Infinite Unknown

- Limited Edition Silver Proof (ZeroHedge, Jan 10, 2012):

Commissioner Bart Chilton of the CFTC gave an interview this week with Jim Puplava that should interest you.

A number of subscribers asked me if I would comment on what Commissioner Chilton had to say. In commenting, I can’t help but try to be as objective as possible. For the record, I commend Chilton for the role he has taken on the important issues, like position limits, concentration and in addressing allegations of manipulation in silver. He is the only commissioner to have done so. I believe there would be no ongoing silver investigation were it not for him. I think he is one of the good guys and I started writing to him about these issues in 2007.

I agree with most of what Commissioner Chilton had to say, particularly about concentration and position limits and manipulation. I’m glad the interview was mostly about potential manipulation in the silver market. I’m going to skip over all the things I agree with Chilton on and confine my remarks to where I disagree with him. Agreement can be boring. Even though the disagreements are few, I believe they go to the heart of the matter.

Chilton pointed out that it is difficult to prove manipulation in a court of law. He indicated that there are three elements necessary to prove manipulation – the intent to manipulate, the ability to manipulate and the success in the manipulation. I accept his legal definition. Where I respectfully disagree with him is in the degree of difficulty in establishing all three elements in the silver manipulation.

Let’s go through the three elements.

Let’s forget for a moment that silver has been under investigation by the CFTC’s Enforcement Division for almost three and a half years and that countless civil lawsuits have been filed against JPMorgan for allegations of silver manipulation in 2008. Let’s just focus on the last year, when silver experienced two separate 35% price declines in a matter of days. Such a decline in a world commodity for no observable reason. Yet it happened twice in silver within months.

As I have written recently, as a result of the second silver price takedown in September, a tight-knit group of commercials traders bought the equivalent of 165 million ounces in net COMEX futures contracts on the price decline. This is equal to 22% of the world’s annual 740 million oz silver mine production. These same traders came close to buying the same amount in the big May silver price decline as well. This is an extraordinary amount of silver futures, much larger than any manipulative long position attributed to the Hunt Bros. in 1980. It is not possible to buy such a large amount of silver by accident. It had to be intentional. There is the element of intent that Commissioner Chilton speaks of.

The next element necessary to prove manipulation is the ability to manipulate by a concentrated position or otherwise (collusion among different traders). It would seem that the ability to manipulate is also self-evident, as it has been done on more than one occasion in silver. This also ties into Commissioner Chilton’s third element, namely, success being brought about by intent and the ability to manipulate. It couldn’t have been more successful for the COMEX commercial crooks than the results they achieved (at great cost to innocent investors and traders).

I think the problem that Commissioner Chilton and the agency are having is that they have convinced themselves they need proof by wire-taps and emails and other incriminating documentation (like actual confessions) before they can prove manipulation in silver. But the COMEX commercial crooks are not likely to accommodate them. The Commission has something better than that already in hand, namely, the very data that I rely on in analyzing the market. The Commission should stop wishing and waiting for evidence to drop out of the sky and just study the COT and Bank Participation statistics that they produce on a regular basis.

Because it appears so easy for the Commission to prove a silver manipulation on the basis of the three elements outlined by Commissioner Chilton, my guess is that there is something else holding the agency back from ending this scam. They just don’t want to end it. Perhaps there is a political motive or the knowledge that JPMorgan and the CME may be too big to sue. It’s hard to see how the three elements can’t be proved by the public data.

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Tags: Bart Chilton, CFTC, CME, COMEX, Economy, Global News, Japan, JPMorgan, Obama administration, Politics, Silver, U.S.

YouTube Added: 20.12.2011

Description:

Kyle Bass at AmeriCatalyst 2011, which took place Nov. 6-8, 2011, in Austin, Texas.

Tags: COMEX, Economy, Global News, Gold, Kyle Bass, Silver, U.S.

Gerald Celente (not only) on MF Global:

- Gerald Celente: ‘IT’S FASCIST. CAN’T YOU SEE IT?’ – ‘It’s A TAKEOVER’ – ‘Hail Obama!’ – ‘The United States Has Become One Big Warsaw Ghetto’

- Gerald Celente Endorses Ron Paul For President – ‘The Entire Economic System Is Collapsing’ – ‘Fascism Has Come To America In Every Form’ (Video – Nov. 29, 2011)

Jim Rogers on QE 3:

- Jim Rogers: QE NEVER STOPPED – The Fed Is Lying About QE 3 – Rising Money Supply Proves There Is QE 3 – On MF Global (Video)

For your information.

