Price of gold manipulation

[uranian]

Well, lets see; so far you've seen various central bankers telling you that they manipulate the gold price; you've seen the mechanism they use to do so, via the timings of buying/selling in the comex; you've seen Germany unable to get more than a tiny proportion of its gold back; you've seen the claims for paper ounces of gold reaching new records on a daily basis; and I've seen a new addition to my ignore list, on the basis that you can't wake up those who are only pretending to be asleep.

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[pening]

This is a direct quote from one of the futures contracts:

Delivery may take place on any business day beginning on the first business day of the delivery month or any subsequent business day of the delivery month, but not later than the last business day of the current delivery month.

I.e. these contracts are written with the understanding that the buyer of the contract can ask for delivery of physical gold.

http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/metals/precious/gold_contract_specifications.html

If 1% of the buyers asked for their gold to be delivered, there would be no comex left, and true price discovery might happen for gold, absent the most powerful financial entities on the planet (central banks and private banks) manipulating the price for their own ends.

Why does this issue focus on the CME or COMEX when, again, most actual physical trade occurs in London.  The price quoted there is what the market says it is.  The fact some futures are priced on exchanges in New York and Chicago doesn't give much grounds for manipulation.  Further, those futures assume delivery, at which point as you point out the buyers take possession of the commodity.  Now, you can believe that there manipulation, in open view of everyone who then all choose to ignore its happening, or believe that the information leading you to this conclusion is manipulated to orchestrate a reaction. 

[Mikcik]

Well, lets see; so far you've seen various central bankers telling you that they manipulate the gold price; you've seen the mechanism they use to do so, via the timings of buying/selling in the comex; you've seen Germany unable to get more than a tiny proportion of its gold back; you've seen the claims for paper ounces of gold reaching new records on a daily basis; and I've seen a new addition to my ignore list, on the basis that you can't wake up those who are only pretending to be asleep.

Well no offense, but just using the term "awake" makes me feel good beeing added to your ignore list :-).
And you still didnt answer my question about the fact that selling futures is a normal bussines and the only way the manipulation could take a place is the fact the commex sells ¨WAYYYYYY too much future contracts that even in the future cannot be met...?

The fact that comex hasnt sufficient physical gold currently REALLY doesnt mean a shit for god sake, if the claims are just future claims starting somewhere in the future, if someone fells to realize this than hes stupid.

I belive in many conspiracy theories, i dont like the lies on mainstream media, but i equally dont like stupid people who are not able to think for themselves, and this involves BOTH the majority of the "common" people, but it involves also a lot of people from conspiracy circles who belive everyting that is told to them. For example Alex Jones is simply a BIG fake. If someone wasnt able to realize this themselves until¨this moment than i feel sorry for them. Because, belive or not, the fact that the mainstream media lies, doesnt not even a little but mean that the alternative sources (as the gold sellers) might not lie as well... Thats why i wanted to ask MY questions to realize and think about it MYSELF (!).

You might be lied by the central banks, but also by the gold sellers, who are spin doctoring the facts. Welcoming to the real world.

[Mikcik]

About some of the claims from central bankers that the manipulate gold prices, nobody said it this way concretely, the said something similiar, this might not be the current stage, it might not apply these days, the words might have been misinterpreted, it might be lies as a whole, or even if it is true, and there is some manipulation, and it went for decades, why couldnt it go for another decade for example... And im not stupid, if i would have to wait 10 years for my gold to appreciate than im not really interested and will buy it before it really gets HOT.
The supposed economic collapse had been predicted in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009... and we have year 2014 and still nothing :-)... Yeah i belive it will happen eventually but it might take several more years.

So i gues i should apologize for asking questions and the courage or rather impudence for even trying to think for myself :-), "Gold is NOT manipulated!" (mainstream media!) "Gold IS manipulated" ("Goldbugs" and goldsellers!) How dare I not belive even one of these sides! How dare I to think for myself and ask questions, Keep Stacking! :-/.

[NanoAkron]

Mikcik,

Why do you think it's ok to sell something you don't have?

