manipulating precious metals without owning actual precious metals

No sense disagreeing with anything I suppose when one person is always 100% correct. Nothing much more to say when one person always has the correct answers, and everyone else, (including NOAA websites), are just wrong when they disagree.

I guess post #13 is correct, the CME group doesn't own COMEX, markets aren't driven by emotions, (or are, but somehow Cloud is still wrong?), etc.

I'm out.

 

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Here it is straight from the horse's mouth. (or maybe the other end):

On emotional investing

On market manipulation:

Oh dear. Is this the twilight zone?

You say one thing but do another. In the first quote you readily admit that you have tried to remove emotion from investing. This is exactly what I've said that one must do and which is the hallmark of successful investing. On quote two, you admitted that you believe the market is not honest, ie. it's being manipulated. You can't have it both ways. It's why I have consistently said in this topic not to listen to others whether it be forumers here, or Warren Buffett with no context. When someone is investing their own money it pays them to do their own research based on knowledge instead of emotion.

 

I have never made this claim to justify what I have said. I've stated many times on this forum that a what a person has done or who they are are irrelevant to the message they post.

I also was the first person here to point out that the CME Group owns both the CME and the Comex when it became apparent that you did not know the difference. You gave us an example of silver being traded on the Chicago Commodities Exchange which was simply wrong. You also told us they follow "essentially the same rules" which wasn't true either. I'm glad that you followed what I said and now know the difference.

 

It's perfectly consistent. If all market players were investing in a manner to determine the fair value of securities, that would be an "honest" market. When 84% of trading is done by black box programs issuing million share orders faster than I can hit the enter key, it can no longer be said that the markets are honest. But saying the market is not "honest" is quite different from saying that it is manipulated -- that some invisible cabal is setting prices behind the scenes. I've adjusted my investing style to cope with the volitility created by the non-human and dishonest players. In fact, with the withdrawl of human decision making from the market, manipulation is less likely than ever, not more likely. If in your mind dishonest and manipulation mean the same thing, then so be it. To me they are different problems. I see no evidence that prices are manipulated. I see a lot of evidence that traditional market rules are routinely broken, but not in any organized manner. It's a total free-for-all.

Edit: Put another way, I agree that manipulation is dishonest, and to that extent you are correct. But not all dishonesty in the market is manipulation. I think the market players are competing to higher the best and brightest math majors and programmers to outwit each other, not to collude to manipulate prices up or down.

 

A quick "time out" to say that Coin Talk is the most active forum I've ever seen, and I'm glad I joined. Two of Coin Talk's competitors (where I lurked for a few days) don't have this much give-and-take in a week.

 

Your consistency wasn't an issue as you only demanded that I prove what I say. Often when I do comply with your demands for proof, it then becomes a contest of the credibility of said proof. This is why, this time, I gave you your own words in response. I honestly can't think of anything else that might satisfy you.

It also brings up the issue why you constantly demand that I "prove" these things even when when you already know the answer, as you did in this case, and when you never demand this of certain people that I'm responding to.

 

I ask for proof because you and sometimes others repeat claims that come from other websites about PM manipulation or ETFs with no metal backing or pending economic collapse or hyperinflation or silver shortages and all sorts of other claims. Sometimes I point out problems with the credibility of the authors of the websites, and sometimes ask for evidence or present evidence of my own. In the present case, I asked for evidence of manipulation. If there was some evidence, I would change my mind since I'm always on the lookout for new investment information that can help me succeed in the market. When I ask for evidence, it isn't a denial of possibility. But when there is no evidence, I think all readers should know about it so they aren't misled. It is a lot of fun to believe you know something that the majority of market participants missed, but it has to be true to be valuable.

 

I almost never cite other websites and when I do, it's limited to statistical data, statutes, stated rules, etc. Anything easily verified.

Not all evidence is a web link and in regards to manipulation you said, in the post of yours that I quoted, that you had already changed your investing habits because you had already "assumed" it existed. You didn't provide any hard proof or evidence but it was enough for you to change how you invest. You can only conclude, as I have stated above, that it exists based on the otherwise illogical results of the market and other events that persist concerning corruption in the finance industry. So IMO, if have already done this yourself, it seems that it's really not very productive to you and for the rest of us for you to continue to demand proof. At best it's misleading. The very thing that you wish to stop.

 

I never said I changed my investment methods because of manipulation, and it is an error on your part to say so. If I thought prices were manipulated, I wouldn't invest there. Everyone can go back and see how you post untruths this way, and that is why everything you post needs to be investigated. Everything is twisted to suit your needs, which is ego and never the truth. A careful reading of what you post reveals the lie.

