With the devastation in gold and silver picking up pace, I’ve updated my touts below to reflect, not wishful thinking and the fervent hopes of bullion investors, but the harsh realities of disinterested technical analysis. Some in the Rick’s Picks chat room seem to think bulls have suffered enough pain already for precious-metal quotes to go much lower. They could be right, but based on the evidence I’ve presented in today’s charts, I doubt it. Many terrific little mining companies are likely to go out of business, and if they are acquired by bigger companies, it may not be on very favorable terms, since the larger companies themselves are, or soon will be, stretched very thin.