What if I offer to sell you a car now, just so long as you don't take possession of it for 5 years. Interested?

[Mikcik]

Mikcik,

Why do you think it's ok to sell something you don't have?

What if I offer to sell you a car now, just so long as you don't take possession of it for 5 years. Interested?

OMG! :-) you dont get it :-D... Are majority of people speaking about the gold manipulation like you...?

Google Futures+market

or look here

Future markets are a normal thing in a financial world... its no conspiracy...

(you people didnt know that?)

Check here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_exchange

[lnternet]

I just read another German article on the gold import in a magazine (Capital January issue, http://www.capital.de/).

They say the German gold in the Fed's reserves originates from the Bretton Woods System. Germany had an export plus and thus built up a gold reserve with their excess currency. This gold has been kept at the Fed ever since, main two reasons being easier accessibility (if Germany needed some foreign currency) and father away from Russia (cold war).

Currently 31% of 3391 tons of German gold are in Frankfurt (1051t). It's supposed to go up to 50% by 2020, an increase by only 644 tons. Of those 644, 300 are coming from NY, and the rest from Paris.


This takes the wind out of the sails of a few arguments made in the above articles. Namely "why gold from Paris? --> US broke" is wrong, as there is simply gold pulled from both places. Also "Fed can't pay quickly --> US broke" is wrong, as this move is unexpected / unprecedented, no one considered that gold one which must be ready for shipping in decades, and the process of delivery taking some time is completely understandable.

[NanoAkron]

Mikcik,

Why do you think it's ok to sell something you don't have?

What if I offer to sell you a car now, just so long as you don't take possession of it for 5 years. Interested?

OMG! :-) you dont get it :-D... Are majority of people speaking about the gold manipulation like you...?

Google Futures+market

or look here

Future markets are a normal thing in a financial world... its no conspiracy...

(you people didnt know that?)

Check here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_exchange

You managed to side-step my question.

Let me ask it again - Do you think it's OK to sell something you don't have?

[Mikcik]

Mikcik,

Why do you think it's ok to sell something you don't have?

What if I offer to sell you a car now, just so long as you don't take possession of it for 5 years. Interested?

OMG! :-) you dont get it :-D... Are majority of people speaking about the gold manipulation like you...?

Google Futures+market

or look here

Future markets are a normal thing in a financial world... its no conspiracy...

(you people didnt know that?)

Check here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_exchange

You managed to side-step my question.

Let me ask it again - Do you think it's OK to sell something you don't have?

OMG!!! OMG!!! No i did not sidestep your question for god sake!!! Do you even know that futures trading exists!?

And yes i think it might be a good idea, i dont know about some stupid cars, you cannot buy cars on futures, but you can buy for example wheat, and belive it or not, its voluntarily, and belive it or not, people willingly participate in it. When you are farmer, and you want a payement for your future wheat harvest for example, and doesnt want to risk that the crops will be bad (the harvest will be small) next year than you can sell it today, for a fixed price you had agreed on, and the risks it transferred on to someone else who WILLINGLY buys so. All parties participate willingly(!) This is NOT bad, this is not MANIPULATION, all parties participate willingly and yeah, you as farmer might lose, or the buyer of wheat futures might lose, nobody knows, nobody knows the future, but they are all grown up man, so they can WILLINGLY decide if to participate or not.

Now please, answer me, did you know that futures exists? Did you know its a normal common thing in financial markets, and its even handy? If it wasnt, the farmers for example wouldnt trade in it! Did you know about futures trading? According to your post about some cars probably not, because buying cars on future doesnt make much sense and isnt even possible, thus you really dont know much about gold manipulation if you didnt even know that futures exists and its a normal thing :-(... for your info i too didnt know what exactly it is, but i had found it out, and realize that the gold sellers calling on market manipulation pointing to the comex selling something he does not have IS NOT a sign of manipulation for god sake!!! There might be manipulation, i think personally there is, but for god sake you cannot make point or proof it by pointing at the comex selling more than it has physically... ITS  CALLED FUTURES TRADING and its perfectly legal and normal ! Selling gold futures even though you know you wont be able to deliver in the future, YES that is bad and that might be called manipulation or fraud right away, but not this for god sake!

