Spotlight on The DOJ And JPMorgan
The comments below are an edited and abridged synopsis of an article by Ted Butler
Butler has been writing about the role that JPMorgan (JPM) plays in gold and silver pricing for more than 11 years. In August 2008, he speculated that JPM was the big COMEX short seller. In November 2008, he stated so directly.
JPM has been the prime price driver in gold and silver, never losing when it added short positions and, since 2011, acquiring massive amounts of precious metals. JPM has pulled off the manipulative fraud of all time.
The Justice Department has been investigating JPM for the past two years, and it may charge the bank itself, not just its traders, with manipulation. The DOJ is not charging JPM with crimes such as price suppression and accumulation of physical metal at suppressed prices; those are so serious that it would doom the bank’s existence. Instead, the DOJ is focusing on spoofing, which has been used as a tool in JPM’s manipulation of gold and silver prices.
The ‘perfect’ solution would be for the DOJ to ban/suspend JPM from COMEX futures trading, but this is only perfect for the agency and JPM, as it wouldn’t undo the damage done for more than a decade.
A trading ban/suspension, plus a monetary penalty, would allow JPM to make a graceful exit while still profiting on its massive physical metal holdings. It would avoid the DOJ having to demand that the bank divest itself of its massive physical holdings. By sticking to spoofing, the DOJ doesn’t have to deal with JPM’s decade+ price suppression and accumulation of physical metal.
It’s impossible that the DOJ is unaware of JPM’s long-term price suppression or accumulation of massive amounts of physical gold and silver; it was intimately involved with the CFTC’s five-year investigation into precious metals manipulation from 2008 to 2013. There’s no way it could be so incompetent as to not to grasp JPM’s crimes.
Recent trading ranges for gold and silver suggest price volatility ahead. If we break sharply lower instead of higher, the only explanation will be positioning on the COMEX, as ever. If we do get a substantial selloff, it will be the last one.