I think it is a rush to liquidity. All stocks are falling. People will have margin calls, even the idiots who ignored Jim’s instruction to not have margin, and are now beseiging him with their calls (95% of his callers are on margin), so all and any shares will be sold - and why not sell any PM shares in a portfolio as the metals are falling? All shares will fall in a downdraft like Thursday. Some hedge funds are liquidating everything, desperate to stay afloat (should probably start calling them “edge funds”, ‘cos that is what they are on), so all sorts of PM derivatives will be dumped, killing the PM prices.
The next set of instos to be frantic for cash, IMO, will be the banks. Unlike the edge funds, their derivatives are for protection, rather than speculation, and are dominated by FOREX and interest rate deris, so the effect on PM’s will be small. Certainly for the Aussie and Kiwi banks all the overseas short term debt rollovers will be painful the way their currencies have collapsed recently. The next phase of the commercial (as opposed to speculative) credit crunch is about to start. Then I think that fizz will move upwards: the speculative positions will have mostly been liquidated, and fear as to how good anyone’s credit is will reawaken peoples’ memories that nothing is as good as gold. Banks will start calling in margin positions by changing the % allowed on margin, say from 70% to 30% and promptly making the call. That will give them a liquidity boost much quicker than foreclosing on a mortgage. Of course, that will not be good for the SMs.