 

Then you are splitting hairs of the English language.

On market manipulation:

"Markets are not honest". i.e. they are manipulated. You even stated naked short selling which is what is being alleged in this topic as the form of manipulation taking place in the silver market.

 

Let's review:

high frequency trading
black boxes
flash crashes
front running
regulators permitting short selling
concentrated positions

Which one of these do you equate with the silver manipulation whereby it is claimed that a group of large banks collude to keep the price lower than it should be. What is it that you don't understand about the difference between the statements "the market is not honest" and "the market is manipulated"? If you think these statements are equivalent, I can't help you because you lack a basic understanding of the issue.

Edit: Let me explain it to you another way, since you aren't getting it. There are a number of large market participants that are competing with each other using techniques and trading privileges not available to small investors, and their techniques cause increased volitility.

Do you equate competition with manipulation???

 

Not so fast. You stated "naked short selling". Clearly an illegal activity and the one cited in this topic and others many times for the mechanism used to manipulate the PM markets. You have admitted that you believe it exists, and hence, as much as you deny it now, believe the markets are manipulated.

 

When banks lose money on "hedges" there is no possible explanation other than naked shorting. If it were truly a hedge then it would have been balanced out by the emperor's clothes.

 

Volume is an indicator of liquidity - the ability of easily entering and exiting the market. Liquidity is directly related to the interest placed in the market with the intent of making physical delivery as it represents the risk of getting hung. If all contracts mandated delivery the only way the farmer in your example above can close his position is through delivery else you produce a factor less than all. The same would hold true for any new interest (initial short position). If all shorts mandated delivery then a short position has zero liquidity. Speculators could not initiate a short position due to the fact they do not have the resources to make delivery. The only way they could enter the market is by buying an interest (a long position). There is no distintion made on the trading floor as to whether the contract being traded is a new interest or an established interest. They are traded as equals. Corn futures are traded on the floor for 2 1/2 years. Everyday new interest is placed (opened) in the market and established interest are removed (closed). Open Interest is a net factor tracking the rate new interest is being opened in relation to established interest being closed.

It is probably best if we address this issue from a different perspective. Yesterday july 12 Corn open interest stood at 22098 contracts. Five trading days ago open interest was 117167. A decrease of 82%. I don't know what the peak open interest reached over the last 2 1/2 years this futures traded but yesterday open interest for Sept 12 futures stood at 429196 contracts.

 

There are many activities in markets where large institutional investors have rights and advantages not available to individual investors. But this is not evidence of price manipulation. I know this is a tactic you frequently use to divert attention from the main point -- that you cannot provide even a small amount of evidence that the price of silver or gold is manipulated. The buying and selling and hedging by large institutions is not manipulation. In fact, if one large bank [say, JP Morgan Chase since people like to pick on them] was manipulating the price of silver artificially lower, the other large players would jump on the other side of the trade to squeeze them. None of this is manipulation. It is competition.

So as things stand, you have absolutely no evidence or examples of price manipulation.

 

That is just completely untrue Inflexion. How do you know this? How do you know it wasn't the fact the market moved against them and they bought high and sold low? Saying "there is no POSSIBLE explanation other than naked shorting" is untrue, and slanderous.

No, I don't work for a bank, especially any of the banks named on PM websites, but I know enough about the market to know that is a completely misleading statement, one which, unless you work for the bank or the CME, could POSSIBLY know if it were true.

 

And you have provided none that it doesn't. Furthermore, you have admitted yourself that it exists, so I don't see why you continue to drone on about it. You did this in a previous post when you were lecturing others on investing. Man up and stand by your words, or admit that you just say things for the moment for the sake of arguing.

 

Then based on your words, you don't know either. Furthermore, anyone familiar with the subject would never refer to silver trading one the CME, they will say Comex. In other words, you have no basis for saying that it's untrue.

(No metal trades with the CME Group, that is the corporate parent of these exchanges)

 

But the VP of the CME group would be aware of both exchanges, right? Sorry, very bad trolling attempt Fatima.

Btw Fatima, WHEN are you going to admit the fallacy of post #13? Please, everyone go back and read post #13 and laugh at Fatimas ignorance that "it" refuses to admit was wrong. I go back frequently to post #13 and laugh at the ignorance.

 

Noteworthy: not directly related to silver, but related to illegal bank manipulation of the markets, Bob Diamond, the CEO of Barclays Bank, has resigned today because the bank has been found to have been illegally manipulating interest rates.

Barclays is one of the largest banks in the world.