For more than a decade, GATA and others have asserted that the gold and silver markets are being manipulated, offering circumstantial evidence that manipulations are real. Now comes more solid circumstantial evidence that support GATA’s assertions.
Tuesday Germany’s financial watchdog, BaFin, revealed that it had “concrete evidence” of manipulations in the forex markets (foreign exchange, currency). BaFin disclosed neither the evidence nor the alleged manipulators, but the players over which the regulator has oversight include banks, some of which have already paid fines for charges that they participated in the Libor interest rate rigging scandal. Many of those banks also have bullion trading desks.
Adding to the woes of an already rocked banking industry, the revelation came a day after Brussels charged three more banks in the Libor scandal, two European based banks, HSBC and Credit Agricole, and US domiciled JPMorgan Chase. HSBC and JPMorgan Chase have long been named as manipulators by GATA.
The Financial Times reported that BaFin claimed evidence that multiple smaller currencies had been subjected to attempted manipulations. That makes sense because smaller currencies would be easier to manipulate. Major currencies, such as the dollar, the euro, and the British pound come with formidable backing, three of the world’s most powerful central banks.
Why get involved in such illegal activities? For profits, of course.
And, if you’re manipulating small currencies for profits, why not manipulate gold and silver? Gold and silver have no backers, such as central banks. Further, no one in the Establishment has any sympathy for gold and silver investors. Gold and silver are much more vulnerable than currencies.
BaFin did not release the “concrete evidence” that says it has, but if banks will manipulate currencies, they will manipulate gold and silver.
Today is 1-1-15 and I doubt anyone would argue that gold and silver are being manipulated.
I am wondering what you think now about the manipulation and how low you think gold and silver will go.
I paid $18 for silver and $800 for gold and silver has dropped lower than I paid, but I am fairly certain it will rebound. I bought both for emergency cash if need be.
What is your feeling on the prices going into the new year?
I think that the metals have seen their bottoms for this correction in what I believe is a long secular bull market for the metals. As for 2015 price action, I think prices will work their way higher without much attention from the public, unless we see a major downside move in stocks, which would draw a lot of attention to the metals even if they move up only marginally.
As for the manipulation of metals prices, I suspect we will see less of the that in the future. Several regulatory authorities have imposed fines for or opened investigations into FOREX and commodities manipulations, with real or potential fines in the hundreds of millions.