SILVER

While March silver is seeing some positive early action, gold and silver prices were showing some divergence to start today. Silver was also fighting initial weakness in platinum and copper prices but that potentially undermining outside market influence was moderated by initial gains in equities and a weaker dollar. Like gold, silver probably needs to see a positive track of news from a lunch meeting between French and German leaders, and silver might also need to see generally positive US scheduled data just to avoid a slide back below last Friday's low. Comex Silver Stocks were unchanged at 108.171 million ounces at the end of last week. The Commitments of Traders Futures and Options report as of November 29th for Silver showed Non-Commercial traders were net long 16,526 contracts, a decrease of 409 contracts. The Commercial traders were net short 25,772 contracts, a decrease of 883 contracts. The Non-reportable traders were net long 9,245 contracts, a decrease of 475 contracts. Non-Commercial and Non-reportable combined traders held a net long position of 25,771 contracts. This represents a decrease of 884 contracts in the net long position held by these traders. The silver market starts with a slight undertow on the charts and a two day pattern of lower closes. Surprisingly the silver market wasn't able to sustain an initial positive track this morning, even after it seemed like a risk on environment was in place in the early going today. However, the focus of the markets remains on the ebb and flow of the euro zone situation and with the December 9th summit due in at the end of the week, the markets are likely to turn on the slightest deviation in progress on the magnitude of the EU financial backstop. Initial support in March silver is seen down at $32.36, but a more critical pivot point is seen this morning down at $32.24. In order to throw off a choppy to weak bias this morning, probably requires a rise back above $32.99.