The 2000's are also kind of had to forget.
Posted on 03/22/2025 6:33:31 AM PDT by delta7
Many precious metals investors have heard about silver manipulation or suspected it, but few fully understand how it works or can clearly explain it. Many also intuitively sense that silver's price is artificially low and should be much higher but struggle to identify what—or who—is keeping it suppressed. I have committed myself to studying silver price manipulation, documenting the evidence, educating others, and exposing these practices to bring them to an end and ensure justice is served. In this article, I will explain in clear and accessible terms how silver's price is systematically manipulated and suppressed.
Simply put, the goal of silver price manipulation is to keep silver's price artificially low as well as prevent it from breaking above key technical levels that could trigger a full-blown bull market. According to consensus within the precious metals community, the primary culprits behind silver price manipulation are the bullion banks—the most influential players in the precious metals market.
These include major financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase, UBS, HSBC, and Goldman Sachs, several of which have been found guilty of manipulating precious metals markets—particularly gold and silver.
Bullion banks are typically members of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), the leading authority overseeing the global over-the-counter (OTC) precious metals market. As LBMA members, these banks play a central role in the market by acting as market makers, facilitating large trades, managing vaulting and storage, and participating in price-setting mechanisms such as the daily London Gold and Silver Fix. This dominant position allows them to exert significant influence over silver prices, making manipulation not just possible, but systemic.
The most common, obvious, and widespread form of silver manipulation is price slams—also known as "tamps"—which almost exclusively take place during the New York COMEX trading session between 8:30 and 11 AM EST. As I'll explain in greater detail shortly, these slams occur on a high percentage of mornings, but they become even more frequent and aggressive when silver is attempting to break above a key technical or psychological level.
When silver approaches a breakout point that could trigger a snowball effect of additional buying, bullion banks step in to drop the hammer, forcefully slamming the price back down below that level. This calculated suppression is designed to demoralize existing silver investors, discourage new participants, and ensure that silver's price languishes, preventing momentum from building in its favor.
Silver's price action over the past year serves as a textbook example of how silver tamping works. As the chart below illustrates, silver has repeatedly attempted to break above the $32–$33 resistance zone, only to be slammed back down each time—except for the current breakout attempt (the outcome of which remains uncertain).
Notably, these persistent price slams have kept silver stagnant, even as gold has surged by approximately $1,000 per ounce to $3,000—a powerful 50% bull market rally that, under normal conditions, would have pulled silver higher due to their historically strong price relationship. However, bullion banks have gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent silver from following its sibling, gold.
To see what one of these slams or tamps looks like on an intraday chart, let's examine a particularly egregious example from Friday morning, February 14th. While the daily chart above provides a broader view of the price action, the intraday chart below captures exactly how it unfolded that morning. Bullion banks rely on the assumption that most people won't scrutinize their tactics too closely—but that's exactly what we're going to do here.
Some of the most aggressive slams tend to occur on Friday mornings during the U.S. trading session. With the Asian and European markets closed, trading volume and liquidity are significantly lower, creating the perfect conditions for bullion banks to manipulate silver's price with minimal resistance. This lack of market depth allows them to maximize their impact, giving them more "bang for their buck" when executing price suppression tactics.
As you can see from the 5-minute intraday chart, silver staged a powerful breakout, surging $1 per ounce (3%) during the Asian and European trading sessions. This rally pushed silver above the key $33 resistance level, which had acted as a ceiling for much of the past year, sparking excitement within the precious metals community as many believed silver was finally taking off.
However, around 9 AM New York time, as the U.S. trading session got underway, a massive flood of "paper" silver—in the form of futures contracts—was suddenly dumped onto the market. This deliberate maneuver drove silver back below the critical $33 level, halting the breakout in its tracks and demoralizing silver investors once again.
Note that the silver dumped onto the market was "paper" silver—futures contracts largely unbacked by physical metal. This is the primary way bullion banks artificially suppress silver's price, keeping it well below where it should be based on true supply and demand for physical silver. What's both infuriating and disheartening is that this manipulative pattern has persisted almost daily for decades, consistently driving prices downward—never upward.
