

Far more often than not, silver outperforms when prices are moving higher, but silver under-performs when metal prices correct to lower levels. I agree that the opposite happened this summer, but I see that as an unusual exception. I suggest an alternative approach in which you use the ratio to decide when to make a trade. If the ratio looks good for buying silver, or if the markets look positive for both metals, then buy silver with a known vehicle like AGQ to maximize your gains to the upside. Conversely, if the ratio looks better for gold, or if the markets look like a correction might lie ahead, then just sell the silver. Do not buy the gold part of the ratio trade (just hold FRNs as dry powder for a subsequent correction) because gold is likely to drop (although not as far or as fast as silver) whenever silver also drops. The best answer for trading that I can see is to always buy silver when the prospects for metals are bullish, and then sell the metals for FRNs (and possibly consider a smaller position in ZSL) when the metal prospects look short term bearish. Don't forget to use some of the FRN profits to increase the holdings of your physical metals for the longer term! 

There seems to be a never ending debate about whether silver or gold is better.  Here is a reply I offered today:

The current bull move began in 2001 when the FED put the 21 year long bear into hibernation by dropping nominal interest rates so far that the real interest rates went negative. All the price action before the bull began in 2001 is noise that does not impact the current market environment. The chart below looks at the percentage increase from 12/31 to 12/31 for each year using the indicated gold and silver closing prices on 12/31. I highlighted the "winner" each year in bright green. People who prefer gold will be happy to see that gold did better than silver in several of the years, and gold is indeed beating silver substantially so far this year. If gold continues to shine as much brighter than silver through 2012 and possibly into 2013, then gold could actually begin to catch up to the 612% gain of silver from 12/31/2001 to now.  My bet, however, is that silver will soon resume its decade long winning performance.  Cheers!

 Someone asked what factors would drive the price of silver higher.  I summarized the six points below:

 (1) There are more (probably much more) than five Billion ounces of gold bullion collecting dust in vaults around the world, and more is added to the vaults everyday because more is mined than is used as jewelry or industry or investment products.

(2) There is less (probably much less) than one Billion ounces of silver bullion available for consumption by industry, and that number is further depleted every day because less is mined than is either consumed by industry or is converted into more valuable investment products.

(3) Perhaps 70% of the silver currently being mined is a byproduct from base metals mining. As the world continues to fall into a deeper inflationary depression, the amount of base metals that will be mined will reduce as worldwide construction demand decreases with the slowing economy. That inevitable reduction in base metals mining will further exacerbate the supply deficit in silver relative to the demand.

(4) The industrial applications that consume silver cannot reasonably substitute other alternatives, so those industries must have silver to continue their business. The amount of silver used in each product is small, so the use of silver is price inelastic because industry will continue to consume silver even after the price increases substantially from current levels. The real wild card is that all industries have migrated to just in time purchases of the silver that those industries must have. When news gets out that one industry is having trouble getting delivery on cheap bullion silver, there will be a stampede by all industries to lock in the physical they must have to continue production.

(5) The Banksters have been artificially depressing the price of silver for decades, and those criminals continue to squelch price rises in silver by selling huge quantities of paper that is not backed by anything. The investment world is beginning to realize that paper promises have little meaning, and that smart investors need to hold physical. As that migration to physical accelerates, the paper market will become much less relevant and the Banksters will be overrun with demands for physical. The explosion in the price of silver will be so strong that it will even be able to carry its little brother gold to higher prices.

(6) One silver problem is that buyers get too much metal for their money. As silver rises, it will not take as much space in secure storage, and big money people will consider putting some of their wealth into silver. That buying by big money will drive the price of silver exponentially higher, as each increase in price makes silver that much easier to store. People who prefer to buy gold because silver is too heavy and bulky will be happy to hear that someday they will be able to get much less silver for their gold, because the price of silver will increase so much more rapidly.

So far, the Banksters have been conspicuously absent from their usual price plunges, and silver feels very strong. I have repurchased the silver equities I previously sold, and I am all in again. I still would not be surprised to see a sideways action or even a push down later to get silver closer to the 32 level, but for now 32 seems to be the new floor.  YMMV so DYODD!

