Now that gold manipulation is no longer conspiracy theory and has joined every other "tinfoil" narrative into the realm of conspiracy fact, we urge readers to catch up on both what was the story of the day [3], namely the UK regulator cracking down on exactly one (1) Barclays trader for manipulating the gold price in a way that prevented him from paying out a substantial fee to his counterparty (and also being the absolutely only person in all of Barclays and every other bank to manipulate gold, of course), as well as reading the full explanation [4]of just how said manipulation was conducted.
Failing that, one can simply observe the following pretty charts catching Daniel James Plunkett smashing the price of gold, which apparently in the UK is called a "mini puke [4]", red-handed in the act of what is now confirmed gold manipulation.
Courtesy of Nanex [5], the charts below show the active Gold Futures contract on June 28, 2012 during the London afternoon gold fixing (3pm London time, 10am Eastern Time), which is when we now know the Barclays trader intentionally manipulated the price lower.
1. August 2012 Gold (GC) Futures trades and quote spread over a 5 second period of time (10:00:21 to 10:00:26 Eastern).
The important London gold fix price was $1558.96 which is near the middle of the price on this chart. Approximately 1,100 contracts were traded during the sudden price drop.
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2. August 2012 Gold (GC) Futures trades and quote spread - Zoomed out.
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3. August 2012 Gold (GC) Futures trades and quote spread - Zoomed out 2.
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4. August 2012 Gold (GC) Futures trades and quote spread - Zoomed out 3.
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5. August 2012 Gold (GC) Futures trades and quote spread - Zoomed out 4.
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