TOUGH QUESTIONS
Cook: People who have followed your advice over the past four years aren’t too happy. What do you say to them now?
Butler: No one has a reason to be happy about silver’s price performance, unless you are buying now (which you should be). However, I don’t know why anyone would be unhappy with anything I’ve written, for a number of reasons.
Cook. Like what?
Butler: Like I didn’t just start writing about silver four years ago. My public writing on silver dates back much longer than that and it seems arbitrary to pick the absolute top as the starting point for judgment. Look, I know the price decline has been terrible for those holding silver, but don’t confuse that with what I’ve written.
Cook: How can we not?
Butler: As bullish as I have been and am now for the price of silver, it’s not like I haven’t explained this market better than anyone. Silver is manipulated in price and that explains two things – why it has gone lower and why it will explode in price. Anyone not recognizing that hasn’t read what I’ve written very carefully.
Cook: Some people don’t think the decline has been due to manipulation. They think it’s supply and demand especially now with China imploding. Are you certain it’s only COMEX manipulating?
Butler: Not only is that 100% correct, but I’m surprised you would ask that. Think back to our first conversations some 15 years ago. I remember telling you in 2000 that silver was manipulated in price. Since then I’ve maintained that manipulation has made silver an outstanding investment value, which proved to be the case in the years following 2000 and will be the case again.
Cook: I remember, but these past four years have been brutal.
Butler: We can’t change that. Why don’t we concentrate on what silver is likely to do ahead?
Cook: Ok. What do you see ahead?
Butler: I see the same thing I saw in 2000, only far more extreme today. The reason silver was at $4 fifteen years ago is the same reason it is at $15 today – artificial price setting on the COMEX. And just as silver jumped more than tenfold in price from where it traded in 2000, I see it jumping tenfold from here.
Cook: You’ve been saying that for a long time. What’s any different now?
Butler: The price of silver is controlled by massive paper trading on the COMEX. Compared to 15 years ago, there has been an explosion in the numbers of people that get the meaning of the Commitment of Traders Report. The majority of precious metals commentary on the Internet now refers to the COT reports. And this COT commentary is appearing in the mainstream media as well.
Cook: So what?
Butler: As difficult as this report is to decipher, the fact that so many are discussing it today proves its importance. And once you understand it you understand how COMEX trading controls the price of silver and you understand what will likely occur in the future.
Cook: Which is?
Butler: The recent past has featured heavy speculative paper selling to the downside including massive physical buying by JPMorgan. Quite soon all that paper short selling by speculators is going to reverse and send prices higher. The artificial price pressure to the downside must turn around and propel prices higher because few if any of the speculative paper sellers can deliver actual metal and will be forced to buy back. It’s just a matter of time.
Cook: How high can that take the price?
Butler: That depends on how aggressive the banks are in taking profits on the next silver rally, but we nearly tripled in price within months in 2011 and it wouldn’t surprise me if the coming move is quicker and stronger.
Cook: What about for the longer term?
Butler: A tenfold gain or even more would not surprise me. Silver still very much offers the profit opportunity of a lifetime.
