Sometimes, a picture is worth a zillion words.

The chart above (source) shows the ridiculously high concentrated short positions in gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. For example, it would take nearly 150 days of world production of silver to cover the short position held by the top 8 traders.

That so few players are allowed to amass so concentrated a position on the short side is unjust and unfair to investors, as well as insulting to their intelligence.

The regulatory body responsible for ensuring free and fair trading in the commodities market, the CFTC, is at this point a sham. They initiated an exploration of manipulation in the silver market in 2008, which is still categorized as "ongoing", while the whole world can see the evidence of such daily in the predictable precious price smashes and in the footprints left by the big players such as the COT graph above.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the CFTC to magically get its act together. On days like today, when the head of the Department of Justice admits his position that the major banks are too big to prosecute, you need to remind yourself that if you're playing within the paper PM system, the rules are not written (or at least applied) in your favor.

Better to stick to buying (and holding) physical, and wait for the laws of reality to reassert themselves.