The manipulation of gold and silver is so blatent I don't know how they get away with it. I haven't done much research lately but Zerohedge always used to have articles showing the shenanigans.
For example there was repeatedly random sellers that would sell like 2-3 billion in gold futures overnight when most markets were closed and crash the price on low volume. This would of course activate peoples stops and there would be additional selling pressure.
Of course when you think about it nobody with that kind of money would sell that amount of futures like that. To get top price you would sell slowly during high volume times so the price wouldn't dip very much. In other words, it was intentional price manipulation in the downwards direction.
Don't forget it can be manipulated to the upside too, once those in control decide that's where they intend to make profit. Dollar strength is less important under the Trump regime so we could see a multi-year fall in the dollar from here forward resulting in manipulation of metals to the upside. Once the short covering starts hold on to your hat!
But if that happens, we will not need Manipulation to the Up Side! Unless you consider "letting the free market" do what it does "manipulation" by the absence of downward pressure. It has been driven down for so long that all they need to do is "cease and desist" and prices will skyrocket!
usdebtclock.org indicates that PM prices will be extreme, if we just normalize prices to the available dollars, last I checked Silver would be $730/ozT for example.
Also, note that GSR ;) Lots closer than 15:1 :D
Absolutely they can move it both ways. I just only see examples of downwards manipulation lately.