David Fuller's view You may recall my concluding paragraph in this section last Thursday, prior to the 4-day break in the UK:

This week's larger advance to date by silver is clearly climactic. Consequently, we are very close to a medium-term peak which could occur any day now and probably within the next two weeks. With climactic accelerations, the strongest market in the world usually becomes the biggest wimp the day after demand is exhausted. That signal, when it occurs, will be dramatic and therefore likely to trigger corrections for gold and many other commodities.

I hope this comment, repeated in the Audio, was helpful in alerting those of you with longs in silver and other commodity futures of the short-term risks.

Early Monday morning, I turned on CNBC during a brief stint in the home gym before heading out for most of the day. The tape was not showing the usual commodity price review for some reason but did hear that gold had closed at $1517 in Asia. On accessing my account after returning home late that afternoon, I saw that silver had nearly touched $50 before falling back sharply, although still up on the day at that time and trading around $47.50. Bloomberg, I think, also carried an item with someone forecasting that silver could go to $100 to $150. On day, perhaps, but not any time soon and previous delegates at The Chart Seminar are familiar with the quantum leap forecasts by nervous traders when the price action is already climactic.

As silver began to dip once again I hurried to sell my gold longs, receiving $1508.3 for 75% of the position which had been purchased at the rollover price of $1427.78 on 28th March, and $1508.2 for the remaining 25%. These prices include spread-bet dealing costs.

I am in no hurry to reopen precious metals longs because the recent leader has faltered and the seasonal window of opportunity is closing. Nevertheless, if the seasonal pattern of this secular bull market is still intact, it will be open once again by September. Meanwhile, price charts will keep us informed.

Yesterday, I also opened another Baby Steps short in US 30-year Treasury bond futures (weekly & daily), selling the decimalised June contract at 121.43, including the 4-point spread-bet dealing cost. My T-bond shorts are currently underwater and I need to be more disciplined in terms of taking some profits during the next sell-off within this broadly ranging pattern, rather than holding out for a bigger decline for the entire position.

Suspecting that silver's climactic activity could trigger a temporary reaction in other high-flying commodities, I opened short trades in lean hogs (weekly & daily) and live cattle (weekly & daily) this afternoon, selling June contracts at $97.900 and $112.763, respectively, including spread-bet dealing costs of 15¢ and 20¢, respectively.

Lastly, in a somewhat risky return, given the S&P 500 Index's (weekly & daily) overall trend and consolidation to date, I reopened Baby Steps shorts in the June contract at 1338.63, 1341.13 and 1344.63, including 1-point spread-bet dealing costs. I am hoping that the choppy ranging of late continues for a little while longer.