Tag Archives: gold manipulation

Treasury, CFTC Refuse To Answer Gold Market Rigging Inquiry

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, , ,

For anyone who has studied the issue in-depth, there’s no question that Governments and Central Banks interfere in the gold market (and silver).  The motive is undeniable. Removing price discovery from the gold market enables the Central Banks to sustain the illusion that paper fiat currency is real money.

In addition to all of the evidence gathered and presented to the public over the years (see GATA’s article archive back to 2000), why does the Fed and the Treasury go out of their way to avoid public scrutiny of their gold trading and accounting activities?

The Fed spent millions lobbying Congress and feeding former House Rep Barney Frank’s retirement fund in order to prevent Ron Paul’s audit the Fed legislation from ever getting out of Frank’s House  Committee on Financial Services.  This included hiring Enron’s former chief lobbyist, Linda Robinson.  While Congressman Paul wanted an independent audit of the Fed’s entire operations, he specifically was interested in seeing the files on gold trading, leasing and swaps.  To this day, the Fed refuses any outside inspections of its gold vaults. This includes German Government officials who wanted to see the gold the Fed allegedly “safekeeps” on its behalf.  Why?

U.S. Rep Alex  X.  Mooney has taken over efforts to get to the truth from the U.S. Treasury and the CFTC about its activities in the financial and commodities markets, particularly in the gold and silver markets.   Most of Mooney’s questions on two occasions went unanswered.

GATA has compiled an accounting of Mooney’s fact-finding mission and the refusal of the U.S. Government to respond fully:  “Of course the refusal of the Fed, Treasury, and CFTC to answer the congressman’s questions promptly and fully is strong evidence that the U.S. government is deeply and comprehensively involved in market manipulation.”

You can read entire GATA dispatch with supporting documentation here: Congressman keeps pressing Treasury, CFTC about gold market rigging.

A Dollar Collapse – And Gold Revaluation – Is Inevitable

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , , , , ,

“Furthermore, in the main, historians educated as Keynesians and monetarists do not understand the economic history of money, let alone the difference between a gold standard and a gold-exchange standard. These similar sounding monetary systems must be defined and the differences between them noted, for anyone to have the slimmest chance of understanding this vital subject, and its relevance to the situation today…

…The pricing of financial assets, and today’s extraordinarily low interest rates indicate that a flight from the dollar is the last thing expected in financial markets. If they were still alive, de Gaulle and his economic advisor, Jacques Rueff, would be instructing the ECB, as successor to the Bank of France, to dump all dollars for gold immediately. And probably to dump all other foreign fiat currencies for gold as well. However, today, it is likely that other actors will blow the whistle on the dollar, such as the Chinese, and the Russians.”

The quotes above are from Alasdair Macleod’s piercing essay on the gold standard and the mechanics underlying an inevitable collapse of the U.S. dollar: Why A Dollar Collapse Is Inevitable. No one can claim to understand the modern monetary system without reading this piece from Macleod. It also explains by Modern Monetary Theorists are full of shit.

As the antithesis to the dollar, gold will soar. I was looking at some charts with a colleague earlier this week and was startled to discover that a very quiet bull move has begun in the miners.

Like the move that began in late 2015, it seems that some of the junior miners per GDXJ have gotten the party going. As you can see in the chart below, GDXJ is up 12.8% since December 7, 2017. GDX is up 9.5% since March 1st. Some individual stocks are quite a bit more than the indices: AEM up 18% since March 1st, EXK up 49.7% since Feb 9th, Bonterra up 25% since March 1st, etc.

I’ve had several stocks in my Mining Stock Journal that have outperformed the sector my several multiples. Some of them are risky junior exploration stocks and some are lower-risk producers. A good example is EXK, which I presented in the August 24, 2017 issue at $2.16. It closed Friday at $3.06, up 41% from my buy recommendation. This is just one out of many examples. You can learn more about the Mining Stock Journal here: Mining Stock Journal Information.

Is Gold Ready To Move Higher?

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, ,

The simple answer to that question is: who knows, eventually it will. I like to look at the Commitment of Traders report for signals. I think the COT offers better information than looking at charts, although I like to use my COT analysis in conjunction with charts. My fund partner keeps a database of COT gold and silver data going back to May 2005. Over this time, there’s been a strong correlation between the direction of gold, the net long position of the hedge funds, the net short position of the banks and the total open interest in gold (silver) futures.

