RE: Reasons, excuses....... There are indeed plenty of excuses to choose from. If you're inclined towards the idea that central banks around the world simply cannot afford to allow gold and silver prices to trade freely; to do so would be to signal the world that fiat currencies are NOT worth the paper they're NOT printed on (fresh supplies of currency is not even printed anymore.....it's created digitally). A free trading gold and silver price would cause panic in the financial world, plain and simple.
There's two great books written by Jack D Schwager called 'Market Wizards'.....interviews with the greatest traders on the planet. One of the lessons I took away from both books: every gov't attempt at manipulating currencies and commodities, historically, has failed and failed miserably. With that in mind I expect to wake up one morning to find both metals having exploded significantly higher. I don't want to be on the sidelines when that happens!
We're currently in a 15 month sideways trading channel in gold. Over the last 3 months the consolidation has tightened creating a narrower channel. A breakout to the upside from this formation could be a potent signal, but technical signals are difficult to trust in a heavily manipulated market. Though a breakout could signal that JPM and co are losing control of their grotsqely huge short positions in both metals.
Todays COT report might show that JPM and co have covered a large portion of their short position in the smack-down that occurred (that they engineered) last Thurs and Friday - there was allot of volume on the Comex last week during that event. If so.....it could add validity to the idea that the next breakout could be for real.
Regarding the trade in our tiny sector of stocks.......it's no secret that hedge funds have been largely responsible for the carnage we're experiencing accross the board (Jim Sinclair has allot to say on that subject)