 This is not a prediction but only a what if guess, because I do not know what will happen with silver soon.  However, if the price of silver begins to drop overnight tonight or into trading tomorrow morning, I would not be surprised if the Banksters force a spike down to the $28 level.  That would allow them to pick off all the stops that are set just below the medium term down channel line (now at $28.50) and below the Oct. 05 low at $28.44 before they allow the price to rise back to $30.  My guess is that spike down would be a great price to buy because the Banksters did not force silver to close significantly below the $30 level seven weeks ago and I do not think they want value buyers to have an opportunity to load up on physical below $30 now.  Just getting the price to the $30 level by the options expiration on Tuesday would net the Banksters significant rewards on both the calls below and the puts above that strike price.  The table below summarizes the current options open interest at nearby strike prices.  It looks like the Banksters would reap significant options rewards for forcing the price of silver down to $30 by expiration, but I doubt they would get much bang for the buck on the costs to drive silver much lower than $30.  After options expire Tuesday, my guess is that silver could begin a strong rally for the remainder of this year.  YMMV so DYODD!

I was asked if it is better to buy silver soon, or to wait for prices to drop more.  Here is my reply:

My advice is to buy some tonight, buy some tomorrow, and buy more this weekend. I think it is always a good time to buy physical, and the recent price drop makes this a much better time to buy than the previous three weeks. My guess is that prices could drop a little more over the next few days, but I doubt that there will be a major drop from the current price. When silver is selling for more than $60 next spring, nobody will care whether they paid $30 or $31 or $32 when they bought. The people who will care a lot are those who did not buy because they waited too long in hopes of buying at cheaper prices, and ended with buying nothing.

As always, DYODD before you decide when and how to invest.  Cheers!

December silver and gold options will expire on Nov. 22, just 7 days from now. This would be a timely setup for the Banksters to step on silver again over the next week. There are approximately 5,000 calls and almost that many puts between 32 and 35. Those would be a tasty morsel for the Banksters to gobble up. My guess is that a price drop to around 32 over the next week would not be surprising. Although I am still very long in silver assets, I just today took profits on my AGQ to be sure that I will have some buying power if the Banksters depress silver soon. YMMV so DYODD.

ZeroHedge and Trader Dan reportthat after the close today, the CME quietly raised the maintenance margins on EVERYTHING to be as high as initial margins.  This could be big news if it is the start of a "war" against leverage. A strange thing about this, however, is that none of the markets had a typical hard sell off before margins were raised. Surely the Banksters knew this was coming, just as they did for all the previous margin hikes. So why didn't the Banksters do a massive sell today before the news?  The only guess I can make is that the Banksters may want to get long ASAP, and they are no longer willing to risk selling more paper shorts to try to trick the gamblers into selling their positions to the Banksters. If that is the case, then after a brief knee jerk spike down Monday, the Banksters could launch a blistering rally.

JMHO, of course, and DYODD because YMMV, but my guess is that the price today (approximately $30.50) is very close to the bottom. This is the low to buy so you can sell high later.  I used no confusing technical analysis in forming my opinion (which is the same as my previous posts below about not closing below $30). Instead of TA, my call of the bottom is based on Manipulation Projection (MP). The Banksters have had numerous opportunities over the last month to push silver down below $30, and there is no doubt that they have the ability to drive silver prices much lower in the short term, but they have not chosen to do so. My guess is that the Banksters do not want silver to close below $30 because lower prices will encourage investors to accumulate too much physical. Instead, the Banksters are content to just step on rallies to slow the upward momentum and to steal from the gamblers by picking off stops in the process. If my guess about the Banksters' motivation is correct, they will not push the price much lower than it is today. Since it is already late in the year for the Christmas rally to levitate precious metals prices, I anticipate that the next major move in silver will be much higher prices. 

Peak Silver Revisited is an excellent article.  His focus on the future in which energy will be both less available and more expensive is well worth reading.  For many years, I have expected that the coming depression will directly result in much less base metal mining, and that will indirectly slash the byproduct silver that is produced.  He covers that point briefly:

The author then goes further to show that ore grades are also dwindling over time:

The combination of higher energy costs, declining base metal production, and dwindling ore grades will severely slash the production of silver in years to come.  Although the amount of silver consumed by industry may slow somewhat during the coming depression, that will be much more than offset by a substantial rise in investment demand for silver as investors try to protect their assets from the ravages of inflation.  Sharp reductions in supply combined with significant increases in demand can only be satisfied at much higher prices for silver.