Over this time period (Since May 2005), the total open interest in Comex gold futures has averaged 429k contracts. The hedge fund net long position in gold futures has averaged 142.8k and the bank net short position has averaged 168.1k contracts. Since 2015, we’ve had two price cycles starting with the low in December 2015. At the December 2015 low in gold, the hedge fund net long position was 9,750k contracts and the bank net short was 2.9k contracts.  The December hedge fund net long was an extraordinary low net long position and the bank net short was extraordinarily low. This makes sense given that mid-December marked the bottom of the nearly 6-year bear cycle within the secular gold bull market.

If we go back July 2016, the open interest in Comex gold has declined 206k contracts – a staggering 26 million ozs – 737 tonnes (25% worth of gold produced annually).   The Comex banks were short an eye-popping 340k contracts – 34 million ounces, or 964 tonnes of paper gold. This represents an undeniably enormous effort by the Fed via the Comex banks to cap the price of gold.

As of the last COT report (Dec 12th, the hedge fund net long was 107k and the bank net short was 119k. The overall open interest was 446k, about 20k contracts above the average open interest since May 2005.  In a “horsehoes and handgrenades” context,  we should have seen the bottom a week ago.

The open interest report thru Tuesday (Dec 19th) showed 446k open interest. Assuming most of that drop in o/i was decline in the hedge fund net long and bank net short, we should start to head higher, but don’t expect this happen continuously, in parabolic crypto-coin fashion.  The gold bubble is yet to occur.   I can’t promise that gold will move higher from here.  The best we can do is assess probabilities based on historical data relationships as they apply currently.

I want to mention briefly that Dennis Gartman has exited the long position in gold in his theoretical portfolio. Gartman’s market calls have a spectacular track record as a reliable contrarian indicator. I kid you not. This would suggest that the gold market is at or near a bottom.

Back in the September, I advised my Mining Stock Journal subscribers that I suspected the coming sell-off in gold – manipulated sell-off, of course – would take gold down to mid-$1240 area.   It hit $1241 on December 12th.  Sometimes the coin does indeed land on “heads” when I call “heads.”  I also discussed the hedge we were implementing on our mining stock portfolio and provided details on the my opinion of best way for subscribers  to hedge a junior portfolio.  The hedge easily saved us at least 7% (700 basis points) of performance this quarter.

The stock I presented in the last issue (Dec 14th) is up 12% and it’s still highly undervalued, especially given that it will start producing in late 2018.  You can learn more about this stock and subscription details using this link:  Mining Stock Journal.

Gold EFPs: Absolute Proof That Paper Gold Is A Fraud

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, , , ,

A guest post by Stewart Dougherty

IRD’s Note:  In the past year, there has been a noticeably substantial  increase in the use of the obscurely defined EFPs (Exchange for Physicals) and PNTs (Privately Negotiated Transactions) in the settlement of Comex gold and silver futures contracts.  In simple terms, the EFPs and PNTs enable the counterparties  a Comex futures contract or LBMA forward to settle the contract in an acceptable form other than the actual physical commodity as required by the contract specifications (e.g. one gold futures contract requires the delivery of a 100 oz. gold bar as qualified by the Comex).  As an example, the counterparty that is required to deliver gold under Comex contract terms can deliver a comparable dollar amount of GLD shares if the counterparty standing for delivery agrees to take delivery of the GLD shares.

The EFPs and PNTs plunge the Comex operations into even greater opacity – likely intentionally.  In all probability, the EFPs and PNTs are used to bridge the gap between the amount of gold (silver) that needs to be delivered and the amount of gold (silver) that is available to be delivered.  The settlement of the contract occurs outside of the Comex.  These contract settlement devices further enable the ability of the western Central Banks to execute the successful manipulation of the gold (silver) price.

*************************

In recent months, the issuance of gold Exchange for Physical (EFP) contracts has surged. EFPs convert a physically deliverable Comex gold contract into an LBMA or LME contract supposedly deliverable at a later date ex London and/or Hong Kong. As an incentive for Comex contract holders to accept EFPs, a cash bonus reportedly is paid. EFPs in silver are also being issued in vast quantities, but we will focus on gold for brevity.

Most gold market observers believe that EFPs are a Comex gimmick designed to prevent, or at least forestall a formal Comex delivery failure. We believe the full story behind the EFPs is more complicated and disturbing, and that it involves collusion, conspiracy, and fraud.