- Explosive Interview Jim Willie “JP Morgan Crashed MF Global to Avert COMEX Failure, they stole all the accounts that were going to take delivery” (Sherry Questioning All, Dec. 13, 2011):

This is an absolutely Explosive Interview Silver Doctors has that Jim Willie of the Golden Jackass
did with Bull Market Thinking.

Silver Doctor has allowed me to reproduce the transcript of what they have on the page in regards to what Jim Willie said about MF Global.

If this is true then this is completely Explosive and the Comex and JP Morgan stole everyone’s money to avoid a default!  But don’t expect the government to hold them accountable, especially since the Judge assigned the trustee for MF Global that is a counsel for JP Morgan.

Portions of Jim Willie’s interview with Bull Market Thinking:

The YouTube videos of the interview are at the bottom.

We had a COMEX system failure in November.  COMEX was ready to default on gold and silver in November.  Rather than honor delivery demands in gold and silver- JP Morgan simply stole the money in the accounts that were going to stand for delivery.  They had their pockets picked while they were standing in line at the delivery window.  Notices of delivery were replaced at stolen accounts!

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Tags: Banking, COMEX, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Gold, Government, Jim Rogers, JPMorgan, MF Global, Obama administration, Operation Twist, Politics, QE 3, Quantitative Easing, Silver, Society, U.S.

- JP Morgue and HSBS INCREASED Their Silver Short Position By 10 MILLION Ounces In May (June 10, 2011):

If a rational trader found himself massively on the wrong side of a major bull market, one would expect that trader to take extreme steps to COVER his short position during a sell-off of 36% of said commodity.  This is only rational.

In perhaps the best evidence of silver manipulation to date, the CFTC’s Bank Participation Report for June shows that from May 4th to June 7th, the silver short position held by 4 large US banks increased from 20,613 to 22,628 short contracts.  This means that the 4 largest US banks increased their short silver position from 103,065,000 ounces when silver was trading near $50 in early May, to 113,140,000 on June 7th.

Basically, The Morgue and HSBS ADDED 10 MILLION OUNCES OF SILVER TO THEIR SHORT POSITIONS WHILE SILVER DECLINED 36% IN PRICE!

Lets look at this another way.  COMEX silver inventories are down to 28.7 million ounces. This means that in 1 months time, The Morgue and HSBS have added NEW short positions equal to 1/3 of the remaining physical silver supply on the COMEX.

This means that these 4 US banks are currently short roughly 4x the amount of silver remaining on the COMEX.

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Tags: Banking, COMEX, Economy, Global News, HSBC, JPMorgan, Silver

‘BTFD!’ (Buy the f****ing dip!)

(… but only in the form of physical gold and silver.)

30 years ago, Bunker Hunt, while trying to demand delivery for virtually every single silver bar in existence, and getting caught in the middle of a series of margin hikes (sound familiar), accused the Comex (as well as the CFTC and the CBOT) of changing the rules in the middle of the game (and was not too happy about it). Whether or not this allegation is valid is open to debate. We do know that “testimony would reveal that nine of the 23 Comex board members held short contracts on 38,000,000 ounces of silver. With their 1.88 billion dollar collective interest in having the price go down, it is easy to see why Bunker did not view them as objective.” One wonders how many short positions current Comex board members have on now. Yet by dint of being a monopoly, the Comex had and has free reign to do as it pleases: after all, where can futures investors go? Nowhere… at least until now. In precisely 9 days, on May 18, the Hong Kong Mercantile exchange will finally offer an alternative to the Comex and its alleged attempts at perpetual precious metals manipulation.

From Commodity Online:

The Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange (HKMEx) has received authorisation from the Securities and Futures Commission and will make its trading debut on May 18, 2011 with the 1-kilo gold futures contract offered in US dollars with physical delivery in Hong Kong.

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Tags: China, COMEX, Commodities, Global News, Gold, Government, Morgan Stanley

At this rate, tomorrow, for the first time, we will see a 32 handle in Comex registered silver ounces, where apparently despite the massive drubbing in paper silver, demand for physical inexplicably persists.

Speculators to be blamed for this in 5…4…3…

Longer-term:

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Tags: COMEX, Economy, Global News, Silver

“The fastest way to collapse a recent run up in prices is to choke off the ability of those with leveraged long paper positions to raise cash. Another way is to rapidly hike margins; those with insufficient ready cash will be forced to liquidate. As they liquidate to meet margin calls, prices fall, and it creates a cycle which feeds on itself. I have no explanation for the recent ramp up in silver prices any more than I have an idea of where spot silver prices eventually hit bottom.”
– Janet Tavakoli

Janet Tavakoli is the president of Tavakoli Structured Finance, a Chicago-based firm that provides consulting to financial institutions and institutional investors. Ms. Tavakoli has more than 20 years of experience in senior investment banking positions, trading, structuring and marketing structured financial products. She is a former adjunct associate professor of derivatives at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business. Author of: Credit Derivatives & Synthetic Structures (1998, 2001), Collateralized Debt Obligations & Structured Finance (2003), Structured Finance & Collateralized Debt Obligations (John Wiley & Sons, September 2008). Tavakoli’s book on the causes of the global financial meltdown and how to fix it is: Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street (Wiley, 2009).

