Market Manipulation

By accepting the story as told without regard to integrity of truth we have allowed ourselves to become feed for those controlling the story and thus the system. As the charts above clearly depict we have two distinct economic states. One is perceived and the other is real. The perceived state gets sole attention allowing the economic cannibalism to continue and draws us further out to the middle of the lake. And as the ice disappeared so quickly not yet 7 years ago it will again reveal itself only a perception created by policymakers for sycophants so willing to feast and profit on the rest of us and, perhaps more startling, on their own future well being.

It is time for another sacrificial gold market manipulation crackdown (the same gold market, mind you, which CFTC commissioner and HFT lobby sellout extraordinaire Bart Chilton said was completely unrigged). Only it's not Barcalys, JPM, Virtu, Citadel, the NY Fed, the Bank of England, or even the PBOC - i.e., the real market manipulators -  who is the receiving end of the CME's special breed of "justice." It is another "trade from his parents' home" Indian.

It took a paltry $1.15 million in bribes to get everyone in the Senate on the same page. And the biggest shocker: with a total of $195,550 in "donations", or more than double the second largest donor UPS, was none other than Goldman Sachs.

Recall that back in December it was first reported that both Deutsche and Barclays "algos" were busted for FX rigging: something we alleged was taking place about 3 years ago. And now, six months later, exchanges are finally admitting that this too conspiracy theory was in reality fact, and quietly have started to clean up their game before the DOJ comes knocking. As the WSJ reports, Thomson Reuters Corp. and BATS Global Markets Inc. will limit the practice known as “last look", also known as quasi-FX spoofing, on their platforms in coming weeks "in a move aimed at increasing transparency in the foreign-exchange market.""

Last Thursday, it was Avon that was cheated higher after a fake takeover filing provided just enough momo juice for the machines to destroy any and every short in the stock instantly. Today, it was Quest Diagnostics turn to be manipulated.

Yesterday China's richest man, Li Hejun, lost more than half his fortune when his solar company stock suddenly crashed over 50%. Overnight it happened again, and Hong Kong’s securities regulator, warned other investors to exercise "extreme caution," as Hong Kong's best-performing stocks this year are crashing in a serial, tulip-like manner. And another billionaire was promptly wiped out: Pan Sutong started the day engorged with wealth after his companies Goldin Financial and Goldin Properties had risen 300% this year. By the close he had lost 60% of his wealth!

"Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders wants to take from the rich in order to make public college tuition-free for everyone else. On Tuesday, the Vermont senator will hold a press conference in the nation's capital at which he will introduce a plan to use a so-called Robin Hood tax on stock transactions to fund tuition at four-year public colleges and universities," Bloomberg reports.

• Amtrak train in Philadelphia wreck was traveling at twice speed limit (Reuters)
• The engineer has no recollection of the crash and “no explanation” for what happened (WSJ)
• Taliban claim attack on Afghan guesthouse that killed 14 (Reuters)
• Chicago’s Junk Rating From Moody’s Puzzles Investors (BBG)
• House votes to end spy agencies' bulk collection of phone data (Reuters)
• Wesley Clark: The Penny-Stock General (BBG)
• AOL’s Armstrong to Leave $213 Million Richer After Verizon Deal (BBG)

• Obama, McConnell missteps undercut trade pact in U.S. Senate (Reuters)
• Bears Beware: Rout Puts Investors on Wrong Side of Central Banks (BBG)
• U.S. Set to Rip Up UBS Libor Accord, Seek Conviction (BBG)
• Greece’s Creditors Said to Seek EU3 Billion in Budget Cuts (BBG)
• Amtrak train derails in Philadelphia, killing at least five (Reuters)
• Oil glut worsens as OPEC market-share battle just beginning (Reuters)
• China Stimulus Aims at Restructuring Trillions in Local-Government Debt (WSJ)

"China conducted trial runs for the planned launch of a yuan-denominated gold fix last month, in a sign the world's second-biggest bullion consumer was moving closer to creating a benchmark price," Reuters says, in yet another example of Beijing's rapidly expanding global influence.

There is a practical benefit to shifting our attention away from the stock market. Any market that can yo-yo 10% within a day for no apparent reason, or undergo multiple booms and busts in a 20 year period should not be given too much credibility. The wealth-effect on the way up always turns into the wealth-destruction effect on the way down.

As is almost always the case, the price of gold was leaned on at the standard PLAN A time in London when The Gold Cartel traders reported for work, but their nudge was thwarted pretty quickly. Gold took off again going into the Comex trading hours and managed to reach $1200 where it was stopped dead in its tracks. James Mc early this morning…

On April 28, Zero Hedge presented what was unmistakable evidence of manipulation by spoofing in the gold market in "Dear CFTC: Here Is Today's Illegal "Spoofing" In Gold Futures." Two days later, the CME said it bas suspended two traders for placing precisely the trade we profiled previously intending to manipulate the gold market. Dear CME - you are welcome. Now if only you pursued all those other documented instances of S&P futures manipulation with the same speed and resolve...

The results of the latest FOMC meeting confirm that most of the media and investor communities don't get the joke on Fed policy since the crisis.  No change in '15

Honest price discovery is essential to capitalist prosperity since it is the miraculous mechanism by which capital is raised from savers and investors and efficiently allocated among producers, entrepreneurs and genuine market-rate borrowers. What the central banks have generated, instead, is a casino that is blindly impelled to churn the secondary capital markets and inflate the price of existing assets to higher and higher levels - until they ultimately roll-over under their own weight. The Easy Button addiction of our central bankers is thus not just another large public policy problem. It is the very economic and social scourge of our times.