You cannot make a point that earth is sphere shape by "feeling it" for god sake, you have to make some reasonable point and reasonable proof. And in the gold manipulation the fact that comex sells more than it has physical is NOT a sign of manipulation of itself! The ongoing invesigation on gold manipulation might be a proof theres something wrong, the german problems with gold from FED might be a proof or a sign, BUT NOT the comex! And since the gold sellers are promoting ALSO the comex thing (100 paper claims on 1 CURRENTLY existing physical 1 Oz of gold is not a proof!) and i really belive they know what it is. So they are lying, manipulating themselves in this field, and if they lie in this field, in which other they might lie or not to tell the whole truth.
do you now get my point?

[Mikcik]

This takes the wind out of the sails of a few arguments made in the above articles. Namely "why gold from Paris? --> US broke" is wrong, as there is simply gold pulled from both places.

OMG!! Someone really said that!!! I dont belive how stupid people are, and how much they dont understand the issue, if i dont understand it, i shut the fuck up and dont say anything, and if i want, i will learn about it, if i wanna say something, i say "im not sure but i think.... but this is only my oppinion i dont really know that much about the topic".
I saw recently Glenn Beck video and he had some faults also, so he also didnt really researched the topic. And i saw, read and heard more stuff that was incorrect, people are stupid and misinformed and making your own judgement according  to all of this (dis)info is hard.
Otherwise of course i agree its not a proof at all.

Also "Fed can't pay quickly --> US broke" is wrong, as this move is unexpected / unprecedented, no one considered that gold one which must be ready for shipping in decades, and the process of delivery taking some time is completely understandable.

Well here i dont agree at all.
I really dont think that after 2 years (because as far as i know they knew it 2 years at least in advance, there knew a year ahead that germany will VERY probably ask for its gold back, germany was even in FED to see the gold, but they were not allowed to :-))... And then, after a year, they had OFFICIALLY asked for their gold back, and it took another YEAR for FED to make its first delivery... So after practically 2 years when FED knew about the repatriation, FED managed to return just 5 tonnes... Hm... well pardon me but that IS WEIRD. All the insurance, dealing, transport etc. CAN SIMPLY NOT TAKE THAT LONG, if the gold is really there, it SIMPLY cannot if the gold is there and FED really wants to deliver it on time. Saying otherwise is blindly stupid, i dont know how you can even say so?? Do you have some experience with shipping? There was a guy here on forums saying he participated in some BIG shipping deals and even he thought its too odd to take so long...
I had even looked at the biggest ships transporting goods and i dont remember correctly but they can hold on board and transport thousand of tons (!!) on 1 fucking ship... I really dont think it would take 8 years (probably more know because they failed even on their first delivery...)
And for example, in around year 2000 germany withdrawl secretively around 500 tonnes of gold from london, as far as i remember (there was an article about it) that it took around 1 year to get it from london to germany. Granted london is much nearer, BUT FOR GOD sake people travel all around the world now in a matter of hours or half days, this is not an argment. Also notice that it was more, around 500 tonnes, fed owns 200 or 300 tonnes or something like that. So lets be REALLY benevolent and lets say that all the legal stupid stuff like insurance, law, security, planning etc. will take a year (and it can be done in a year, look the 500 tonnes from london to germany in 2000). So lets say they are stupid incompetent people and it really takes them 1 year to manage it all, as i said, its long and i belive it could have been done much quicker, but ok a year. Now, because FED will probably transport each gold bar sepparatelly in canoe over the atlantic ocean and thus it will take them a year to deliver fucking 300 tones (one big ship can handle thousands of tonnes in one shipping, i have checked that) So thats an additional 1 year, 2 years in a slow steady peaceful pace... And its done... Over 8 Years... I simply cannot belive that. Simply cannot (i might be wrong but i dont think so).