See also:

- Mike Krieger of KAM LP on Gold And Silver, Exposes ‘The Big Lie’

- Silver Keeps Falling After Hours, Down More Than 11% On the Day (Wall Street Journal):

Silver selling continued after the official Comex market close, sending poor man’s gold down more than 11% on the day to $34.980. Silver has lost nearly 30% this week.

And the pressure may continue. At the close today, CME, which owns Comex, will enforce a 16.7% increasing in trading deposit requirements. That means speculators in the benchmark 5,000-ounce silver contract will now be asked to put up $18,900 per contract to open a position, and maintain $14,000 of that to keep the contract overnight.

Investors must exit positions if they can’t afford the higher margins requirements. The exchange raises margins during times of high volatility to ensure market participants are adequately capitalized.

Silver traded as high as $48 at the start of the week. It is still up more than 100% in the last year.

- Gold, Silver Prices Free Fall on Dollar Rally, Margin Hikes (The Street):

NEW YORK (TheStreet ) — Silver prices tanked after another margin hike from the CME and a stronger U.S. dollar, taking Gold prices along for the ride.

Gold for June delivery plummeted $33.90 to close at $1,481.40 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, but has fallen as much as $45 in after hours trading. The gold price has broken through $1,500, trading as high as $1,522.10 and as low as $1,471.80. The spot gold price was down almost $50, according to Kitco’s gold index.

- Gold, Silver Pummeled; End In Sight? (Barron’s)

- Gold, silver slump on new margin hike, stronger dollar (Xinhua)

- Commodity Crunch Hitting Miners, Energy and ETFs (Wall Street Journal)

- Gold settles under $1500, silver trades 8% lower (MarketWatch)

Tags: COMEX, Economy, Gold, Silver

It has been done before (here, here and here) and it certainly will be done again. In the meantime, here is Adolf, reprising in his now traditional role as Jamie Dimon, learning that the Comex is out of silver.

Added: 20.04.2011

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/22/2011 08:52 -0400

Source: ZeroHedge

Tags: Adolf Hitler, Ben Bernanke, COMEX, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, JPMorgan, Keynesianism, Silver

Concerns that the sovereign debt crisis may be entering a new phase and the risk of contagion has seen peripheral eurozone bonds fall sharply and the euro fall against major currencies and gold today.

Sovereign debt risk, global inflation concerns, geopolitical risk, disappointing European earnings and concerns about Japan’s coming reporting season have seen equities weaken and new record nominal highs for gold and silver (all time and 31 year).

Greek bond yields have continued their relentless march higher and have risen above 14.07% (10 year) and Portuguese debt (10 year) has risen to a  euro era record over 9.27%.Spanish and Irish debt are also under pressure this morning.

Euro gold has been in a range between €900 and €1,070 for nearly a year (since last May – see chart) and this period of consolidation looks set to come to an end as gold pushes higher. Once the technical resistance at the record high of €1,072/oz (12/28/10) is breached, gold will challenge €1,100/oz .

In the current bull market, euro gold has seen many long periods of correction and consolidation prior to rapid gains and sharp moves upwards. The length of the recent correction (almost a year) suggests that the coming move could be very sharp and see gold rise to €1,200/oz in the coming weeks.

Gold is increasingly being seen as the superior currency in a world of trillion dollar and euro deficits and bailouts. Indeed, the printing and electronic creation of billion and trillions of the major paper currencies is increasingly making gold and silver the currencies of last resort.

Governments and central banks are debasing currencies through bailouts, deficit spending and quantitative easing which is leading to a massive increase in the supply of fiat currencies. Precious metals are rare and finite and this is why major currencies are falling in value versus gold and silver.

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Tags: COMEX, Economy, Gold, Shortages

The previous parts:
- JP Morgan Silver Manipulation Explained (Part 1-4)

Added: 25.03.2011

Tags: Bank of England, Ben Bernanke, COMEX, Dollar, Economy, EU, Europe, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Gold, Inflation, JPMorgan, Politics, Portugal, Silver, U.K., U.S.