Freeing Hamstrung Commodities Traders with Blockchain

The trading paradigms that dominate today’s investing landscape have undoubtedly served some of us well. For those who play by the rules, buying options or futures contracts is no strenuous exercise, and there is a huge market open at all hours of the day to serve willing participants. However, no matter how streamlined these practices are, or how fast online platforms become, the commodities trade will remain fragmented from bottom to top unless something changes.

In fact, the rules and major players within this modern industry are themselves keeping free market principles from proliferating. Bureaucratic protocols that purportedly keep us safe still do so, but oftentimes at the expense oftransparency and accessibility. The regulations that keep commodities markets behind the walls of large, centralized exchanges and brokers, not to mention within enforceable geographic borders, have admittedly helped with data security and verification standards. However, they’ve also created an opaque, closed ecosystem where it’s difficult to identify stakeholders, their motives, and their level of control.

Whether barrels of oil or bushels of wheat, it should not be hard to discern which traders (or institutions) are behind the price speculation and manipulations in the futures market for commodities. Individual traders who rely on these commodities markets to hedge their investments or improve their businesses lose in the long run when this status quo exists unchecked. Many people hope that the situation will change for the better soon thanks to the proliferation of blockchain and the emergence of companies employing it to improve the entire value chain for all stakeholders.  Nevertheless, the powerful technology will need to demolish multiple obstacles in the road before making a qualifiable difference.

There’s No Such Thing as Equal Footing

Even before coping with the unfortunate, unpredictable nature of the modern commodities market, traders must first pass muster with the enormous entities that control the industry. A Belgian farmer who wants to defray risk in his home market must connect his bank account with a Belgian broker, who allows him to hedge the value of his crop with domesticfutures and options contracts. However, once this farmer finds customers in the United States, he will also encounter a massive struggle to register with foreign financial entities, become verified, establish new accounts, and then pay hefty fees for the privilege of allocating his own capital.

Besides dealing with physical and digital borders, traders often find themselves without any choice in who they deal with. Giant exchanges like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Euronext control commodities and force potential traders to utilize them as a conduit to access the world’s financialized resource markets. Such centralization creates the high-fee structures that we must struggle with, making smaller trades less affordable and edging out many willing market participants. Apart from creating a barrier that enables the biggest institutional players to maintain their iron grip thanks to scale that reduces their overall costs, this two-tiered playing field hurts other value chain stakeholders that are not financial institutions.

Bring On Blockchain

Trade finance is an especially important aspect of the global commodities market, but oftentimes,small and medium-sized firms are underrepresented due to high financing costs and expansive reporting requirements.  One of the reasons these entities are pushed aside is that institutional participants typically like to focus on big deals which are more lucrative in a market that generates relatively high fees thanks to a high degree of opacity.

However, efforts like those undertaken by Singapore to establish itself as a fintech hub for global commodities trading is rapidly changing the stakes for the smaller players.       Singapore has invested heavily in attracting companies dealing with investments and trading to create a better model to help its citizens trade commodities without the massive hurdles that currently exist.

Blockchain is already showing curious financial market participants a glimpse of what the future might look like without these realities. Platforms likeChainTrade, one of the first companies to take on the entrenched interests in the modern commodities market, exhibit extraordinary functionality. By hosting a platform for commodities options and futures on a completely decentralized network, the costs of maintaining a complicated centralized system, namely security anddata reporting, are decimated. The virtual elimination of fees that could once be pinned on these costs is the least of such a system’s benefits.

More impressive is the opportunity to deploy smart contracts in conjunction with the blockchain ledger. Although commodities exchanges are designed for contract standardization, this level of consistency ignores a huge wellspring of opportunity to fold in other commoditized goods and services.  While most of the disruptive fintech models are focused on taking share away from centralized exchanges, ChainTrade has effectively built an architecture that could expand trading beyond the traditional mining and farming emphasis. Soon, traders will be able to easily create custom contracts with their preferred expiry dates, margins, prices and other factors, and find willing parties to sit on the other side of the table.

An Improved Form of Guarantees

One of the best aspects of these new models is how they handle counterparty risk.  Concepts like building risk-reduction features directly into smart contracts, requiring “Insurers” to back up both sides of the contract in case of default further contribute to the intelligence of this system. Smart contracts use the blockchain’s ledger to determine when these custom conditions have been fulfilled, and then autonomously distribute the correct funds to each recipient. In this case, funds take the form ofcryptocurrency to help streamline the process associated with the smart contract ecosystem.

