Gold takes a hit today and drops $31.31 (1.87%) to $1643, Silver drops $1.26 (3.77%) to $32.15...  Looks like the traders are more interested in making money on Apple than the PM markets.  3 year daily chart of AAPL below:

A 5 year return for Gold is about 148%, a 5 year return for Apple is a whopping 595%, not bad...

The Gold Silver ratio is in a trading range after heading down from spike up in late December 2011. Support may be the 61.8 fibonacci level which is at ~47.13. This level will need to be breached for Silver to start a potential breakout above $35+.

I'll leave you with a recent interview with Ann Barnhardt, who talks about a lot of topics including the government and the laws that do not seem to apply to the the 'elites' like Jon Corzine (MFGlobal).  She is always entertaining, even if you do not agree with her on certain topics.

Silver - going up or down???

The daily chart of Silver futures is closing with a wedge pattern which typically ends with the price either breaking to the upside or to the downside.

The upper trendline is in a decent from the high of $49.82 and touches the highs produced in late August 2011.  A few weeks ago in late Feb, Silver almost had a technical breakout above this trend line until the criminals at the bullion banks stepped in and drove the price down.

The lower trendline starts at the low produced in late Dec 2011 at $26.14 and touches the recent lows that were produced in early March. Can Silver continue to trade in a narrow range? Yes,,, until?

But with this type of pattern, the investment (whatever it is) will usually break one way, either up or down.  I know that everyone reading this hopes that it breaks towards the upside. I also know that there are a lot of people that are 'stuck' in their Silver positions (either paper bullion or mining shares) that want to exit and get their capital back. Those factors will present a bit of resistance on the way up if it should break that way.

The $37.60 area may be the next major resistance level on the upside, the 61.8% fibonacci level.

Gold Volatility

Gold's trading range has been fairly large over the last year and is equal to the 2008/2009 years as seen in the weekly chart below. (Box trading range height)

Gold hit a all time high in Sept 2011 of $1915 and a few months later (Dec 29th), hit a low of $1523.  A difference of  $392.  Quite a range wouldn't you say?   Savvy traders that went short over $1900 and covered in late Sept's selloff around the ~$1600 area made a few bucks.

Those that are invested in the PM market should get used to the volatility going forward as it's going to increase.  When Gold is at $1900 an ounce, a 5% move either up or down in one day is $95.  It's a day traders dream to have this type of range...

As mentioned in the previous post, having a long physical position and a trading account may be the best of both worlds as far as investing in the PM markets.  You can view the short term swing trades as your part time job as it does take quite a bit of technical analysis work and timing.  It may not be fore everyone, but I would rather have this part time job rather than working somewhere...

Swing trade the PM markets? Can't beat them, join them?

Does it make sense to join the cartel to short the PM markets to make some US $ fiat?  It depends upon one's thoughts on the USD going forward.

I'm sure most people with debt would like it to pay it off and live debt free.  (Pay off that mortgage, car payment, visa card, etc...)  You'll have to do it with USD's, not Gold or Silver.  Although both of those PM's are increasingly becoming accepted as currency.

It is not as easy as it sounds, but one can defiantly make some money (USD fiat) by playing the swings in the PM markets.  Most traders like volatility as that is the way they make money, by either going long or short for specific periods of time.  If one just swing traded the run up in the Silver market in 2011, they would have done quite well.  For those that purchased in January and held to the end of December, they virtually had zero gain.

Swing trading long when either Gold or Silver is producing higher highs and higher lows.  And on the other side of the coin, shorting when Gold or Silver is overbought as seen with the RSI or Slow Stochastics indicators. Sometimes the cartel selects a certain Fed speech to initiate the raid, I'm sure there is someone that has collected data on this somewhere.

Having both long term and short term investments may be the way to go for some people.  Most should have a certain percentage of their PM allocation in the physical metals.  Silver can be used should the USD completely collapse. It is possible, but I do think that the government will step in at some point and peg what's left of the USD to Gold.  Another long position can be with solid mid and senior miners that are cash flowing and paying a dividend.  Newmont is among the leaders in this sector.

