Did the silver bubble pop?

I understand the fundamentals of why precious metal prices, especially silver, have risen so much in the last decade. I've read all the books: Guide to Investing in gold and silver (Mike Maloney), How an economy grows and why it crashes (Peter Schiff), and do all the required reading of news articles on the economy. From what I can tell, nothing has fundamentally changed about the silver market. There is still a supply and demand deficit that should be driving the physical market despite any degree of collapse in paper. Was early May the beginning of a lasting bubble, or just a rerun of late 2008? If the bull market is still alive, where's the floor on this thing and when will it recover?Did the silver bubble pop?
If the bubble had truly burst, like it did in 1980, silver would be back down to where it was a year ago, at $17 - %18, instead of finding repeated support above its post-robot computer 'flash crash' floor of $32.



The master manipulators are at work here - those who benefit most from the sharp drop are the JP Morgans of the world who were able to cover some huge short positions, and those who hold large positions long, who believe in the coming devaluation of many major currencies, who are happy to see the 'little guy' selling out at a loss, to them, at a discounted price.



When will it 'recover'? Isn't 100% higher than a year ago pretty good? Forget about $50 - it never hit $50. It might have touched $50 for a minute or two the day it shot from $46 to over $49 and back down to $46 by the end of that day's trading.



I see a holding pattern, where the price may bounce for a while, but not go below $30, before the next leg of the bull starts to move.Did the silver bubble pop?
Money has to go somewhere, new bubbles have to be created. A correction like this just means the price is getting ahead of itself, the price is unrealistic. You said fundamentals haven't changed, but they have. The higher the price of silver goes, the more industries will seek a cheaper alternative, and the more the mines will want to mine. Silver is at a support level sttill in an uptrend, Money has no where else to go so silver is still a safe bet for now.Did the silver bubble pop?
I will respectfully suggest that you are missing something if you think silver is a tradable currency hedge -- it is not. Silver has zero history as a hedge. It is just a commodity.



Silver is a commodity with a very flexible supply and a demand that is extremely focused on industrial and commercial matters. It is -- quite simply -- not gold in any shape or form.



Silver's pop very strongly suggests that pricks like me are correct: the spike in silver is all speculation. Nothing above $38 oz is real. All fantasy. Nothing fundamental.



Gold, on the other hand, irritates the heck out me. I sold too soon and the support has been too strong for me to get back in as a decent hedge let alone go short. However, It isn't going to surprise me if most of the little people (who bought gold above $1000) get (badly) burned within the next 3 years...it's the way of the investing world. My real question is can I make money shorting it. (You have to be able to "find" the speculative surge to do that while having the resources to back the position to profit)





Schiff would have made a great US Senator and he's right about the banking system in the US and right about the US government and he's even a darn good hedge...but he's just plain mediocre at managing money and so-so at mid range forecasting. If I had a nickel for every $1,000 that was lost by investors following the guru who was right the last time the market turned, I'd be very, very rich.



That's a "too cute" way of saying that Schiff's a good guy, but the bears never win in the long run. Never.