Two key factors that appear to be contributing to the rapid move in overnight silver (and subsequent jump to pare half its losses) is i) the fact that Bolivia, despite being in a cash crunch has for the time being yielded to miner demands and has put its nationalization plans (as discussed previously here) on hold, and ii) there has been a dramatic bout of selling coming out of nowhere, despite the PM complex having opened very well bid earlier on, in what appears a coordinate effort to nuke silver exclusively.

From the WSJ: "Opposition from Bolivia's independently organized miners stopped President Evo Morales from implementing plans to boost state control over the country's mines Sunday, according to leading officials who were advocating takeovers of the country's vast mineral wealth. Mr. Morales has generally used May 1 labor day festivities to highlight his socialist agenda of reverting the country's energy and mineral resources to state ownership. On previous labor days, he announced nationalizations of Bolivia's strategic hydrocarbon reserves and the electric power grid, with mass rallies and military displays. This year, however, anticipated takeovers of the mining sector failed to materialize." None of this however, is news, as Coeur d'Alene and, of course, Sumitomo, the two biggest silver miners in the politically embroiled country already were assured their facilities would not be touched so we fail to see how this non-news is in any way validating of a nearly 20% move. Elsewhere, Bloomberg notes what appears to have been a massive coordinate attack on silver starting just before 6:30 pm Eastern.

From Bloomberg:

"We opened up this morning n New Zealand exceptionally well bid across the board," Jonathan Barratt, managing director at Commodity Broking Services Pty, said in a phone interview from Sydney today. "We got a high in gold and then we got massive sell orders in the spot market and the price fell through. When futures opened the market fell again."

Looks like the old sell into low volume trick to flush the stops and kill the weak hands has worked again. Throw in last week's two CME margin hikes and Friday night's margin bonanza by MF Global, and one had a perfect storm set up for another wipe out in silver to start the week.

In the meantime, silver promptly managed to retrace over 50% of the move shortly after the dump. At this point whatever holders remain following last week's margin action and this evening's fine example of shock and awe will likely need far more energy and capital to be shaken out by the same entities whose primary goal is to prevent the surge in silver and ongoing capital-sapping collateral calls. Since none of the actual fundamentals before the long-term trajectory in silver (and gold) have changed, this appears like a rather attractive entry point.

Lastly, one should recall that silver had a mini 10% correction last week and not only promptly recovered but nearly passed the $50 level shortly thereafter. This time will not be any different.