In order to fully understand the corruption within the gold market, we believe that one must first understand the full extent of American political corruption, as the two are directly linked. Inferential Analytics, the forecasting method we have developed and use, is based on linkages, which are crucial to insight. Please bear with us as we take a brief tour of the Washington, D.C. political swamp; it is crucial to understanding the gold swamp.

The 2016 U.S. presidential election was never intended to be an election. Instead, it was a Deep State charade designed to pass the presidential baton from Obama to Clinton. Obama’s reign was an unprecedented financial bonanza for his Deep State handlers, and they were poised to go in for the looting kill upon the second White House coming of the epically money motivated Clintons.

The mainstream media did everything in their power first to derail Trump’s nomination, and then to destroy his prospects in the general election. Anyone who understands American politics knows that there was no way whatsoever any of the non-Trump Republican nominees, such as Rubio, Cruz and Kasich, could ever have beaten the stop-at-nothing Clinton political machine in the general election. None of the Republican candidates was ever supposed to win; their specific purpose was to lose, while creating the false illusion of a real presidential campaign and election.

The Republican establishment was greatly looking forward to the Clinton presidency, as the political streets would have been more thickly paved with gold than ever before in their careers. They could taste the graft, kickbacks, donations, pay for play bribes and other forms of illicit compensation headed their way.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE  REST:     GOLD EFPs / FRAUD

Gold And Silver: Something Different Is Occurring

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , ,

JP Morgan, at least according to the daily Comex warehouse report, added over half a million ozs of silver to its “historic” stash of silver at the Comex:   TF Metals Report.  It would be even more interesting to see an actual independent accounting of that specific metal which would track the serial numbers on the bars to the legal owner of title.

I’ve been hedged in my mining stock portfolio since early September.  The signal for me to hedge is the reliable Comex bank “net short” position as reported in the weekly Commitment of Traders report. Since late summer, the bank net short position, and the corresponding hedge fund “managed money” net long position, has been at an extreme level.

Historically this is the signal that the Comex banks will implement what I call a “COT open interest liquidation” take-down of the gold/silver price using Comex paper to trigger hedge fund stop-loss positions.  This enables the Comex banks to cover their shorts and print huge profits. It’s also illegal trading activity but that’s for another day.

In early September, in “eyeballing” the gold chart in conjunction with the historical COT data I have set up in a spreadsheet back to 2004 , I figured that the open interest – which was in the high 500,000’s at the time – needed to come down at least 100-150k contracts. I thought it would take a price take-down from $1320 to $1230/$1240.

But something different is occurring.  Two months is usually plenty of time for the banks to work their price control “magic.”  The hedge I am using (JDST in-the-money calls) minted money up until two weeks ago.  But the open interest has been “stuck” in the 520k area (plus or minus).  Furthermore, the ability of the banks to slam the price seems limited, at least for now.  As an example, last Friday out of nowhere around 10 a.m. EST the price of gold was slammed for $10.  There was a notable absence of any specific news event or technical signal which might have triggered the massive selling.  (click on chart to enlarge)

Unloading on the price of gold like this on a Friday, after the rest of the trading world – and specifically the physical-buying eastern hemisphere markets – has closed for the weekend, is typical.  What is not typical, however, is the reversal of the price of gold which occurred the next trading day (Monday).  Usually a shock and awe price-attack, like the one that occurred on Friday, is followed up by a few days in a row of price declines.  I thought this would be the progression which would cause open interest to liquidate in a manner the banks would use to covered their shorts as the hedge fund puked out their longs.

The open interest in Friday declined by only 4.9k contracts.  Typically a “shock/awe” hit would have removed at least 10k of open interest.  Based on the latest COT report, the bank net short position stubbornly persists at an extreme level.   Open interest as of yesterday also persists at a high level.

Another typical indicator that the banks are trying to push the price of gold lower is the repeated “false news” reports that spin out of Bloomberg News regarding India’s demand for gold (Gold Import Slump in India).  However, based on the high ex-duty import premiums which correlate with India’s level of import demand, India’s legal importation of gold in October was at least normal for the month. It also followed an extraordinary level of importation in September.  YTD through the end of October, Indian gold imports are up 91% vs the first 10 months of 2016 (I track import premiums in India via John Brimelow’s Gold Jottings report).

