Last night’s scare in the precious metals market could be summed up simply as programmed margin selling after Friday’s bushwhacking which occurred after the COMEX close.  This was a replay of the events of April 12th and 15th, where the selling which happened after Asian markets were closed for the week had to carry over into the early Sunday evening trading as the price opened below the maintenance margins for a number of longs.  Then we can cue the hedge funds mo-mo monkeys to pile on and their quislings in the financial press and voila!  We have a big sell-off in Gold and Silver.

Silver took the brunt of it pushing as low as $20.20 per ounce, but since May is a delivery month for Silver why is anyone surprised by this.  GLD options expiration for May is behind us so the metals markets will get a bit of a breather from the selling until we approach options on futures expiration next week. But, given that set up and the extreme bearishness and huge bull moves made by the U.S. Dollar, a lack of breakdown below $1320 last night is a serious victory for the bulls as the physical market stepped up to put a halt to the shenanigans.

Enter the COMEX market today and there was no way for the metals to be held down once the Japanese Finance Minister stepped in to verbally hold the Yen move from becoming a rout.  Why anyone still listens to these bozos is beyond me frankly.  But there it is.