While smart contract functionality also reduces overhead and fees for participants, it has the secondary bonus of eliminating borders for the market. Cryptocurrencies are now very universal, and can be purchased with any currency and traded no matter where the trader or their funds originate. Alongside an irrefutable record of trading activity, blockchain solutions like these eliminate fraud, improve transparency, increase accessibility and expand assurances for participants.

Safety In Decentralization

With trading environments built on blockchain that are both open and freely accessible, yet simultaneously protective of individuals, smaller traders and hedgers typically overlooked by the existing paradigm have something to look forward to. The lucrative stranglehold that institutions keep on the commodities market serve the interests of the few, and not the many, but blockchain is the people’s new champion.

Blockchain gets its power from a combination of limitless accessibility alongside the consensus of those who choose to participate. Traders are now opting for blockchain-based solutions, and it is becoming increasingly clear that markets will be forced to address this choice in some way.

Gold Bounces Off Key Technical Support On Massive Volume

The last 48 hours has been quite a chaotic one in precious metals markets with massive volumes of "paper" gold flushed in and out of the futures markets. This morning - shortly after the US open failed to spark a panic-bid in stocks - gold futures bounced off their 200-day moving average on huge volume (around $4.5 billion notional) breaking above the 100DMA...

The last day or so has seen a plunge below the 100DMA (on 33,000 contracts - around $4.2 billion notional), then another flush to the 200DMA as Europe opened overnight (on 22,000 contracts - around $2.8 billion notional) and then shortly after the US equity open, a 35,000 contract ($4.5 billion notional) rip higher off the critical moving average...

 

Once again the moves in gold appear to mirror manipulation in USDJPY...

 

Silver is echoing Gold"s moves today but yesterday"s standalone move remains...

Comex Silver "Deliveries" Surge In September

Posted with permission and written by Craig Hemke, TF Metals Report 

Though Comex metal "delivery" remains a sham and circle jerk where The Banks simply shuffle paper warehouse receipts and warrants, we thought the latest totals for September were noteworthy enough to bring them to your attention.

 

Again, we"ve written about this on countless occasions and this post is not meant to imply that "the Comex is about to break" or that "there is a run on The Banks". Instead, September saw the continuation of two trends of which you need to be aware. Comex "deliveries" are up dramatically in 2017 and JPM continues to stand down.

 

First, take a look at the historical pattern of "deliveries" during the so-called "delivery months" of March, May, July, September and December. Below is a summary of the "delivery" activity for 2015:

 

 

The one way we"ve always quantified "deliveries" here at TFMR is to consider the total amount of stated "deliveries" at the end of each month versus the total number of contracts that had been left open and allegedly "standing for delivery" at the beginning of the process. For 2015, it looked like this:

 

As you can see, the only outlier in 2015 was the month of July where nearly 1,000 additional contracts materialized requesting immediate "delivery". Other than that, it was a rather orderly process.

 

Now, let"s look at the summaries for 2016.

 

Again, a rather mundane year of silver "deliveries" with one exception. This time, the month of December saw an "oversubscription". Where Jul15 had seen "deliveries" exceed standing by 938 contracts, Dec16 saw the same exception to the tune of 924 contracts. Other than that, it was another somewhat orderly year.

 

So let"s move on to consider the "delivery" action in 2017 to see if anything unusual is taking place:

 

Well now. This is beginning to look a bit different, isn"t it? Go back up and review the data for 2015 and 2016. Note that only one month in five ever shows a "delivery" total in excess of the amount of contracts still open before First Notice Day. And now, if we include last December, we"ve seen this occur in four of the past five months with the most recent "delivery month" of September seeing the largest percentage "oversubscription" yet at 160.2%

 

And when we look at it in absolute terms, the "deliveries" for last month get even more interesting. Note that there were 4,103 contracts still open when the contract went off the board on August 30. At 5,000 ounces per contract, that"s a total potential "delivery" obligation of 20,515,000 ounces of silver or about 638 metric tonnes. By the end of the month, the Comex had actually "delivered" 6,575 contracts for 32,875,000 ounces of silver or about 1023 metric tonnes.

 

So, what"s the deal here? Why the sudden rush in 2017 to jump the queue and take immediate "delivery" instead of simply waiting until the next "delivery month"? Could it indicate wholesale physical tightness? Could it indicate a lack of trust amongst The Banks? Could it indicate absolutely nothing?