I am still hedged.  As I asserted to my subscribers in last week’s Mining Stock Journal, although I still am mentally braced for one more aggressive attack on the price of gold that will enable the Comex banks to book profits on their collective net short position, I’ve started evaluating the possibility that the precious metals could start to launch higher in spite of the large bank short. In other words, it might start to get interesting in this sector.

Another signal for me that something unusual is occurring is the fact that junior miners have started popping in price again at the release of positive drilling results. For instance, yesterday one of the juniors I feature in my Mining Stock Journal jumped 17%. This is behavior coming from the juniors that has not occurred since last summer and mining stocks do not exhibit bullish trading behavior if the market is anticipating another leg down in gold/silver prices.

Something different – at least for now – is going on.  Maybe it’s related to smart, big money knowing that the world is on the cusp of rampant, uncontrollable price inflation after the unprecedented money supply inflation of the last 9 years. And, in reality, the money supply inflation began with Greenspan in the late 1980s/early 1990’s. The U.S. money printing has been going on since Nixon closed the gold window and it went semi-Weimar in 2008-2014. The U.S. exported its inflation with the strong dollar policy and reserve status of the dollar. That has changed. The BoJ and the Peoples Bank of China have been printing money the last few years like a meth addicts on steroids. The ECB is a close third.

This monetary inflation was contained when it was just the Fed and maybe the BoJ printing in volume.  Now the world is drowning in printed fiat currencies of every flavor.  Price inflation is on the cusp of breaking out furiously in all currencies.  This will translate into a furious break-out in the price of commodities, especially physically deliverable gold and silver bullion.

True economic inflation is defined as the increase in money supply in excess of wealth output. The supply of money exceeds the supply of “widgets.” Eventually the price of  widgets has to go higher. We are at that point. I’m talking about parabolic price increases, which have already been manifest in global stock and real estate prices.

The graphic to the left suggests that the global economic system has reached a “tipping point” at which rapidly accelerating price inflation is about to emerge.  That price inflation, combined with inexorable and severely negative real interest rates, functions as precious metals rocket fuel. Currently commodities are extraordinarily undervalued relative to the Dow. In fact, going back to 1917, there were only two prior periods when commodities were extremely undervalued vs. the Dow – the late 1920’s – early 1930’s and during the 1960’s. Both of those times, the U.S. dollar was significantly devalued vs. gold. In November 1934, FDR revalued the price of gold by 75% vs. the dollar, from $20 to $35. The market forced the devaluation of the dollar vs. gold after Nixon disconnected gold from the dollar in 1971.

Since 1971, the dollar has lost 80% of its purchasing power vs. a generic basket of goods. In 1971 it took $35 to buy 1 oz of gold. Today it takes $1271. That’s a 97% decline in the purchasing power of the dollar vs. gold. Here’s the funny thing about the dollar’s eventual fall to zero (per Voltaire and history), the last few percentage points before a fiat currency completes its collapse will produce the biggest nominal price rise in gold. Just look at Weimar Germany as an example. In January 1922, an ounce of gold was worth 1,000 German marks. By November 1923, when the mark collapsed, an ounce of gold was worth 100 trillion marks.

A portion of the above commentary comes from the latest issue of the Mining Stock Journal.  This subscription service presents in-depth market analysis/commentary as well as mining stock investment ideas.  I try to find junior miners before the “crowd” discovers them but I also incorporate relative value ideas in the large cap mining stock space.  You can find out more about this service here:  Mining Stock Journal.

Trading And Investing In Gold: Follow The Money

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, , , ,

The paper gold attack that I first suggested might occur in the September 7th issue has taken gold from $1360 down to $1270 (continuous contract basis). Technically, gold has moved from an “overbought” condition to a mildly “oversold” condition. The RSI and MACD indicate that gold is slightly “oversold” but I believe both indicators will flash “extremely oversold” before this price attack over. This should occur sometime in the next 2-3 weeks.

I say this because I continue to believe the open interest in Comex paper gold, combined with the analyzing the weekly Commitment of Traders report, is the best indicator of gold’s next move, at least until the western Central Banks are unable to control the price of gold with paper derivatives. To be sure, the COT report is not always a perfect predictor but in the last 15 years the two reports combined have been around 90% accurate.

