alleged gold market manipulation by goldman-sachs

SEEKING ALPHA

"There is no other leveraged commodity market where short sellers increase their positions, materially, as the price rises, and increase them even more when prices are exploding, except gold and silver. The reason traders don’t normally do that is that it exposes short sellers to unlimited liability and risk. Yet, in both March and July 2008, and on countless occasions over the past 21 years, vast numbers of new gold and silver short positions were temporarily opened up, with the position holders seemingly unconcerned about the fact that precious metals had just risen exponentially, and that there was a very real potential they would bankrupt themselves with unlimited upside potential. Normal traders would not expose themselves to such unlimited risks.

I conclude, therefore, that over the last 21 years or so, “fake” precious metals supply in the form of promises of future delivery have habitually been increased when prices increase until increased “supply” managed to overwhelm increased demand, leading to a temporary price collapse. This is compounded by the fact that the futures prices on COMEX tend to dictate the “official” report price for the precious metals elsewhere."

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Interestingly, gold's recent breaking through of the USD 1000 mark is followed by an announcement by the IMF that it plans to sell gold equal to 1/8 of it's total reserves.

IOL Article 2009-09-21