Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

JPMorgan’s Top Metals Trader in the Crosshairs for Illegal Gold and Silver Manipulation

Commodities / Market Manipulation Sep 17, 2019 - 03:20 PM GMT

By: MoneyMetals

Commodities

Michael Nowak, the global head of trading for both base and precious metals at JP Morgan Chase, has been charged by the US Justice department for his role in an illegal market manipulation operation. Executive Directors Gregg Smith and Christopher Jordan were also indicted.
The three are the latest targets in a widening DOJ criminal probe.

Nowak and Smith and Jordan are the third, fourth and fifth persons to be charged in the criminal price rigging scheme at  JPMorgan. They may not be the last. The bank is the most infamous amongst precious metals investors who have been crying foul over obvious price manipulation for years. 



Christian Trunz and John Edmonds, who worked for Nowak, have already pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the investigation. They have outlined an operation that spanned nearly a decade and “thousands” of fraudulent trades. They have said their training in the dark arts of rigging prices and cheating clients was provided by more senior bank executives.

They were likely referring to Nowak, who is the highest placed executive set to face the music thus far.

Should Nowak also plead guilty and provide evidence against his superiors, things will get even more interesting. It would signal the matter isn’t going to be handled in the usual way, i.e. with some lower level staffer taking the fall – and regulators pretending the problem has been addressed.

Traders at Bank of America and Deutsche Bank have also pleaded guilty to spoofing. Evidence shows them working together with their peers at other bullion banks, including JPMorgan, to cheat their respective clients.

The picture emerging is not one of traders at competing banks striving to serve clients well and win business, though that is what naive clients expected. Instead, bankers placed bets against their customers. Then they used their weight in the markets and called in favors with friends at other banks to assure they won those bets.

Thus far the federal regulator tasked with enforcing fair commodities markets, the CFTC, has been quiet about its complete failure to crack down on the widespread and long-running fraud operation. The banks implicated continue to trade in the metals markets, which begs the question about whether any amount of fraud would be sufficient for their privileges to be revoked.

These and other schemes may have worked to push prices down, something long suspected by frustrated gold bugs.

The bullion banks are infamous for their massive short positions in gold and silver. Whether all those shorts are simply a natural by-product of selling contracts to any and all retail speculators, or whether they are piled up as part of a deliberate price suppression effort sanctioned by the Fed, is not certain.

Either way, the bullion banks’ incentive, generally speaking, is to profit from betting prices will fall. And the trading desk at JPMorgan has an incredible track record of profitable trades. In 2016 the bank did not have a single trading day in which they lost money. Now we know more about how the bank achieved such remarkable results.

The Justice Department and federal regulators, if the CFTC ever decides to lift a finger, might end up being the least of the bullion banks’ worries. Class-action attorneys and the victims they represent are readying civil lawsuits.

They should be able to provide proof to juries that traders at multiple banks spent years operating a large and well-coordinated racket, under the supervision and direction of very senior executives. The potential liability for bullion banks will be huge.

By Clint Siegner

MoneyMetals.com

Clint Siegner is a Director at Money Metals Exchange, perhaps the nation's fastest-growing dealer of low-premium precious metals coins, rounds, and bars. Siegner, a graduate of Linfield College in Oregon, puts his experience in business management along with his passion for personal liberty, limited government, and honest money into the development of Money Metals' brand and reach. This includes writing extensively on the bullion markets and their intersection with policy and world affairs.

© 2019 Clint Siegner - All Rights Reserved
Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in