Outside of the long term positions, short / mid term trading can be done with the ETF's.  I know there are those that will not purchase certain ETF's because they cannot prove that they have all of the metal that the prospectus states.  I personally do not believe that they will be diverting from the metals price anytime soon and can be checked easily by over lapping the charts.  Most people will run a stop loss or a trailing stop when trading the ETF's which is the safe way to play them.

One problem with swing trading - It take a lot of technical analysis and TIME.  Something that most people do not have enough of.

Swing trading the miners as a group can be done with GDX, GDXJ or SIL for the Silver miners.

Disclosure: I am currently long on SIL, Global X Silver Miners Index.  I have no position in GDX or GDXJ at the time of this writing.

David Morgan interview regarding junior miners

Another interview with David Morgan who talks about Silver miners, risks, potential gains, etc...    

The Gold and Silver markets are recovering slowly from last weeks raping. Lets see if the criminals want to make some fiat 'wipe your ass paper' in the PM markets and go long for a little while...?  We may get at least one run up before May and the summer slump...  That is if the bullion banks allow it to.

White collar criminals at it again

What can be said about the smackdown last Wednesday in the Gold and Silver markets? (Feb 29th)

Here is a link to Ed Steer's Gold and Silver daily blog (Casey Research) which has some detailed information on the transactions from the CME and COT reports.

Caseyresearch.com/gsd/home

Guess you really can't be surprised with the sell-off, especially when 'they' crushed it in May 2011, September 2011 and December 2011.  They do it to make $$$ shorting futures, puts on SLV, going long on ZSL.  If you can front run the markets and make money just about anytime you want and get away with it, wouldn't you do it too?  The key is that they know that they are not going to JAIL...   White collar criminals at the CME, LME, CFTC, SEC.  IMO, they are all on the same page and can make a lot of fiat manipulating the markets on the downside.

If many of the sheeple realized what the Central banks around the world are doing, they would put quite a bit of their net worth in the precious metals.  That would pull them out of the stock market, mutual funds, IRA's, 401k's, etc...  It would bring the markets down if enough of the sheeple pulled their money out.

And if the stock market should crash in 2012?  Obama's ratings would head further south and his re-election bid would most likely go down the tubes.  Once people opened their 401k statement and it looks like it did in late 2008, early 2009, they would really think about who they would vote for.  (Obama also has the Oil price to worry about........)

So the bashing in PM's continues.  For those few (sheeple) with their eye on the PM's, the smack down's are violent enough to keep many of the speculators away.  They see that it has gone up for a decade + and it's too late to get in at the 'top'. They got drilled with the dot 'con' market in the late 1990's, their home has declined in value since 2007 and their equity portfolio was cut in half in 2008/2009.  Many people have had enough with investing because many of the sheeple have only lost money.

But 'investing' in PM's is not really investing.  How is that?  Because you are trading one currency for another. Your trading paper fiat for another currency which is considered a hard asset. The hard asset has been used for 5000 years and has never failed like ALL of the fiat currencies that were ever produced.

Silver smackdown on Feb 29th

Gold Smackdown Feb 29th

So what to do?  I'm buying more, continuing to dollar cost average into both physical Silver and select mining shares.  Do not let the paper price affect you, as long as the central banks continue to debase their fiat currencies, the long term outlook for PM's are great.  The criminals smackdowns should be less effective in the coming years as more of the sheeple will wake up, but they are in control in the short to mid term.

Greg McCoach interview w/Al Korlin

Gold and Silver bounced back up today after yesterdays sell off.

Silver is still trading over the 200 day moving average which is a good sign.  The 50 dma is just over the 100 dma which is also bullish.  With a continued uptrend, the shorter term moving averages will cross over the 200 dma (orange) which should bring more speculators into the market.  (Computer trading algorithms and HFT will also kick in)

Here  is a quick vid of Korlin interviewing Greg McCoach.