 IMHO, it is NEVER a good bet to sell silver to buy gold. While it is true that gold rose more than silver from 2001 to 2003 and in July - August of this year, for the majority of time since 2003 silver appreciated substantially more than gold whenever the metals were rising. The only times that gold appeared to be better was when the prices of both metals were falling. I previously looked at the data below on that relationship. My conclusion is that if you think the US$ prices of gold and silver will rise, then it is a much better bet that silver will rise faster than gold. If you prefer to bet that the ratio of gold to silver will rise, then the best way to do that has been to simply sell both gold and silver until the sharp price correction (that drives the price of silver much lower than gold) has past, and then to buy more of it back again at the lows. My summary is if you think metal prices will rise, then buy more silver even if you need to sell gold to do so. Conversely, if you want to bet that silver will do worse than gold, then the historical odds are that you should sell both metals until the price correction is over.

One other thought to keep in mind. The price of silver has been depressed by the Banksters for so long that it seems to be a natural thing, and we expect the price of silver to plunge just whenever the Banksters want to step on it. There are, however, many reasons (see the next paragraph) to think that the Bankster manipulation of silver will end, or at least moderate significantly, in the reasonably near future. When the price of silver is no longer controlled by the Banksters, that price can rise to heights that few can dream of today. Silver continues to look like a much better horse to bet on than gold. DYODD because YMMV.

Here are some of the reasons I think the Banksters could soon lose control of the silver market:

The CFTC is now under some sort of Congressional review. The CFTC was supposed to participate in a session with Congress a few days ago, but that has been cancelled and the CFTC promises a vote on position limits by October 18. I don't expect the watered down position limits to stop the manipulation, but it can help to constrain the amount of damage that the Banksters can do. There are many reports of lawsuits and DA action against the big Banksters, and that too can distract them long enough for the silver market to escape their death grip. Considering how many short positions the Banksters covered in the last two weeks, they could even be on the verge of going long and helping to fuel the rockets for the bull market. Even after the Banksters drove the price of silver down sharply, the demand for physical silver continues to increase. The "silver bullet" that will finally put the Bankster vampires into their caskets will be when they get so overwhelmed by physical demand that they can no longer sell paper instead. I can't give you a timeline for when that will happen, but (like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart) I will know it when I see it!

Silver obliged with closing above $30 as projected, but what's next for this week?  My guess is that the next few days will be a replay of the 2nd week rebound following the decline into early May.  The pattern shown in the oval below reflects relatively strong buying in the Monday and Tuesday after the decline, but renewed selling in the following days.  My interpretation is based on MP analysis, where MP is short for Manipulation Projection.  After the Banksters ramp up their paper short positions to drive the markets lower, they try to cover as many shorts as possible on Monday and Tuesday so their tracks will be less obvious in the Commitment of Traders report based on a snapshot of the closing positions on Tuesday.  I will not be surprised if prices rebound on Tuesday (as the Banksters continue to cover shorts), and then drop again over the following days of Wednesday through Friday (when the Banksters could ramp up their shorts to do it all again).  My MP based viewpoint is that the carnage could end on Friday 9/30, or on the following Monday.  After that final bout of the Banksters harvesting long positions abandoned by discouraged gamblers who bet that silver will rebound quickly from current levels, the Banksters would be ready to cover as many shorts as possible in early October.  There is speculation that in October, the CFTC may take long overdue action on position limits.  If the CFTC does plan to actually do something useful in limiting the abuse of the silver market through manipulation, then preparation for that event could well explain the timing and the severity of the recent purge of the silver and gold markets by the Banksters.

