More bounce to the ounce

Ants swarming on the mint (pun intended)

8:02 am (Hawaii) I've been lounging in bed since 7 am or so. Actually, I was up around 4:15, but fell back asleep. At that time, Spot Silver was struggling along after that overnight hit by the CME Mafia. This really could've been a morning when Silver was left to bleed out on the side of an abandoned warehouse, plummeting below its low of the day (32.25 or so), maybe back down to 30. Things looked daunting.

But since then, Spot has rallied back to 35.00. That's a move from 39.50 to 32.25 to 35 in something like 36 hours. Teacher Turd had it down to near perfection. He called a low coming on at 1 am Eastern today, and sure enough, that's when Spot hit its low.

Who's buying at 32+, 33, 34? Is it humans or space alien algo machines? Hard to say. But there's complete bullishness in silver stocks: EXK, AG, PAAS, SLW are all positive. AGQ tanked hard to 153 earlier, but is now 177. Even if I'd been awake, I wouldn't have entered a position. Maybe a quarter position, but that's it.

ZSL? It closed yesterday at 21.70, opened at 22.38 and was up to 23.92! Now it's at 19.84! Yeah, that's holy shit territory.

So now what? Another takedown before the bell? After the bell? Margin hike again? Crude is up and the Dollar is down.

Update 8:14 am (Hawaii) Here's a real oddity: ZSL is at 20.10, -7.5%, so AGQ should be up by the same difference, right? No. AGQ Is 176.00, -3.6%. Either ZSL has been oversold or AGQ is rearing back for a major slingshot move, even though it is $21 off its low today.

Is it machines or humans saying F-U to CME Mafia?

Spot Gold shakes off a stray bullet

Update 8:30 am (Hawaii) Is the bounce in silver miners about dead felines or something real? Hard to say. EXK has pulled back from HOD 9.48 to 9.24, the previous HOD. If it breaks down here, not good. AG has pulled back from today's HOD 19.07 to the previous HOD and is struggling at 18.68.

Could we actually have a day in silver that begins with a massive assassination attempt, a huge gap down, then a major rally to big gains, then a selloff back to the previous day's closing prices? That would be sick. Not all silver plays are in the green. PSLV is down 1.1%. SLV, the ultimate fake paper I.O.U., is down fractionally.

I'm also keeping an eye on XG, the little gold miner with lots of cool marketing videos and a lot of transparency (it seems). XG is down 2.9% at 9.82.

Update 9:05 am (Hawaii) This is good. I have resisted the urge to jump into this market. It wasn't hard. Volume is light, there is little volatility on my screen except in metals. ZSL has rallied from 19.72 (after that high near 24) back up to 20.92. Talk about a wild ride.

My green-red bull-bear count on my metals watch list went from roughly 50-50 to 32% green and 66% red. Not good for the bulls, especially since a handful of the green lines are bearish ETF/ETNs. Outside of the world of PMs, the Dow (+61), S&P (+6) and Nasdaq (+10) are doing moderately better. Crude is off its low of 95.25, now trading at 98.82. The Dollar's run may be done, down a skosh to 75.39.

So what to make of today's roller coaster in Spot Silver? If the miners had not rallied, it would've been ominous. But with so little coming back to the plus side, the CME Mafia's hit seems to have worked. Sure, Silver is back near 35, but the trend remains down after that run to 39. Maybe the shorts did all their covering below 34. Maybe CME is content to let Spot linger here until June. Or maybe they're under directive from the top to bury Silver completely under 30, along with equities, to justify a QE3.

Or not. If Silver takes a daily pounding, but equities start to climb from here, maybe that's enough to make all the puppeteers happy. Whichever direction they go, I will follow, for I am unapologetically a pilot fish.

Update 9:18 am (Hawaii) ZSL is trading at 21.15 and climbing. Is that it? Is that the end of Silver's comeback? Are we heading for a TRIPLE bottom in Spot? Yikes . . .

At some point, I need/want to ride the volatility, so ZSL might be the ride. I can't stay in this cave forever, like this guy did. He was a Japanese Imperial soldier in WWII and hid out in a cave in Guam for 28 years, unable to surrender.

Update 9:47 am (Hawaii) That was like last call for alcohol in a bar near you. I passed on ZSL at 20.90 or so, but eventually stepped in at 21.76, rode it to 22.20, refused to sell, and sold as it came back down (21.79) for break-even trade. Now it's a major churn between daytraders cashing out and anybody else jumping on the bandwagon. I was one of them and I knew it would be a very short-term trade.

That's another 200+ bucks I left on the table. Would've been nice for a few minutes of "work." Doh.