It’s been a contentious issue over fifteen years in the investment community. Are precious metals markets rigged? If you’ve never heard of GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee) I suppose it’s about time they get some credit for quiet behind the scenes research into irregular trading patterns of precious metals on the COMEX and LME. GATA has in fact appeared before U.S. law makers on the topic of market rigging during the period in which this alleged illicit trading was conducted. Did the U.S. government significantly digest claims made by GATA through GATA’s research? How could the U.S. Senate draft a 396 page report entitled “Wall Street Bank Involvement with Physical Commodities” having not discovered any of these trades though which allegedly number in the “thousands”.
The news….JP Morgan appears (a plea at minimum so far) to be guilty of conducting illicit futures trades in precious metals as reported by CNBC on December 13, 2018 and in fact there is a reference in the article to the trades by an employee of the firm as being conducted with the consent and direct knowledge of his immediate supervisors. A class action law suit is underway representing those who traded the futures precious metals markets between 2009 and 2015.
Chris Powell of GATA speculates in his December 18, 2018 article whether gold mining companies who have reason to trade futures in order to hedge production will participate. Mr. Powell goes on to elaborate why the gold mining industry has been reluctant to postulate about market rigging. Austrian economists could expound greatly on motives for the suppression of the gold price.
Not surprisingly, we’ve seen the gold price rise to a six month high today. The big question will become…how far up the chain of command will we discover complicity in the conduct of this bank employee? w