Bingo!

In the past week, the silver price rose, and the "traders" once again attempted to cash in, but Open Interest rose only modestly, as traders demonstrated a bit more tentativeness than they have historically demonstrated.

TFC Commodity Charts
Silver, 5000 oz (SI, COMEX)
Weekly Price Chart

The "Commitment of Traders" rose as Commercials increased their open short positions by 12,042 contracts for the week ended July 8th (Source: www.findbrokers.com/hightower/futcot.pdf)

Historically, increased short positions have been used to smash the price so that bullion traders could then buy back at reduced prices. This time around, the price has not (yet?) been "smashed". And the question arises: Will it be capable of being smashed by the shorts?

Look more closely at the above chart.

• The price bottomed around November 2002. Thereafter it rose for six weeks
• The price then bottomed three weeks later, Thereafter it rose for eight weeks
• Subsequently, every time the price bottomed, it rose for between four and six weeks

We have just completed (only) week # 2 of this rise.

Of course, if the bullion traders are starting to sweat (which they would likely be doing given an open position of 84,297 contracts, or 421 million ounces) they could panic and "dump" more short contracts to "force" the price down - just as they have done in the past.

But this timed around there is a difference. The Shanghai Spot Market is now trading. The spot traders are likely to want to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities.

So the question arises: Just how much pain does one have to experience before a "behaviour modification" kicks in?

I guess we're about to find out.