Currently, the Comex banks’ net short position in paper gold is at the high end of its historical range. Concomitantly, the net long position of the hedge funds is also at the high end of its historical range. Per last Friday’s COT report, the banks began to reduce the short positions, thereby reducing their net short position, and the hedge funds began to reduce the long positions, thereby reducing their net short position (click to enlarge):

The graphic above is from the CFTC’s weekly COT report for all commodities. I’ve referenced the COT report quite a bit so I thought I’d put some “meat” on the bones. The report was published Friday (Sept 29th) but the cut-off day for the data used is the Tuesday before last Friday (Sept 26th). Unfortunately, by the time we, the public, can see the data it’s three days old. By the time we can try to trade on it (the following Monday) it’s four days old. This is unfortunate and the CFTC could force a daily disclosure of the data, which would be ideal, but since when does the Government do anything for the benefit of the public? Having said that, we can still get a feel for then general “flow” of positioning in gold futures by the various trading cohorts. Note: though the CFTC publishes the COT report, the actual data comes from the banks who operate and manage the Comex trading floor and computer systems.

I’ve highlighted the data that is important to me. The reportable positions are the “producer/hedgers,” “swap dealers,” “managed money,” “other reportables” and “non-reportable.” The latter two are large money pools that are not hedge funds or mutual funds and retail traders, respectively. They are not a factor in the analysis except to the extent that it is thought, though unprovable, that the banks throw some of their positions into the “other reportables” category to hide them.

The bank positions are primarily in the “swap dealer” account but they also throw their trades into the producer/hedge category. It’s impossible to know how much without having access to the systems. The “managed money” is primarily hedge funds. On the left side is the open interest (o/i) number. You can see at the bottom the o/i declined by 20.4k contracts from the previous Tuesday. It had peaked a couple weeks earlier around the 580k level, if memory serves me correctly. [As of Tues,  Oct 10th, the o/i was 520k]

The bottom row data shows the change in the various positions from the previous week’s report. You can see that the swap dealers covered 14.5k worth of shorts and added 4.9k of longs. The producer/hedgers were net unchanged in terms of net position but still extremely net short. The hedge funds (managed money) sold over 32k of long positions and added 4.8k to their short position, effectively dropping their net long position by 36.8k contracts.

Note: The spread positions (“spreading”) are not important to this analysis. They represent a trade in which one side of the trade might be short October gold contracts and offsets it with a long position in December gold, for instance. This would be a “hedged” bullish trade because the entity with that position is expecting the price of gold to rise by December but wants to hedge out risk factors that might take the price of gold lower between now and then. There’s no way to know how the spread trades are positioned without access to the Comex systems.

You’ll note, based on the change in relative positions, it appears as if the banks have started to cover their shorts and add to longs, thereby decreasing their net short position. Similarly, the hedge funds did the opposite, thereby reducing their net long position from the previous week. The open interest as of this past Wednesday (published daily) was 522k contracts. This is 27k contracts lower than the o/i when the report was put together a week ago Tuesday. The o/i appears to be trending lower, which historically has indicated that the banks are collapsing their net short position and the hedge funds are collapsing their net long. We’ll know if this trend continued on Friday afternoon, when the next COT report is released.

If this trend continues, it indicates that we’re getting closer to a bottom and the next move higher. I’d like to see the open interest on the Comex decline by about another 100k contracts. This might take 3 or 4 weeks. We could also see some short-lived spikes down in price before this over. Typically what has been occurring over the last 3 years or so is that, as the hedge funds dump longs and add to shorts, the hedge fund computer algos overreact to the downside price momentum and begin to “flatten out” the hedge fund net position by rapidly unloading longs and piling into the short side. A couple times over the past few years the hedge funds have been net short for a week or two. This always has preceded a big rally in gold.

I don’t know if it will play out like that this time around. Currently the mining shares are “grudgingly” giving up ground. Often, though not always, that trading behavior in the shares indicates that a bottom is forming. Again, I don’t know if that will be the case and I’m braced for one more nerve-wracking move down to the $1250-$1260 area. We still have a hedge in our stock portfolio via owning in-the-money calls on JDST. We’ll probably remove that hedge sometime in the next week or two.

Although we might be in a for a bumpy ride over the next couple of weeks (then again, we might not be), the mining stocks, expecially the juniors, are setting up for big move after gold (and silver) bottoms out and heads higher.

The graph above (click to enlarge) is a 1-yr daily of GDX. From its bottom in December through Thursday’s close, GDX is up 21%. You can see in the chart the slope of the trendline I drew steepened slightly in mid-July. I still think we could see a short-term drop in GDX below the 200 dma (red line) but I would use this as an opportunity to add to positions.

