April 24, 2017 -- Gold prices held up well last week, but silver withered under some heavy selling in the futures markets. Traders were taking profits and responding to record high "open interest." The number of active silver contracts on the COMEX made all-time highs, and historically that has often resulted in a price correction.

Given the subdued activity levels in the U.S. retail market for physical silver bullion and the fact that we're not seeing the same COMEX extremes in gold, it seems more likely the current demand in the paper market is driven by machine trading than by an influx of human traders chasing profits.

That's why it's difficult to guess what to expect in the days ahead.

We can say that betting against the machines in the leveraged futures markets tends to be a risky proposition.

You can find the live price chart here:
https://goo.gl/8ZB1kG