The chart below shows another egregious example of the manipulation slam pattern, captured on the intraday silver futures chart from late October to early November. During this period, silver made a strong breakout attempt, reaching as high as $35 per ounce, only to be aggressively slammed lower nearly every morning between 8:30 AM and 11:00 AM EST. The heavy selling pressure during the U.S. trading session repeatedly drove silver's price back down, putting the kibosh on the widely watched late October breakout attempt.
These manipulation slams almost exclusively occur in the morning and rarely at any other time of the trading day. To me, these are unmistakable fingerprints of bullion banks deliberately suppressing silver's price. This is anything but an organic or natural market.…..more….
I had to look up VEF. Venezuelan Bolivars. At $3000 per ounce, I calculate approx 745 million Bolivars for one ounce of gold. Still a lot.
But I agree with your main point: world currencies are indeed failing. Best to have some gold or some other reliable store of value.
https://avaada.com/researchers-to-lower-solar-cell-costs-by-replacing-silver-with-copper/
Do not make an investment with respect to either metal based on my copyright respecting link provision alone.
“the stories are many and varied, though involvement with real estate in some way is the most common.
“
Pension plans plus SS would be the most common. Home equity and stocks round out a comfortable retirement.
I don’t buy into the Apocalypse scenario….not yet anyway, slow, steady burn down. I remember the 70’s/ 80’s…..37 USD 1971 then on to 850 USD ( actually 900 USD plus Jan 1980) …..
…..we have entered a generational Gold bull, one with which ALL currencies are plummeting.
“Many suggest our government allows the corruption “
Makes no sense. The GOVERNMENT fined them $920 million.
“Makes sense I’ve been wondering why silver prices were not following gold. I bought a stake in silver last year”
The above reflects short term price fluctuations. No impact on the long term value.
If silver prices are held so much below demand, why is there enough silver to meet demand?
Www.goldprice .org does all currencies…..today Gold, Venezuela VEF is about:
11,000,000,000 VEF…..Silver about 120,000,000 VEF.
“Best to have some gold or some other reliable store of value.”
Best to have investments. The house that is your home and stocks.
IATG
“I don’t buy into the Apocalypse scenario…”
Dear Marty,
You did in 2014. Are you admitting Socrates was wrong?
Their Silver shorts destroyed them,
Bears Stearns borrowed overnight to finance their huge bond portfolio. When their mortgage holdings started to default, no one wanted to loan them any money.
It had zero to do with their imagined short silver positions.
The discovery, in September 2008, that JPMorgan was now the largest short seller in COMEX gold and silver
What was their net silver and gold position?
Tamp away and keep the buying price of physicals low - threaten me with a good time.
PRIVATE BLOG – Gold & the Pullback
Private blog posts are exclusively available to Socrates subscribers. To sign-up for Socrates or to learn more, please visit Ask-Socrates.com.
The 2000's are also kind of had to forget.
You’re right. I was using a conversion site which, unbeknownst to me, hadn’t been updated in over 4 years. Sorry. This currency business is a mess.
https://exchangerate.guru/usd/vef/3000/
A world in which national governments exist and can enforce nationalization of assets is the opposite of a SHTF scenario.
Read Selco's blog on Sarajevo in 1992-3.
The value of items to trade for survival:
1) 13 year old girls
2) Canned food
3) ammo
Hate to disappoint but PMs are way, way down the list. In a real SHTF scenario, your life expectancy after you reveal your ability to pay for things with silver or gold will be very, very short.
IATG
————
In After The Tx Gator, I have fun controlling him. I post an Armstrong article and he spends hours on the keyboard pounding way. Hilarious, but I must admit, I enjoy it.
Does he really think people listen to him? At least Armstrong’s site has millions of followers.
Watch:
The legendary Armstrong has yet two more podcasts just this weekend ( dozens of interviews just this year).
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrong-in-the-media/armstrong-on-gold-goats-guns/
Fire away!
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