The one factor that could derail the ability of the banks to engineer more downside to the gold price is China’s return to the market starting Sunday night. China has been closed down this past week in observance of a national holiday, which means their presence as a large buyer of physical gold has been absent. Quite frankly, I expected a bigger take-down of the gold price in China’s absence. The inability to do this may have been offset by India’s continued demand for gold, both through official avenues of import and smuggling. The gold flowing duty-free into India from South Korea has been curtailed but Indonesia, which is party to the same free trade agreement, has stepped in to fill the void. Just this past week, import premiums were high enough to indicate that legal importation of kilo bars also resumed.

One last note, some of you may have seen the report that Russia’s Central Bank has become the world’s largest official buyer of gold (“official” meaning Central Bank/sovereign). I would argue that China does not fully disclose the extent to which the PBoC is accumulating gold (for instance, it’s thought that the PBoC buys most if not all of the 400+ tonnes of gold produced by China’s mines. That said, both the Russian and Chinese Central Banks combined are accumulating an enormous quantity of gold. I would suggest they are doing this a precursor to re-introducing gold into the global monetary system.  In other words, follow the money.

The above commentary is from the latest issue of the Mining Stock Journal.  In that issue I reviewed several of the previous stock ideas, many of which have doubled in the last 52 weeks, and presented a high quality mid-cap producer silver mining stock as shorter term trade idea that I think could be good for at least 25% through year-end.  You can learn more about the MSJ here:  Mining Stock Journal subscription information.   All back-issues are included with your subscription.

GATA: Those Who Deny Gold / Silver Manipulation Won’t Answer Basic Questions

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, , ,

IRD Note:  For nearly two decades, GATA has seized on Frank Veneroso’s original research which provided first-hand evidence that Central Banks were actively operating to suppress the gold and has presented direct evidence of precious metals manipulation.  Beyond this, there are public admissions from Henry Kissinger and Alan Greenspan acknowledging this fact.   Unfortunately, those who deny that gold/silver are manipulated have never offered any response to the direct proof that Central Banks intervene directly in gold trading.  The article below presenting just the facts was published by GATA.

Newsletter writer Steve Saville of The Speculative Investor, who long has denied that manipulation of the monetary metals markets means much, has seized on the recent essay by Keith Weiner of Monetary Metals as the conclusive refutation of silver market analyst Ted Butler’s longstanding complaint that JPMorganChase has been rigging the silver market.

Weiner’s analysis, headlined “Thoughtful Disagreement with Ted Butler” and posted here – LINK – argued that JPMorganChase is undertaking only ordinary arbitrage in the silver market, exploiting spreads between bid and ask prices.

Saville, in commentary headlined “A Silver Price-Suppression Theory Gets Debunked” – LINK – cheers Weiner’s essay and goes on to remark: “Entering a debate with someone who is incapable of being swayed by evidence that invalidates his position is a waste of time and energy, so these days I devote no commentary space and minimal blog space to debunking the manipulation-centric gold and silver articles that regularly appear.”

But when has Saville himself ever addressed evidence of manipulation of the gold and silver markets? Of course if he declines to address the evidence, he too can’t be swayed by it. The manipulation deniers never address the evidence. [IRD note: this is similar to Hilary Clinton never denying the allegations of corruption – instead she deflected the issue using the scare tactic of blaming the Russians for making the evidence public]

Weiner’s technical analysis is no refutation of silver market manipulation, for even if JPMorganChase is just doing arbitrage in silver, a judgment on manipulation would require knowing for whom the investment house was doing the arbitrage. JPMorganChase’s former chief of commodity operations, Blythe Masters, said on CNBC five years ago that the investment house had no position of its own in silver and was trading only for clients:  LINK

So might those clients include governments and central banks, entities with nearly infinite resources sufficient to nullify markets? The question is compelling because filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission by CME Group, operator of the major futures exchanges in the United States, assert that governments and central banks are clients of the exchanges and that the exchanges give them special volume trading discounts for trading all futures contracts, not just financial futures contracts: HERE and HERE

Do Weiner and Saville know that JPMorganChase is not trading silver futures for governments and central banks? Do Weiner and Saville know that governments and central banks are not trading gold and gold derivatives surreptitiously? If Weiner and Saville think they know, they’re wrong, for the Bank for International Settlements admits that it operates as a broker in gold and gold derivatives for its member central banks: BIS admission

