It's only taken a week for silver prices to drop  some 17 percent.  Did JP Morgan suddenly start dumping silver?  Dollar get stronger?  Have the mines secretly ramped up production?

Commodities expert, Ted Butler, believes a number of factors contributed to the price decline. And a few are not what you might expect.   "But you know what," Butler predicts, "it's just what the doctor ordered in terms pushing the metal's prices even higher!"

In podcast #8 of "Silver Sleuths," Ted Butler and Jim Cook poke around behind the curtain on the COMEX to analyze what's really sparking the silver price decline... they reveal how close we are to the bottom...and why buying silver on margin is guaranteed to send you back to the doctor ... to get your head examined!

While the rest of the world settles into semi-lockdown, truckloads of 1,000-oz. silver bars are being quietly transferred in and out of COMEX warehouses and ETFs.  Who and what's behind the moves?  

The "Big 8" banks are the principal players, according to silver and commodities expert, Ted Butler.  To avoid criminal prosecution by the Justice Dept. for price manipulation, the banks have agreed to buy back their expensive silver short positions, a move that has already cost them an estimated $15 billion.

Then there's the movement of millions of ounces into silver ETFs, as investment demand consumes more of the precious metal that's already in critical short supply.

Now add in accelerating industrial demand for silver in product manufacturing, setting off a move by some users to begin stockpiling physical silver as insurance against continued and future short supply.  "These guys are going to start to panic," Butler says. They will have to pay whatever the cost is and it will send silver prices to the moon!"

Listen in to this episode to find out when Butler believes it all might happen, whether additional silver mining can right the situation and why he believes most will be tempted to sell when the price is too low.

Another week, another 40 million ounces of silver were deposited into silver ETFs.  That’s on top of the 300 million ounces that have gone into ETF’s the last four months!  

Is that what’s nudging silver prices?   “Partially,” says silver analyst, Ted Butler, Butler Research.  “On top of dwindling investment silver inventories, industrial silver could soon fall in short supply, igniting some panic buying among manufacturing users, sending prices even higher!"

Butler believes JP Morgan has been hiding behind the supply chain curtain all along, stockpiling hundreds of millions of ounces for years, thereby manipulating the price down.

Listen in to learn about a secret settlement with the Justice Department, whereby the Big Bank could avoid prosecution by beginning to release its silver reserves into the marketplace.  "And as long as the price continues to go up, everybody’s happy... it’s a happy ending!" Butler says.

Also be on the lookout for “price sell-offs along the way,” Butler advises, if prices rise too quickly from here.  It could be an opportunity to beef up your current position.