Although it is several months old, I have only today watched the video at the link below.  It is an excellent introduction to the merits of physical silver as an investment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtp1i-z4AEY&am...player_embedded

That video is very well done, and I highly recommend watching it too.  There are two points that would have been good to include in the video.  First, as the world economy continues to stumble downhill toward a global economic depression (while printing enough fiat to insure it will be an inflationary depression), the amount of new construction will be reduced.  That reduced level of worldwide industrial output will require less base metals, so the amount of mining for base metals will also be substantially reduced.  Since approximately 70% of silver production is byproduct from base metal mining, that portion of silver supply will be reduced along with the cutbacks in base metal mining.  Silver consumption from industry will probably reduce a little too, but not as much as the supply reduction from smaller byproduct of base metal mining.  Meanwhile, the continued "printing" of additional fiat to feed the global machine will insure that silver demand for investments continues to grow at a rapid rate.  The net result will be less supply of silver available to meet increasing demand, and that can only drive silver higher.

The second point is that the banksters have an unchecked power to drive prices lower to force gamblers who bet on rising momentum in the markets out of their positions.  The bankster backed plunge in metal prices this past week clearly demonstrated that power is not being limited by the toothless clown called CFTC.  However, the banksters continue to have an insurmountable problem with investors, and nations, that want to accumulate physical metals as protection from the high inflation that will result from unlimited printing of fiat.  Since the banksters are the only shorts, and since they cannot push investors out of the markets because lower prices only make it possible for investors to buy more, the banksters are stuck with a problem they cannot control.  As investors continually increase their ownership of physical, the banksters will be forced eventually to cover their shorts at much higher prices to avoid having to deliver metal they do not have.  For now, the banksters still have the ability to pick the pockets of the gamblers and to increase price volatility through coordinated market manipulation to the downside.  However, that increased volatility is much like the banksters punching the proverbial tar baby because the banksters keep getting stuck in deeper to the investors each time they steal from the gamblers.  Sooner or later, the banksters will be unable to avoid default from inability to deliver the physical demanded by investors, and then the price of real metal will far surpass any limitations that banksters can put on paper.  The future price of silver will be much, much higher than it is now.

 Trader Dan has an interesting chart showing two sets of Fibonacci levels of interest.  You can target="_blank" visit his page to see his chart, or read the same information copied below:

I am using two sets of Fibonacci retracement levels to do this. The first originates from the bottom in the silver market made back in late 2008 when QE1 was first announced. That is in blue. The second originates from the breakout point late last year when silver embarked on its stunning run from down near $20 all the way to $50 before it sold off. That is in red.

Note that if we use the latter set (in red), silver has violated all of the major Fibonacci retracement levels except for the last one, the 75% retracement level. That comes in near the $28.50 level.

It just so happens that this level is fairly close to the more significant 50% retracement level of the entire rally from 2008. That comes in near $29.22 (in blue).

Also note that there was a bit of a pause in the silver move higher over a two month interval in NOvember and December 2010 that hovered in that same general area. This is a potential support level for the metal. If silver can recapture $30 and then $32.50, today's low might be as low as we get. If it cannot and fails at today's low, then the band between $29.22 - $28.50 will come into play.

If the market were to fail there, it will then have potential to retrace the entire movement higher from last year with only the $24.30 region to prevent that.

 If silver opens lower next week and then closes higher, the bullish candle that day could mark at least a short term bottom.  My hope is that silver will not close much lower than $30.  The daily silver chart this week (smaller copy below) reinforces that target.  I have drawn a correction channel, and also an Andrew’s Pitchfork using the high April close, the low May close, and the high September close.  All my chart data is basis the most active futures contract.  The bottom of channel coincides with the pitchfork mid line near $30.  If silver closes significantly lower than $30, then the junction (now at $22) of the decade long bullish channel and the pitchfork lower rail becomes a possible target.  As always, DYODD before you decide how to invest.  Cheers!

PAAS announced Friday that they would buy back up to 5% of their stock over the next year.  That is obviously bullish for PAAS, but it may have much wider implications.  Silver mining stocks in particular, and all miners in general, are severely undervalued at current prices.  There is the potential for a price explosion if large companies go on a Mergers and Acquisition (M&A) program to grab the true value at the current very low prices.  PAAS may have lit the fuse for that explosion by essentially doing a M&A on its own stock!  If other miners follow suit, the abnormal depression in the mining stocks will soon end.

