Precious metals market is “more rigged than LIBOR”

- September 11, 2014 -

The mainstream financial media are finally admitting to what gold bugs have been claiming for years. The gold market is manipulated.

Recently, an options trader at Barclay’s, was the first person to be fined by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for manipulating the price of gold. This vindicated those in the precious metals community who have been claiming for years that the precious metals market is manipulated.

A singular trader cannot be alone in his manipulation, especially given the alarming comment by Elke Koenig, president of BaFin, Germany’s top financial regulatory agency. She stated that the  which resulted in the end of the highly manipulated London Silver Fix.

The FCA fined Barclay’s $43.8 million dollars for failures in internal controls. The FCA submitted multiple warnings to Barclay’s, noting that at least one of their options traders was actively submitting orders in an attempt to lower the benchmark of gold.

The FCA’s director of financial crime enforcement had this to say about Barclay’s price fixing in a recent interview with Reuters. “Barclay’s attempts to manipulate gold prices came the day after the release of our LIBOR action against them. The investigation and outcome of that case meant that Barclay’s was clearly aware of the potential for conflicts of interest with benchmark manipulation.”

What is even more alarming is that Barclay’s was found to be in violation from 2004 until 2013! Obviously, regulators were looking the other way for a long time.

Perhaps the mood is changing and regulators are finally going to put a stop to the blatant corruption in the precious metals market. Western central banks are running out of gold and they know it. The manipulation can’t go on forever.