Indeed, in 2005 the director of the BIS’ monetary and economic department, William R. White, told a conference at BIS headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, that a primary purpose of international central bank cooperation is “the provision of international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful“: LINK

The BIS even advertises that its services to its member central banks include surreptitious interventions in the gold market: LINK

Anyone who wants to engage in honest argument about gold and silver market manipulation needs to address a few simple questions:

1) Are governments and central banks active in the monetary metals markets or not?
2) Are the documents asserting such activity genuine or forgeries?
3) If governments and central banks are active in the monetary metals markets, is it just for fun or is it for policy purposes?
4) If such activity by governments and central banks is for policy purposes, do those purposes involve the traditional objectives of defeating an independent world currency that competes with government currencies and interferes with government control of interest rates, objectives documented at length by GATA here?: LINK

Of course if largely surreptitious intervention in the monetary metals markets by central banks and governments is ever acknowledged, technical analysis of those markets is meaningless, which may explain why technical analysts like Weiner and Saville avoid the crucial questions and just sneer at those who raise them.

Why Is The BIS Flooding The System With Gold?

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, , ,

A consultant to GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee) brought to our attention the fact that gold swaps at the BIS have soared from zero in March 2016 to almost 500 tonnes by August 2017 (GATA – BIS Gold Swaps). The outstanding balance is now higher than it was in 2011, leading up to the violent systematically manipulated take-down of the gold price starting in September 2011 (silver was attacked starting in April 2011).

The report stimulated my curiosity because most bloggers reference the BIS or articles about the BIS gold market activity without actually perusing through BIS financial statements and the accompanying footnotes. Gold swaps work similarly to Fed repo transactions. When banks need cash liquidity, the Fed extends short term loans to the banks and receives Treasuries as collateral. QE can be seen as a multi-trillion dollar Permanent Repo operation that involved outright money printing.

Similarly, if the bullion banks (HSBC, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Barclays, etc) need access to a supply of gold, the BIS will “swap” gold for cash. This would involve BIS or BIS Central Bank member gold which is loaned out to the banks and the banks deposit cash as collateral to against the gold “loan.” This operation is benignly called a “gold swap.” The purpose would be to alleviate a short term scarcity of gold in London and put gold into the hands of the bullion banks that can be delivered into the eastern hemisphere countries who are importing large quantities of gold (gold swaps outstanding are referenced beginning in 2010).

I wanted dig into the BIS financials and add some evidence from the GATA consultant’s assertions because, since 2009, there has been a curious inverse correlation between the amount of outstanding gold swaps held by the BIS and the price of gold (as the amount of swaps increase, the price of gold declines). You’ll note that in the 2009 BIS Annual Report, there is no reference to gold swaps so we must assume the amount outstanding was zero. By 2011 the amount was 409 tonnes.

The gold swaps enable the BIS to “release” physical gold into the banking system which can then be used to help the Central Banks manipulate the price of gold lower. This explains the jump in BIS gold swaps between March 2016 and March 2017 and the drop in the price of gold from August 2016 until early July 2017. It also explains the rise in the price of gold between July and September this year, which correlates with a decline in the outstanding gold swaps between April and July . Finally, the hit on gold that began earlier this month coincides with a sudden jump in BIS gold swaps in the month of August. (Note: there would be a short time-lag between the gold swap operation and the amount of time it takes to “mobilize” the physical gold)

The graphic below shows the increase in gold swaps from March 2016 to March 2017:

As you can see, the total amount of the gold loans outstanding increased by 14.1 billion SDRs (note: the BIS expresses its financials in SDRs). The accompanying note explains that most of this gold loan is comprised of an increase in the BIS’ gold swap contracts outstanding.

I find it interesting that the reports of gold backwardation in London (see James Turk’s interviews on King World News) and the backwardation I have observed between the current-month (delivery month) Comex gold contract and the London gold fixings over the past several months correlates well with the sudden jump in gold swap activity at the BIS.

Backwardation in any commodity market indicates that the demand for delivery of the underlying commodity is greater than the near-term supply of that commodity. It’s hard to ignore that the backwardation observed on the LBMA and with Comex gold delivery-month contracts has been accompanied by soaring gold demand from India, as reported by the Economic Times of India (article link): Gold Imports Jump Three-Fold in April-August.

