Martin Armstrong came out with ANOTHER slam on the gold and silver market manipulation crowd...and I am one of the LOUDEST so I tend to take it personally. His assertion that the "Metal Conspiracy Gang" does a disservice to the metals investor community by pointing out the manipulation assumes that investors are better off NOT KNOWING what is going on. Not knowing that at any moment the manipulators can click a mouse and place the price of electronic silver at $1M/oz or $0/oz and then shut down the markets for good. So which is worse...screaming about market manipulation or convincing honest investors that it does not exist?
Truthfully, I'm a big fan of Martin Armstrong's work but a huge critic when it comes to his take on the gold/silver manipulation topic. There are some that have even suggested he is working for the "Good Guys" and trying to steer the big money away from the gold and silver markets on purpose to slow the collapse. After all, it wouldn't take many of his "Big Money" clients to buy up EVERY SINGLE OUNCE OF SILVER that is above AND below ground wreaking havoc on the global financial system.
That may be part of the reason he hates those who shout "FOUL!" when it comes to metals manipulation but there may also be another reason.
First of all, here's Martin's latest post with his healthy dose of Manipulation Bashing...
Market Manipulations: The Greatest Scam of All Time
http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/38757
"Throughout history, there has NEVER been a market manipulated TO ALTER its long-term trend -- PERIOD."
"It is total nonsense that people even dare to entertain the idea that anything can be manipulated to alter its long-term trend."
"All the banks lined up to manipulate silver to the upside in March of 1997. My models clearly showed silver would decline, and their attempt to run it up would fail. I stood my ground and took on the whole group. Their attempt to manipulate the market failed. I believe this is when PhiBro ran to Warren Buffet and convinced him to hand them $1 billion to try to manipulate silver up."
"PhiBro walked across the ring in September, and this time showed me their orders for Buffet to try to convince me to join them. My models showed that a pop was possible at that time. I did not join, and instead, stepped away. I warned our clients that the target was $7 by January. Their manipulation succeeded, but it forced Buffet to come out and admit he put in $1 billion to buy silver and then quietly sold out afterwards."
"The evidence that was a SHORT-TERM manipulation that still could not alter the long-term trend is demonstrated by the charts below."
"There is no secret plot to keep gold down to pretend inflation is lower. Gold has NEVER correlated with inflation and it is such a tiny market that it has no relevance to concerns of inflation when we are in a massive deflationary mode."
END
Again, I have no axe to grind with Martin Armstrong. He's clearly been in the middle of this game long before I even cared if the price of silver was $5 /oz or $50/oz and his computer model seems to have locked into something that gives him a very large advantage in these electronic markets, but in there lies my problem with his assertion that the prices of gold and silver are not manipulated. Like most, I doubt he has EVER considered the potential that there is a LARGER, unseen manipulator that can even control the overall trend. Someone so large and so immune from the regulators watchful eyes that they have total and complete authority to control the gold and silver markets anyway they see fit, using any amount of electronic buy or sell orders to accomplish the rig. Surely even Martin would concede that if there were such power given to someone then that entity could control the price of both metals for years if not decades as long as the electronic markets functioned properly.
My friends at GATA have come a long way in proving that central banks and governments are deeply involved with the manipulation of gold and GATA's Chris Powell has written an article addressing Martin Armstrong's rant against the manipulation crowd here:
Martin Armstrong is too brilliant to understand that time is money
http://www.gata.org/node/15905
But I doubt there is much that GATA has discovered or will discover that will sway Martin's opinion much. He's just like that and I appreciate his faith and conviction in his unwavering belief that his computer models are infallible and that HISTORY will ALWAYS repeat.
In my opinion, that will be his downfall.
For me, the long term manipulation of gold and silver prices is obvious and the question I asked myself long ago was simple: "Is there proof of such a large and powerful market entity that is controlling the gold and silver prices and if so where would it be found?"
How about the most probable place...on the metal exchanges where PRICES are determined? And what kind of Metal Exchanges are we even talking about? Maybe that's the real question to be asked of Martin Armstrong...
ARE TODAY'S ELECTRONIC GOLD AND SILVER MARKETS "REAL MARKETS" or ARE THEY A CONSTRUCT OF THE COMPUTER MANIPULATORS THEMSELVES?
And taking it one step further: IS THAT WHAT MARTIN'S COMPUTER PROGRAM HAS TAPPED INTO...AN ARTIFICIALLY CONTROLLED TREND WITH CAPPED HIGHS AND ARTIFICIALLY SUPPRESSED LOWS?
I know Martin will cite that the inputs into his model go back centuries but that actually supports my point. The computer age has changed the very structure of the gold and silver markets such that historical trends can be cited as REASONS for the CONTROLLED PRICE MOVES and these trends are USED to fool the masses...all the while the Little Man Behind the Curtain steers the ship to where he wants it to go - maintaining control at all times.