To more clarify it i have found pictures :-) :
Here cca 300 tonnes of gold 12,4 KG bars. 300 tonnes in total in this picture (aproximatelly)
http://s14.postimg.org/hkbso7481/cca350tonnes.jpg

Heres the original picture
http://s28.postimg.org/sypz3dwnh/cca350tonnes_original_PIC.jpg

Heres how big is one bar (12,4 KG)
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/greatspeculations/files/2013/02/300px-Gold_bullion_21.jpg

Now tell me that those idiots will ship this over 8 years (!). not possible, or totally retarded, incompetent and they should be shoot. So lets say 1 year for legal stupid stuff dealing and preparing the transport including contingency plans, and then one year for shipping, thats all, two years in totall. Now, how long did FED knew about this, oh yes, over 2 years... How much did FED managed to recover when they had 2 year prior knowledge about the repatriation? Oh yeah... 5 tonnes... Hm... (BTW one Rack in the picture is aproximatelly little under those 5 tonnes).

Im sorry but this just doesnt seem right. After a year of preparation, fucking load of one or two armored trucks per day, fucking sent them to the aiport or dock and lets go, next day, or few days after that another fucking 1 or 2 armored trucks and GO GO GO GO, no fuckign time to waste and do it, until its finished, if its robbed once, then switch to contingency plan of delivery. One year is overlly sufficient if the FED isnt run by incompetent retards and i dont think it is...

[Mikcik]

So lets summarize it, what are indicators that FED gold is really GONE?

- FED wasnt audited in about 50 years i think
- There were some minor basic quick audits, i think one in 70s or 80s (if ever?) and once recently, from the recent, it was delayed as shit, the release and then they release "oh yeah, its there" , question: did you checked it physically? Answer: Ohm... No, but we looked in the books, its there, its ok :-D...
- People from Germany were denied to even saw the gold when they were firstly there (as i read, if its true, i belive so)
- The second visit, was more succesfull, and they SAY (:-) ), they say, FEW bars, but couldnt even touch them? (:-D ?)
- FED knew ahead (year) that it will be asked for return, after the official statement, it took him a year to deliver the first shipping.. (so 2 years he had to deal with this somehow)
- FED announced, that it will take around 8 years to return it...? (500 tonnes in 2000 from london took a year and maybe even under year (probably yes, didnt check this really)
- Afterthose 2 years, YEAY! FED made first delivery, but only 40-50 tonnes :-( SAD
- UPs, it surfaced that FED actually returned only 5 tonnes (other were from Paris by France), SAD :-(
- After 2 years prior knowledge of the delivery FED returned only 1,67 % of what germanz asked back :-)... with this speed it will take 60 Years to return :-D (but of course i dont think thats possible, but still hey, FED knew about it 2 years prior the first shipment, and it had managed to return 1,67 % :-)
- One big ship can transport thousand of tonnes. Planes cargo measures here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_transport_aircraft  Antonov can transport up to 250 tonnes (WOW!) in one flight...
- Worry about security, fucking use your army or police, special service, these people are here for such things. (if you dont wanna pay private security agencies)
- The 5 Tonnes are at home (germany) YAY! But Hm... the bars are not those who were deposited there originally... They are newly melted... FED: Yeah, hmm we did it, gratis, its present, dont mind that we had more work, transporting to refineries, and it costs us something, we love, so we did it for you :-)!
- It surfaced out that the bars were refined in USA for "some reason" (because we love you! :-) )when it surfaced and questions started to rise, germany said: Hm... no.. .actuallly... ehm... we made a mistake, those bars were refined here at germany... ehm.. the previous info was a disinfo, or something
- There were "rumours" that china had received tungsten gold plated fake bars which had stamp from USA (FED or fort knox or something)...?
- There were conspiracy theories long before this problem saying that the gold isnt there (in USA)
- There are soem quotes from people from central banking and financial world talking about the fact that gold price is supressed and the gold at USA simply isnt there (altough i dont know how much reliable they are).


So yeah... nothing here to see people, just some crazy economic conspiracy theories, dont ask questions, dont ask, dont think for yourself, just walk along, nothing to see here, the gold IS there :-)...

