So does copper, and copper is hitting new highs.
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….
Their Silver shorts destroyed them, JP Morgan took them over, and Kitco announced they finally paid off the short losses, a decade after their failure.
“ Bear Stearns’ failure coincided, to the day, with gold hitting all-time highs (over $1000) and silver hitting 30 year highs ($21). It’s easy to calculate that Bear lost more than $2 billion in being short gold and silver from yearend 2007 to mid-March 2008…..The discovery, in September 2008, that JPMorgan was now the largest short seller in COMEX gold and silver made it clear that the CFTC lied in its previous public letters denying there was no problem with big shorts in the silver market.”
https://goldsilver.com/industry-news/goldsilver-news/why-the-collapse-of-bear-stearns-changed-the-silver-market-forever/
Makes sense I’ve been wondering why silver prices were not following gold. I bought a stake in silver last year
I assume the author would benefit from a higher silver price.
There are a number of freepers who have over the year made it clear that such market manipulation is impossible. Arguing with them was like arguing with Zeepers.
I went further - I bought shares in a silver mining company - no movement whatsoever for about 10 years.
I have long thought that somehow the market knows when *I* invest in something and always behaves to prevent *me* from making money.
So now it appears that it wasn't the market - it is ruthless manipulators.
So does copper, and copper is hitting new highs.
“ JPMorgan to pay $920 million for manipulating precious metals, treasury market….”
JP Morgan has been found guilty of manipulating the PM markets at least five occasions, along with other bullion banks….$$$ billions in fines over the years…
Yet they continue to do so, why?
Many suggest our government allows the corruption due to its need for Silver in the military weapons industry. In any case, Silver is the most under valued metal in the world…..with the tons of silver current deliveries, I suspect default by the LBMA and Comex is near.
I bought a stake in silver last year
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I hope your “ stake” isn’t in paper.
No. I bought bullion coins and some bags of old US coins
It was pretty cheap and seemed grossly undervalued to me
Has there ever been a time in US history when silver prices weren’t manipulated? This was the original scandal of the 1870s and 1880s.
Yes. What a whine. He obviously is mad he cannot make money in silver.
He never answers WHY silver bullion prices are managed in a narrow range. He doesn’t discuss supply and demand for industrial silver or numismatic government demand. He doesn’t explain why the bullion banks would prevent a “breakout point that could trigger a snowball effect of additional buying.” and upward prices pressure. Why would the bullion banks NOT want to make money on silver.
“This calculated suppression is designed to demoralize existing silver investors” — why would that be a business goal? That’s absurd.
For a guy who says he is going to tell all, he is short basic facts.
If gold and silver are so good, why is there always a full supply of sellers? Because it’s all about the daily spread, like a used car. Customers are rubes being taken to the cleaners. They have safes in the basement with silver and gold. Then they die and the heirs sell it to another spread trader and the cycle continues.
My concern with silver mining stock - Mexico has a lion’s share of silver mines, and in a SHTF scenario, Mexico and other countries will nationalize mining companies within their boundaries.
I do not see a repeat of FDR’s gold grab for silver or gold today, at least in theft of individual PM holders; however, it would be very easy, lucrative and “in the national interest” for governments to seize mining companies.
A simple non-violent SHTF scenario is: Gold valuation from 1973 to the present is $42.22, with talk of a revaluation to more relevant prices, means a huge jump to at least $3000, and more likely to something like $7000 or $9000 per ounce.
“If you don’t hold it, you don’t own it.”
I talk to a lot of old people like me. They love to talk about how they reached retirement, the stories are many and varied, though involvement with real estate in some way is the most common. I have never found a single person who retired from buying gold and silver.
“I suspect default by the LBMA and Comex is near.”
In 2014 you predicted $5,000 gold was very near. Your predictions are worthless.
lol. I certainly have not retired from my minimal silver investment. But I do sleep better knowing I have them.
I used to travel to Argentina frequently. Friends there told me… when they had the worst currency collapses, gold was useless. It was too valuable to trade. They relied on old US silver coins for daily transactions. They’re pretty cheap to own.
I have been wondering about this.
If there is a collapse silver or gold will just get you killed early and be useless soon after. The exchange rate will immediately become pitiful. I save ammo and food.
If gold and silver are so good,….
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Gold is not an “ investment “, it is a storage of Wealth. Paper is for spending, until to many zeros are added to the notes and the currency cycle ends through loss of purchasing power.
Your opinion failed repeatedly in modern history, Zimbabwe, Argentina, Venezuela, Russia, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Brazil, Mexico, and on and on.
The fact it now takes 3,000 US dollars to purchase an ounce illustrates the fact paper currencies worldwide are failing.
Today it takes 3,500,000 ARS, 4,500 AUD, 18,000 BRL, 4,000 CAD, 2800 EUR, 2400 GDP, 480,000 JPY, 290,000 RUB, 2800 CHF, 60,000 MXN, or 400,000,000,000,000 VEF, to buy an ounce…. the world’s currency’s purchasing power is being decimated.
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