I believe that the "Fair Market Value" of physical gold and silver is manipulated and is NOT being properly discovered in the current electronic market exchanges but I also acknowledge that the electronic market prices do seem to follow Martin's computer analysis very closely.
Maybe Martin is RIGHT about electronic gold and silver prices not being manipulated but WRONG about lumping physical gold and silver into the same market pricing basket. In my opinion, the real supply/demand dynamics meant to determine the REAL "Fair Market Value" of each metal has NOT BEEN AVAILABLE since the advent of the very first computer trading programs written by Alan Greenspan in the 1960's (which Martin still claims never happened).
Case in point is the latest AVERAGE DAILY VOLUMES of gold and silver "transferred" on the LBMA...
LBMA: Gold Ounces Transferred Daily In Sept. Hits 10-Year Low; Silver Transfers Most Since Nov. 2014
http://www.kitco.com/news/2015-10-30/LBMA-Gold-Ounces-Transferred-Daily-In-Sept-Hits-10-Year-Low-Silver-Transfers-Most-Since-Nov-2014.html
The amount of gold transferred between accounts of London Bullion Market Association members from August to September fell to the lowest level in a decade, while the amount of silver that exchanged hands climbed to the highest level since November 2014, the organization reported Friday.
"The volume of gold ounces transferred daily fell 11.9% to a 10-year low of 15.6 million, the LBMA said."
"In contrast to subdued activity in the gold market, activity in silver was buoyant last month, with the volume of ounces transferred daily up 14.9% to 163.4 million, the highest level since November 2014, the LBMA said."
END
Doesn't something feel odd about these numbers? How in the world can so much gold and silver trade hands in a single month? Let's do the math on how much metal was supposedly "transferred"...
There were 22 Trading Days on the LBMA in September 2015
Gold: 15.6M x 22 = 342.2M ounces or 10,700 tons of gold
Silver: 163.4M x 22 = 3.6B ounces or 112,500 tons of silver
Sound "out of whack" to you? It sure does to me but it gets worse: The LBMA records "net transfers" and not "gross transfers" and according to JP Morgan's Peter Smith in an article written for the LBMA magazine "The Alchemist" those numbers should be AT LEAST TRIPLED!
www.lbma.org.uk/assets/alc55_gold_clearing.pdf
"In my opinion, the numbers are probably understated by as much as a factor of three times, or possibly even more during busy market periods / periods of high volatility in the market."
Again - do the math for September:
Gold: 342.2M x 3 = 1.03B ounces or 32,100 tons of gold
Silver: 3.6B x 3 = 10.8B ounces or 337,500 tons of silver
All this gold and silver was supposedly "transferred" on the LBMA in the month of September 2015 and the SAME math can be done with the COMEX Daily Volumes with very similar results.
Do we really believe that 32,100 tons of gold were transferred on the LBMA in September when it will take Germany 8 years to repatriate their 674 tons of gold from the US Fed? Why not just drive a few trucks through the "Chunnel" to the LBMA warehouse and take it from their overstocked shelves?
And do we really believe that 10.8 BILLION ounces of silver were transferred on the LBMA in September when the US Mint couldn't even find a few MILLION ounces to be compliant with the US Silver Eagle Law? Again, Jack Lew should be sending cargo ships to London to "load up" on all that silver and get the Silver Eagle production up to "quantities sufficient to meet public demand" as the law requires.
So where does that leave Martin Armstrong's assertion that there is no MANIPULATION in gold and silver markets?
He's a smart guy. He can't really believe that the current electronic markets for gold and silver are true reflections of the supply and demand dynamics of the underlying physical metals. Or maybe he is just so locked into the current market exchange structure that he refuses to see the Big Picture...the REALITY of what is really going on.
For Martin Armstrong, it does not matter if the price represented by the "Electronic Metal Markets" has anything to do with the underlying metals because the outputs of his Computer Analysis align perfectly...
The CON and THE SECRET PRICE MANIPULATION lies in the disconnect between the Electronic Metal Markets and the Physical Metal Realities.
Let Martin Armstrong make his millions playing the electronic trading games but when the REAL crisis hits and the ELECTRONIC MARKETS implode...
WHERE WILL MARTIN'S CLIENTS BE POSITIONED?
Most likely far away from physical gold and silver in their own possession.
May the Road you choose be the Right Road.
Bix Weir
www.RoadtoRoota.com
PS - Martin, I'll save you a free ticket for my Silver Conspiracy Show in San Francisco on November 22nd if you'd like to learn what all the "Crazy Conspiracy Stuff" is all about :)
Bix Weir Live": A Concert/Event to FREE Silver from Manipulation
Nov 22, 2015 at the Hotel Utah Saloon 500 4th St @ Bryant, San Francisco, CA
Your clients can buy tickets here:
About the author