On a different topic, someone commented yesterday that they were getting lots of information and opinions before making a purchase.  I'll share with you my reply:

Our torture over the last few weeks ended at 3 PM sharp today.  The FED released its long awaited statement at 2:15, but Wall Street said WTF? and resumed the sell off with gusto.  At 3 PM, the PPT (which stands for either its name Plunge Protection Team or its mission Paint the Phucking Tape) charged in and took no prisoners.  With the PPT buying any stock that anyone would sell, the stock market rocketed higher.  The PPT also made a pass at shorting gold and silver, but that was much less effective. The FED/PPT have made it clear that they will spare no expense to move stocks higher, and that will directly remove the dark cloud that has rained on silver and the silver miners.  There may be one more passing storm when they grasp at the final straw to raise the margins for gold, but I see nothing else than blue skies ahead for us.  Happiness is being all in on silver and silver miners!

     target="_blank";MoreAG charts the value of Silver                   target="_blank" MoreAU charts the value of Gold

The ten year target="_blank" monthly charts for silver and gold show the expanding channels described in target="_blank" Silver and Gold Cornucopia.  To fully show the channel highs, I have added artificial high prices on 5/01/2010 to my monthly charts, and copied those updated charts below.  To reach the projected channel highs this week, silver would need to be at $40 and gold would need to be at $1,600.  The top of channel prices continue to rise over time.  Will silver and gold get up to the lofty top of channel price levels again?  My bet is that they will rise even higher than that!  Will it happen within the next year? Your guess is as good as mine, but I will be very happy if they do get there soon!  Cheers! Jim

I was asked if the Silver Sidestep got sidestepped this year, and what price I would sell silver to take some profits.  Here is my reply:

The Silver Sidestep is obviously not on schedule for this year.  I really have no basis for guessing when it will reappear, so I cannot offer any timing advice to anyone else.  To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, I don't know when precious metals will rally strongly again, but I will know it when I see it.  I continue to hope that a surge in the prices of silver and gold will happen soon, but since I have no leverage or margin debt to worry about, I can simply hold my positions patiently and wait until the next price spike arrives.  The top of channel lines on my charts are now approximately $39 for silver and $1,540 for gold.  Those prices may seem outlandishly unlikely now, but no more so than a prediction of $14.50 would have seemed when silver was at $6.50 in the summer of 2005.

As for what price I will sell some of my positions at, I plan to use a phased approach in which I will sell a little of my silver holdings beginning around $25, and gradually increase the amount that I sell into still higher prices.  If Silver gets up to the top of my channel line above $39, my guess for now is that I will have sold no more than a total of half of my position into that rise.  If silver does not get high enough for me to take some partial profits soon, then I will wait for the next opportunity later.  Let me reemphasize, however, that this is only a plan for me to take some profits in my positions, and it is not advice for other people to do anything similar.  Best of luck to all of us.  Cheers!  Jim

Someone recently commented that Silver is manipulated just so it will help with controlling the price of gold.  My reply is copied below.  Cheers!  Jim

My view is just the opposite. I think the primary objective is to suppress the price of silver, and TPTB uses gold sales as a tool to do that. With an estimated 5 Billion ounces of gold bullion sitting in vaults around the world (compared to less than 1 Billion ounces of silver bullion), there is plenty of gold to go around. If the price of gold could rise above $3,000 per ounce without silver prices also rising sharply, the world economy would continue to chug along pretty much as usual. My guess is that TPTB are much more worried about what will happen when the price of silver rises to above $50 again. A predictable scramble for physical silver by industry and the big money players and small investors around the world could destroy the manipulators who have huge naked short bets against the price of silver. The financial pressure against those TPTB aligned companies could cause them to fail, and they could take down the whole western financial house of cards. An explosion in the price of silver can illuminate the smoke and mirrors TPTB use to keep the economy limping along, and can trigger a crash in financial power that TPTB will be powerless to control. My guess is that TPTB will not be happy with a rise in the price of gold, but higher gold prices are not likely to reduce their power or control or their personal living standards. In contrast, I think TPTB may be petrified that rising silver prices can result in Game Over for TPTB as the world wide rush to physical exposes the financial frauds that TPTB use to control the world economy. DYODD but my bet is that after the big precious metals price breakout that awaits us, silver will continue to race much higher in percentage of price gain than any of the other horses on the track.