[aminorex]

if the gold were ready and they were in a hurry it would take less than 8 hours to get ALL of it to frankfurt.

the gold is not ready and they are not in a hurry (yet).

given that there has been no rigorous accounting for the gold holdings of the UST and FRB, it is reasonable to ask why it is not ready.

the offered answer is that the british and americans duped the germans into accepting bad bars in the 1960s, so now they need to make new good delivery bars, but there isn't enough refiner capacity to push it through on the pro rata schedule just yet.

the other answer is that the gold has "compilications".

both are conspiracy theories.  the first is a 50-year old one, for which no one living can be held accountable, while the second is an ongoing one.

[askhimthatsoon]

There are a couple of questions mixed up in this thread:

1) The first is the question of the German gold repatriation.

Germany has the second largest gold reserves after the US. Approx 3400 metric tons, of which according to the Deutsche Bundesbank more than 1500 tons are stored in the US. Most of that not in New York. A third is in Germany, the rest is Paris and London. Historically, it made sense to store the gold close to large exchanges, as it could have been accessed and used or leveraged quickly in case of emergency. Germany was the main hot border to the iron curtain and in case of a conflict the assets were away from the problem. Other emergencies could be currency based. When Germany acquired the gold, it also signed agreements, that limit the non-emergency liquidation of the gold => Gold has a in principle a very sensitive and inelastic market, relatively small transaction amounts could move the price drastically. This is true because there is very little new gold entering the market and a certain amount is "used" over time for industrial and fashion purposes.

Now what happened to the German gold in the US? We know that the Bundesbank claimed it repatriated already 37 tons of gold from "NY and Paris" - this being a lot less than the 50 tons originally planned.

Now if we look at the latest public FED report http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/releases/intlsumm/forassets20131231.htm, we see that the amount of "earmarked" gold, which is gold held in custody for foreign countries has not gone down significantly during Q4 2013. Thru banking channels, one is also able to get the report for December, same picture. The German gold accounts for about 1,8 trillion dollars of the 8,4 trillion in the vaults.

We learn that no US gold, at least no significant amount, has left the US so far. From that angle, the comments about the 37 tons of gold from Paris and NY are decidedly fishy.

Someone in this thread claimed that moving the gold could and should be done quickly, but that is obviously not the case, as physical gold is a pain in the butt, as those of you who owned or own a few kilos know. It is dangerously easy to steal, very heavy and hard to insure. Unless it is in a physical state that is know and has been under verifiable, trustworthy custody, it is also a considerable problem to guarantee the purity and authenticity to new business contacts or even auditors without jumping through a few hoops. In addition to the verification, transport and security risk (imagine one container ship full with 1500 tons of gold. The info about the ship and its route is probably the single most desirable piece of criminal information ever - now imagine all Somali pirates paddling towards the Atlantic) are the legal implications. As i noted, the Germans are not allowed to liquidate more than a fixed quota of Gold per year due to international agreements. In the agreements are probably (speculation) access restrictions to enforce this of which even most of the German Bundestag has no detailed working knowledge. After all, the German Bundesbank is (used to be) largely independent of political influence - like the FED.

So is there something fishy going on? Maybe, but no one cares. We have moved from an asset backed, over a fractional reserve to a fully faith based currency system (not true, it is in fact productivity backed) that relies mostly on electronic ledgers. If the ledgers are historically correct and show the right numbers, the markets are happy. The markets have a high level of trust in the quality of the German ledgers and they currently (!) believe that the US is good for the debt that is noted in them. E.g.: Nobody gives a shit if the physical gold is currently in New York or elsewhere. It is a pain in the butt. Transferring numbers via electronic clearing systems is much more en-vogue these days.

2) Is the gold price manipulated?

