As you will see from our discussion yesterday there was in addition to the hammers in the indices a hammer in the metals.  At this point the SLV and the GLD are one day away from confirming a valid downtrend in the metals.  In fact, for the aggressive trader there is already a downtrend.  You will remember that we hedged our metals positions a few letters back.  We had a few trades so small we just left them alone in family accounts.  Indicative of our belief that after this market has cleaned out all the believers it will soar again.  Naturally we will be trying to catch it on lift off, but right now we’re happy to be hedged.  Of course if we don’t make any money on our hedge we’ll be less happy, but that’s life in the fast lane.  Friday could be the day we should have cashed them in.

But looking at the daily pattern aroused suspicions of manipulation.  Frankly we think the big put sellers rearranged the market to their financial satisfaction in the closing hour.  We could go and research this allegation but what would it get us?  Nada.  And besides even if it were manipulation, manipulation counts on the chart pattern too.

The hammer pattern is even more pronounced in the silver chart: (To recapitulate the hammer is supposed to be a reversal pattern)

We would treat PGM platinum the same way we treat silver and gold.