What has been going on with precious metals prices for the past decade? Much of the price is still dictated by the large traders on the Comex. Price discovery can only take place in a free market with equal representation of both the buy and sell side. What’s actually happening is that a hand-full of paper derivatives traders control the price and control the markets. This is a case of the tail wagging the dog. A few paper traders dictate to the real metal world, what the price will be. However, these large traders are in the process of losing their stanglehold over gold. Not so much for silver. It's still being held down by the big traders. The big players went short in gold a year ago and have been stuck on the short-side ever since. These large traders who’ve never taken a loss are out $6-7 billion. This indicates that they're losing control. JP Morgan is the exception, having broke ranks with the big traders. They have managed to slip out the back and go long. They’ve accumulated an incredible amount of physical gold and silver: 25 million ounces of gold for an unrealized profit of $12 billion, and 1 billion ounces in silver for which they have a small loss.