Was founded in 1974 by Jim Cook, and has since grown to be one of the nation’s leading silver and gold dealers. In the 50 years of service, IRI has logged 400,000 transactions for 60,000 customers equaling $3 billion sold and delivered.
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FROM THE DESK OF JIM COOK
STREET RACING
The breakdown of law and order in my city astonishes me. The Minneapolis I grew up in had low crime, law-abiding citizens and safe streets. No more. All types of crime are on the rise. One kind of criminal mischief personifies the collapse of civil society. It’s known as street racing. Speeding vehicles pit themselves against one another in formerly peaceful neighborhoods. The police and legal authorities can’t seem to put an end to this insanity. They are failing in their primary responsibility to keep our citizens safe. …
This is the last thing Ted Butler wrote for us. He was trying to summarize what he saw happening in silver. His illness was making it difficult to write, but he did a good job of conveying his final thoughts.
Price volatility in silver has been heavy recently, but two conditions point to much greater price volatility ahead. Currently, bearish futures-market positions on the COMEX feature an unprecedented short position by a single managed-money trader of some 13,000 contracts (65 million ounces). This is combined with a heavy commercial short position. The short position by a big managed-money trader is particularly concerning since it is larger than what the largest silver mines produce in a year and is clearly not a hedged position, but purely speculative, appearing to violate speculative position limits. While bearish on its face, should this big short get caught in a squeeze, all heck could develop on the upside.