"Please correct me if I don't understand this, but on my...

"Please correct me if I don't understand this, but on my understanding that is not price discovery. It is price control."

In every futures market there are as many long positions as there are short positions so the influence on prices of the shorts CANNOT be bigger than that of the longs.

The shorts aren't able to deliver bullion but the longs don't have the money to take delivery anyway. Neither party is interested and every position can be closed and rolled prior to the notice period (a common occurrence in ALL commodity futures). Hence no COMEX default, often predicted here by the conspiracy theorists.

Jeff Christian is right and GATA is wrong.

The number of banks in the bullion business can be counted on one hand (HSBC and JPM are by far the biggest). These banks hold vast physical holdings for themselves and their clients. They are also net long OTC derivatives as counterparties to gold and silver miners forward-selling production (especially silver because commodity producers almost always forward-sell silver as a by-product). The bullion banks therefore sell silver short on the exchanges to offset their OTC exposure.

Rowingboat