Furthermore, it appears as if the BIS gold swap activity continued to increase between March 2017 and August 2017, as the BIS’s August Account Statement shows another 2.2 billion SDR increase in amount of outstanding gold loans (a BIS monthly account statement only reports the balance sheet with no accompanying disclosure). These loans primarily are swaps, per the disclosure in the 2017 Annual Report.

However, this jump in gold swaps between March and August is somewhat misleading. The outstanding amount of loans declined from 27.2 billion SDRs at the end of March to 24.6 billion SDRs at the end of July. The price of gold rose over 11% between July and early September. By the end of August, the BIS balance sheet shows 29.3 billion SDRs. A jump of 4.7 billion SDRs worth of gold swaps.

It was around April that the World Gold Council began to forecast that India’s gold importation would drop to 95 tonnes per quarter starting in Q2. As it turns out, India imported 248 tonnes of gold in Q2 2017. This number does not include smuggled gold. Please note the curious correlation between the jump in BIS gold swap activity at the end of the summer and the unexpected surge in Indian gold imports.

In my view, there is a direct correlation between this sudden leap in the amount of gold swaps conducted by the BIS between July and August and the price attack on gold that began two weeks ago. The gold swaps provide bullion bar “liquidity” to the bullion banks who can use them to deliver into the rising demand for deliveries from India, China, Turkey, et al. This in turn relieves the strength and size of “bid” on the LBMA for physical gold which in turn makes it easier for the same bullion banks to attack the price of gold on the Comex using paper gold. This explains the current manipulated take-down in the price of gold despite the rising seasonal demand from India and China.

Anti-Gold Puppet Now Hints Gold Will Soar

Financial Markets, Gold, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, , , , , ,

Several representatives of the elitists have been warning about a major global financial crisis.  Recently the former Head of the Monetary and Economics Department at the Bank of International Settlements, the Central Bank of Central Banks, warned that there are “more dangers now than in 2007.”

Goldman Sachs commodities analyst, Jeff Currie, who is infamous for incorrectly predicting gold would drop to $800 about three years ago, recently advised anyone listening to own physical gold:  “don’t buy futures or ETFs…buy the real thing. . .the lesson learned was that if gold liquidity dries up along with the broader market, so does your hedge, unless it’s physical gold in a vault, the true hedge of last resort.”

Jeffrey Christian has spent most of his career operating as a shill for the western Central Banks and bullion banks who lead the effort to manipulate gold using fraudulent paper gold derivatives.  He scoffs at the idea that gold is manipulated.   It was curious, then, when he was interviewed by Kitco and was recommending that investors should hold at least 20% of their assets in gold.  He also forecast a $1700 price target.

SGT Report invited me to discuss the significance Christian’s comments, which of course included a denial of gold manipulation:

If you are interested in learning more about either the Mining Stock Journal or Short Seller’s Journal, please follow these links:

Mining Stock Journal info                                –                            Short Seller’s Journal info

Why Was Gold Slammed And The Dow/SPX Pushed Higher?

Financial Markets, Gold, Housing Market, Market Manipulation, Precious Metals, U.S. Economy, , , , ,

Something ugly could be hitting the financial/economic system soon. To blatantly hit gold like this when no one is around is a sign of desperation. The FANGS had an brutal reversal today despite the squeeze higher in the broad indices. TSLA soared early on Elon Musk’s shameless puffery – which often borders on outright fraud – and reversed to the downside, while the SPX and Dow were being pushed higher by the Plunge Protection Team.  Both indices closed well of their higher.  Auto sales for June were once again well below expectations.  GM’s inventory soared despite a stated goal to reduce it inventory from over 110 days to 70.  A lot of workers will lose their jobs.  Household debt – mortgage, auto, credit card – will go unpaid…

The Trump Presidency is floating on the fumes of questionable sanity as an impeachment Bill is being sponsored in the House by 25 Reps. The case to be made that Trump is not mentally competent enough to have his index finger on the red button that launches nukes at Russia grows stronger by the day.

Doc and Eric Dubin invited me on to their weekly Money and Markets weekly market recap/analysis to discuss – today notwithstanding – very interesting trading action in the gold/silver paper “markets” in the west and the physical, real markets in the eastern hemisphere:

CLICK ON EITHER BANNER BELOW TO LEARN MORE ABOUT EACH