Financial Sense Newshour Tackle CFTC-Manipulation Story

The first segment of the Financial Sense Newshour podcast [ .mp3 file ] contained a long interview with Jeff Christian of the CPM Group, in which he corrected some misimpressions of his testimony before the CFTC. This story, for example, conveys the impression that Christian believes that "leverage" - the multiple of contracts outstanding to the physical metal available for delivery - is used to suppress gold and silver prices. In his interview, Christian said that he meant something different. He didn't mean that 1% margin was permitted. He also said that he intended to convey that the "leverage" (in the sense he was using the term) is similar to that of financial instruments, including currencies. He also said that, from what he has seen, there was no large-scale manipuation of the metals market. The only "smoking guns" were simply sneaky traders' tactics.


Like it or not, the Financial Sense Newshour crew are on the skeptics' side when it comes to this issue. While not denying thast there are shenanigans on the futures markets, they aren't really partial to the idea that large financial institutions are colluding with the government to keep gold and silver prices down.