Market Manipulation

There is something seriously wrong if the Federal Reserve cannot raise the Fed Fund`s Rate a measly 100 basis points after 7 longs years of ZIRP.  Seven years is an entire business and economic cycle!

Veteran investor Marc Faber, author of The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report, reiterated the need for gold in a diversified portfolio when interviewed on CNBC. "Now, I want to be diversified, I want to own some gold, I want to own some shares, I own the most in Asia, and some in Europe because I think in Europe there’s still better value than in the US, and I own some bonds and cash and real estate."

• Snow is coming: OECD Cuts Economic Growth Forecasts (WSJ)
• World waits for white smoke from U.S. Fed (Reuters) - Understandable error: they meant "green"
• Scots Breakaway at 45% Odds as Economists Warn of Capital Flight (BBG)
• Ukraine President Poroshenko Faces Backlash Over EU Trade Deal Delay (WSJ)
• German Anti-Euro Party Advances in Merkel Homeland Voting (BBG)
• Clinton Hints at 2016 Run as Super-PAC Packs Iowa Steak Fry (BBG)
• Air France, Lufthansa Hit by Strikes in Fight for Future (BBG)
• U.S. sees Middle East help fighting IS, Britain cautious after beheading (Reuters)
• Ex-Billionaire Charged by Brazil With Financial Crimes (BBG)

It has been a while since Tepper warned of "nervous time" and told his hedge fund pals "don't be too freakin' long." Since then the manipulated equity market bubble has gone straight up with every single dip bought massively by the algos, in the process surely eliminating any nervous thoughts Tepper may have had. So in a world starved for pundit philosophy, Bloomberg just reported that the bond market bubble is about to pop, at least according to the folicularly challenged billionaire. The reason, paradoxically enough, the ECB's decision to monetize private assets and cut rates.

Financial markets are broken. Fundamental analysis and Modern Portfolio Theory are relics of the past. Investors used to care about maximizing a portfolio’s expected return for a given amount of targeted risk. Fed policies have led to (investor) herd behavior that has plunged market volatilities and manipulated asset prices and correlations to lofty levels. The allure of the Fed’s magic spell has lapsed investors into a soporific state of cognitive dissonance, with them focusing more on trying to justify valuations, rather than on the Upside Downside Capture Ratio. Markets have thus mutated into one of two possible combustible states. Either financial assets have all transcended into prodigious bubbles, or stocks and bonds are signifying two completely separate outcomes. Either possibility will have dangerous repercussions for the economy, and for portfolios and investors.

Mark Spitznagel: "Mises will ultimately be right yet again about the inevitable final collapse of the current asset boom brought about by credit expansion. The term “black swan” (the surprising, unforeseen event) used for bursting financial bubbles has been and will remain a misnomer - we can and, indeed, should expect such tumults to occur at some point as a consequence of massive central bank intervention and economic distortion."

Ron Paul: "As to the unwinding of this mess, I’m convinced that when the current expansion ends it will be abrupt, gigantic, and worldwide. The 43-year expansion of Fed credit and debt, delivered to us by a fiat dollar standard, and held together artificially by an undeserved trust will end badly."

The farcical process and complete lack of transparency would have to make any fair minded person concerned about the new LBMA Gold Price. The Gold Anti Trust Action Committee (GATA) will allege that the LBMA and the western bullion banks are engaged in a rebranding and repackaging exercise in order to maintain a cosy gold and silver cartel of bullion banks and ultimately control over precious metal prices.

Physical gold is migrating to the East (Russia, China) and, with it, power and influence. We see it with China and Russia progressively imposing their will, building consensus with a great many countries that wish to end American domination made possible by their capacity (privilege) of issuing the world reserve currency. The saying, “He who holds the (physical) gold makes the rules”, is truer than ever. The announcement of the creation of the BRICs development bank is just the first cornerstone in the new international monetary edifice. All we have to wait for is the first official announcement from the East of a new means of settlement of commercial trade based on one or more tangible assets, with gold. Afterwards, logically, an announcement of the convertibility of certain currencies into gold, or even the creation of a new currency that would be convertible to gold, should be made.

The gold price manipulation scheme will go down as the biggest financial market scandal in US history for numerous reasons. They include the destruction of the free market system in the United States.

Manipulation of the silver market was covered in a just released ‘Get REAL’ Special on Silver. Key topics discussed in the interview include * The fix is in: Old boys, pints of beer, big cigars and top hats, * the risk of manipulation through HFT, computer trading and ‘dark pools,' * “Meet the new boss; same as the old boss,'  * The importance of owning allocated and especially segregated silver

The ongoing transition of gold price manipulation from conspiracy theory to conspiracy fact just escalated as Bloomberg reports, Peter Hambro, chairman of Russia's 2nd largest gold producer Petropavlovsk Plc, said he was "horrified" by the manipulation of the London fix given its importance to the industry. One wonders just how many of these individuals, involved in the manipulation, Hambro is dinner-party friends with?

As the proof piles up, and retired/suspended traders increase, Bloomberg reports that talks to reach the first settlement in the FX-rigging probe are accelerating, with Britain’s markets regulator preparing to reach a deal with a group of banks this year, people with knowledge of the talks said.

*FCA SAID TO BE SEEKING FAST-TRACK SETTLEMENT WITH NARROW SCOPE
*FCA TALKS SAID TO INCLUDE BARCLAYS, CITIGROUP, JPMORGAN, UBS, RBS, AND HSBC

The question remains, will guilt be admitted... or is the pending fine just another cost of doing business in the trillion dollar market manipulation miasma in which we find ourselves.

Since we first exposed to the world that yet another market (foreign exchange) was manipulated by nefarious traders over a year ago, the grand total of prosecutions for market rigging is... zero. As Bloomberg notes, however, more than 25 FX traders have been fired, suspended, or put on leave in that same period. While regulators appear incapable of discovering the truth, the market manipulation probes just got serious..."The [UK] Serious Fraud Office has today opened a criminal investigation into allegations of fraudulent conduct in the foreign exchange market."

The simple fact is that trading involves risk. Bad risk management happens every day to individual traders who blow up their accounts with one overly aggressive or poorly managed position, and it occasionally happens to those paid to risk other people’s money as well. When it happens to the pros, though, the enormous access they have to leverage exaggerates the effects. n the energy markets, that leverage is ever present as most trading is done via futures contracts and other derivatives. As a result, some of the most spectacular blowups in trading history have involved energy.

The following excellent discussion waxes across the defining trends of our time, including market manipulation by central planners, monetary hijinks of the highest order, crony corporatism, clueless and complicit politicians, and the explosion of State control. John sees us hurdling towards an increasingly certain future of banana-republic wealth disparity, currency failures, and civil strife. That is, unless we rise up to assume ownership of our own destiny. Doing so will not be easy, or pain-free. In many ways, the most important important question concerning our collective destiny is: Will we have the courage to take control of it?