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Message:: [QUOTE="KBBPLL, post: 25748460, member: 104064"]Are people on here saying the banks are doing naked short selling, or what? I've tried to understand what short selling even is, and as a simplistic "investor" it sounds stupid to get involved in, especially with something like silver. Here goes. You "borrow" 100 ounces of silver at $25/oz - $2500 worth. You have to put 50% into a margin account - $1250. You immediately sell the borrowed silver and add $2500 to your account. You're betting the price goes down to $15/oz, when you'll spend $1500 to buy back the silver and give the 100 ounces of borrowed silver back. You made $1000 profit. But instead, silver goes up to $40/oz, you now owe them $4000 worth of silver, you only have $2750 in your account, you have to return the silver, and you lose $1500 by buying and giving it back. Meanwhile you also had to pay interest on the borrowed silver, commissions etc, and you never actually owned any silver. Does that about summarize the concept? Now the naked short selling part, which I have trouble believing. One article I just popped into says there are 408 ounces of "paper" silver for every ounce of physical silver. Isn't borrowing and selling stuff that doesn't exist illegal? Regardless, a bank like JPMorgan has $3.5 trillion in assets. A billion dollars in silver losses is hardly even a blip to these banks. I'm not heading into the doomsday bunker over this.[/QUOTE]