Kevin McElroy: I promised I would stay on top of the “silver manipulation” story – and there’s another wrinkle in this story to share. The Financial Times reported yesterday that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC: the federal government’sregulatory body in charge of U.S. commodities trading) will drop its investigation into silver futures manipulation.

Before I get into it, you might recall that the specter of the precious metals conspiracy theory goes back far beyond this latest story, and further back even than the Hunt brothers’ infamous plot to corner the market on silver in the early 1980s – which really happened, by the way.

Unfortunately, unlike the Hunt brothers’ saga, most of these stories don’t need to be remotely true or even plausible in order for investors to fall for them.

I bought silver many times in between as well. And if you’re a serious silver investor, that’s exactly what you should be doing too: buying silver at regular intervals. Not trying to time your purchases, not anticipating huge gains overnight.

And not buying into ridiculous conspiracy theories when things don’t go your way immediately.

Buy silver because it can protect your wealth from inflation and currency devaluation – not because it’s manipulated.