If you read the passage above, the obvious question is: If the FED knows that the German gold will not all vanish over night, wouldn't it be tempting, if not prudent to apply the principles of fractional reserve banking to the stash of free gold just as much as normal banks do with savings in order to create money out of thin air in form of loans? I have no clue. They may or may not have done that (used the gold as security, whatever), but if they did, we would probably find traces in their public ledgers. So I assume they didn't because nobody published a story about a magic money well in the FED books. But:

Big banks have other means of doing exactly the same. If you look at the amount of gold (or silver) ETFs traded and the interconnections of the insurances, risk management contracts, CDSs by parties like JP Morgan etc, you will notice that there is not nearly as much physical gold as all the banks have promised to deliver to their customers and each other in case of need. And *that* manipulates the gold price because the demand is eased via an oversupply of "gold" that doesn't exist. If all the contracts would need to be fulfilled today, the precious metal prices would skyrocket. That could have impact on our currency system that is unwanted (turbo inflation, gold rush etc.)and therefore it is tolerated like the real estate swaps. It is also handy to manage profits and risk if you are a big financial player. Very hard to predict the direction of things for an individual. So if you don't need or want gold for your own solid reasons (insurance against dollar or euro collapse for example), don't buy it. It is a medium of questionable stability in terms of storing value, as is bitcoin by the way.

[aminorex]

Someone in this thread claimed that moving the gold could and should be done quickly, but that is obviously not the case, as physical gold is a pain in the butt, as those of you who owned or own a few kilos know.

If you were in a hurry you could ship 300 tonnes to Frankfurt from NYC in 12 hours or less (8 was flight time).  It would have to work like this: 

Merkel:  We have a nuke on the mall.
Obama:  Get me the New York Air Guard, stat.

It takes 30 minutes to get the relevant executives on the concall.
It takes 30 minutes for the relevant executives to issue the local orders.
Lexington armory sends all its APCs and trucks with all staff, NYC sends SWAT teams, to Liberty street.
simultaneously, 4 747 freighters scramble to JFK.
at 90 minutes there is a convoy carrying 300 tonnes to JFK  at high speed.  all roads have been cleared.  no other planes are flying.
at 180 minutes the first 747 takes off, at at 240 minutes the last 747 takes off.
8 hours flight time.
now go home.

Like I said, they're just not in a hurry.

[aminorex]

wouldn't it be tempting, if not prudent to apply the principles of fractional reserve banking to the stash of free gold just as much as normal banks do with savings in order to create money out of thin air in form of loans? I have no clue. They may or may not have done that (used the gold as security, whatever), but if they did, we would probably find traces in their public ledgers.

Those traces are present.  They publish precious little information, but they do include *mention* of gold lending and leasing operations in their statements.  They just don't tell you how much.

[NanoAkron]

Mikcik,

You get easily excited. Whilst a futures market is good for stabilising the prices of recurring goods, such as wheat or pork bellies, it is purely speculative with regards a fixed asset like gold.

No amount of 'wishing' (i.e. futures contracts) is going to get more gold out of the ground, and certainly not in the quantities required to satisfy the existing contracts.

It is this rampant speculation and dishonesty which led to multiple bank failures in 2008.

[Ducky1]

Mikcik,

You get easily excited. Whilst a futures market is good for stabilising the prices of recurring goods, such as wheat or pork bellies, it is purely speculative with regards a fixed asset like gold.

No amount of 'wishing' (i.e. futures contracts) is going to get more gold out of the ground, and certainly not in the quantities required to satisfy the existing contracts.

It is this rampant speculation and dishonesty which led to multiple bank failures in 2008.

And (most probably) lead to the USD failure in 2014 (or 2015).

[Ducky1]

How long before this graph is banned?

http://www.24hgold.com/english/interactive_chart.aspx?title=COMEX+WAREHOUSES+REGISTERED+GOLD&etfcode=COMEX+WAREHOUSES+REGISTERED&etfcodecom=gold

There is now only 369212 ounces left.

[thaaanos]

Max Keiser seems to take it for granted that gold prices are manipulated since forever.
That is if you take him seriously.

[aminorex]

Max Keiser seems to take it for granted that gold prices are manipulated since forever.
That is if you take him seriously.

He's a comedian.  But many a true word is spoken in jest.  Why do you think they call  it a fix?