QUESTIONS FOR SILVER ANALYST THEODORE BUTLER
Q. What do you say to people whose patience is wearing thin waiting for silver to move?
A. If your patience hasn’t worn thin, there’s something wrong with you. These past four years have been the most difficult to deal with of any period I’ve experienced; and that includes many years when we sat at $5. What makes it the worst is that there is no legitimate explanation for the poor performance of silver.
Q. What do you mean, no legitimate explanation?
A. There has been no obvious reason why silver has fallen 70% from the peak four years ago. Industrial consumption has grown. Although new investment demand has cooled off, there has been no investor selling that would account for the extreme price decline. We’ve had so much money printing on a worldwide basis that it has increased the price of just about every asset except silver and gold.
Q. Then what accounts for the price malaise in silver?
A. The same thing that I have been talking about for 30 years – the deliberate price manipulation on the COMEX.
Q. I’m afraid people are tired of that explanation.
A. That may be true, but it doesn’t make it any less the true explanation. Besides, you should know this.
Q. How so?
A. When you first contacted me, 15 years ago, and asked me why silver was stuck below $5, my answer was because it was manipulated lower on the COMEX. You then asked me if I thought it would rise and I said for sure, because the manipulation couldn’t last forever. As it turned out, late 2000 was an ideal time to get involved with silver because it was artificially depressed in price. And as impatient as people may feel currently, almost the exact same opportunity exists today as existed in 2000.
Q. Are you sticking with your earlier predictions of three figures for silver?
A. Sure, the way things are structured in silver and in the world, that’s only a matter of time. It’s funny that the price going high is not the real concern for most investors, but when that will occur. The timing is something we all focus on, but most often to no avail. Attention should be placed on why silver will go higher, not when. Get your facts and reasoning in place and the timing will take care of itself.
Q. Take a guess as to when?
A. A wise man once said, predict price or predict time, but don’t predict both. It will happen when enough people see how rigged it is on the COMEX, including the miners who produce it. Considering how this awareness has grown so much over the years, we’re that much closer.
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