With silver now at $17.23 and gold at $1,140, I think the next major bull move may have already begun.  If so, then this could complete the target="_blank" Silver Sidestep pattern that has been delayed a little this year.  FYI, I sent the email below to a friend this morning.  Cheers!  Jim

I realize that I have sounded bullish before, only to be a bit disappointed by the temporary delays in the start of the next major move higher, but I continue to be hopeful that this time the next big move has already begun.  My chart projects a move up to as high as $39 for silver, but I hope to begin taking partial profits around $30.  Timing is not my strongest point, but I would not be surprised to see exceptional highs in precious metals as soon as mid to late April.  The thrust up could then be followed by a refreshing seasonal pullback into early August before the cycle repeats.  As you can see, I really am an optimist!

This weekend, I sent the paragraph below in an email to a friend, and I want to share it with you.  Cheers!  Jim

The increasing prices for real physical silver are just the tip of the iceberg.  There are massive amounts of paper silver contracts traded every day, but very little real silver available to back those bets up with the real thing.  A time will come, and it may be in the near future, when the artificial paper market will be recognized as a useless and rigged casino.  The prices of real physical silver (and gold) will leap exponentially higher than the irrelevant paper "spot" price as the mass of investors and industrial users wake up and realize that the paper fraud is just another version of the multiplicity of scams in place throughout the western financial world.  Everyone will want the tangible, productive, and protective qualities that only real, physical precious metals can offer.  Silver will lead the price explosion because there is precious little real silver remaining in the world. 

As I post this, silver is $15.15 and gold is $1,056 (priced in US$).  I just sent this morning the text below to a friend by email, and I'll post a copy of it here for anyone interested.  Cheers!  Jim

The markets take a perverse joy in reminding me often that my short term timing leaves a little to be desired.  I bought more stuff a week ago because the bargains were just too good to resist.  With prices much lower now, I plan to use all the rest of my accumulated cash to buy as much as I can today.  That does not, unfortunately, mean that prices can not drop more in the short term.  My WAG is that this should be near the low for this correction, and that prices should quickly recover much of the recent drop, so there will not be much time in which one could buy at the bottom (however much lower it may be from here).  For funds that you will not need to use within the next few months, buying in this price range must be a great opportunity.  If prices then drop a little lower in the next week or two, I might borrow some on margin to buy even more.  I feel like a kid in a candy store here.  Unfortunately, I can't tell anyone else what they should do, so this decision will be up to you.  Hope you have the best of luck with this one!
 
FYI, this sharp drop was not expected in my call for sharply higher prices by March, so I no longer can have that expectation.  Prices will rise again, and to explosive new highs, but I just do not know when that will be.  One of the joys of physical, however, is that their owner can wait without risk until the time is right for prices to move strongly higher again.  Hope that helps.  Jim 

I hope that everyone had Happy Holidays, and I trust that we are ready to get back to serious investing.  I plan to use this new page to briefly offer my current viewpoints about the precious metals markets.  I hope to keep this short and sweet, as a simple and quick way to post (and document with a timestamp!) my guesses about what the markets will do in the weeks ahead.  Readers are welcome to cheer (or jeer!) in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

As I post this, silver is $16.82 and gold is $1,095 (priced in US$).  I see the recent 9% decline in silver and the 6.3% decline in gold (weekly closes) as a healthy pause that can power both bull markets much higher over the next few months.  My guess is that this correction is near an end, and that prices will soon begin to thrust upward again.  If there is additional price weakness, I do not intend to sell, but to look for opportunities to buy more at lower prices.  I am almost 100% invested in the precious metals sector in hopes that the target="_blank" Silver Sidestep pattern since 2003 will continue to repeat.  That would project a sharp rally in silver and gold prices over the next two to four months.  As I can accumulate additional savings, I will continue to invest those new funds into silver and gold, but I am resisting the temptation to use margin or leverage to increase the size of my positions.  Best of luck and good wishes to all.  Cheers!  Jim