 

Well, one thing we know for certain is that this anomaly is not being caused by the House or proprietary account of JPMorgan. Recall that in March we caught JPM blatantly exceeding that stated front-month position limits for Comex silver. We wrote about it at the time and even went so far as to file a formal complaint with the CFTC: https://www.tfmetalsreport.com/blog/8243/march-comex-silver-deliveries

 

Back in July, we next noticed that the House Account of JPMorgan had completely discontinued all "delivery" activity in Comex silver: https://www.tfmetalsreport.com/blog/8451/specific-peculiarity

 

Well guess what...that trend has continued through September. See below:

 

 

So, at the end of the day, what do we make of all this? I guess that"s up to you, the reader, to decide. No doubt "deliveries" in Comex silver have increased dramatically in 2017 but what is a "delivery" anyway? Is it actual metal or just an exchange of warehouse receipts between Banks, made to create the illusion of physical delivery for their paper derivative market? And does this increase in "deliveries" translate to physical demand and Comex stress or is it just emblematic of the general increase in total Comex silver open interest?

 

These are all interesting questions and, unfortunately, these deliberately-opaque "markets" make it impossible to state the answers with certainty. One thing is certain, however, and that is the notion that no institution built upon fraud, lies and deceit will stand indefinitely.

Eventually, this current paper derivative pricing scheme will fail as true physical demand overwhelms The Banks" ability to manage their unallocated and fractional reserve system. For that day, we continue to prepare accordingly.

 

 

Questions or comments about this article? Leave your thoughts HERE.

 

 

 

 

Posted with permission and written by Craig Hemke, TF Metals Report 

 

"Dr.Copper"'s Contango Crushes Economic Hype

We warned two weeks ago that China"s "Bronze Swan" was looming as the crackdown on leverage in the system by Chinese authorities may be forcing unwinds of the CCFDs - thus putting upward pressure on Copper futures (unwinding short positions) and selling physical copper (which would mean procuring the physical metal before passing it on). Those effects were exactly what we had been seeing in the market until the end of August.

And now, it appears, as StockBoardAsset.com notes, exhaustion has started to set in across industry metals...

Barclays has also called the copper rally overhyped, while Bank of America Merrill Lynch said it’s the metal most at risk of a reversal,with the optimism of investors in financial futures disconnected from slow conditions in the physical market.

“When you look at the state of the refined copper market, you certainly question why prices have risen so significantly,” Snowdon said by phone from London.

And finally, bear in mind that the lagged response to China"s credit impulse is about to hit base metals... The rise and fall in China"s credit impulse that has been so highly correlated (on a lagged basis) with copper for the last eight years...

And now, as Frik Els of Mining.com explains, Copper futures trading on the Comex market in New York suffered another sharp decline on Wednesday as analysts warn of a likely correction following weeks of speculative buying.

In massive volumes of 2.7 billion pounds in morning trade alone copper for delivery in December slumped to a low of 2.9710 a pound ($6,550 per tonne), down more than 2% from Tuesday’s close to a three-week low.

A week ago copper hit an intra-day high just shy of $3.18 a pound (more than $7,000 a tonne), the highest since September 2014. But disappointment about imports by China,  responsible for some 46% of global consumption of the metal, and receding supply worries saw the rally come to a screeching halt.

The prospect of a weakening renminbi also emerged as factor for the pullback after Chinese policymakers this week relaxed rules to curb speculation against the yuan which had been in place for nearly two years.

A correction on copper markets may also have been overdue as speculative interest have been running ahead of industry fundamentals. Hedge funds built successive record net long positions – bets on rising prices – in recent weeks which according to the latest report totalled the equivalent of more than $9 billion at today’s prices.

Reports at the end of July that China is planning to ban the importation of scrap copper by the end of next year, sparked the rally from copper’s summer lows, but caught many in the industry by surprise.

Investment banks and institutions are now catching up and according to the September survey by FocusEconomics released yesterday eight of the 24 analysts polled upgraded their fourth quarter forecasts compared to projections made the month before.

While no-one downgraded the outlook for copper, consensus forecasts remain well below ruling prices however.

Analysts project that prices will average $5,870 per tonne in Q4 2017 and $5,844 per tonne in Q4 2018. The lowest forecast for Q4 2017 is $4,899 per tonne, while the maximum forecast is $6,674 per tonne. Among the pessimists. Barclays, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and Macquarie all saw a prices average more than 15% below today’s price going into 2018.

The price forecasts for Q4 2017 were raised for nine metals and minerals, including aluminium, lead and iron ore. Tin was the only exception with economics lowering their price expectations for the rest of the year.

*  *  *

And finally, as Bloomberg details, here’s some more grist for the doubters who scoffed at copper’s rally to a three-year high earlier this month.

The metal for immediate delivery on the London Metal Exchange cost $40.75 less than benchmark three-month futures on Tuesday, the biggest discount since 2009.

That market structure, known ascontango, shows “there’s no part of the world where copper is really scarce,” said Rene van der Kam, Singapore-based managing director of trader Viant Commodities Pte Ltd. He says to expect more losses after a pullback in prices this week.

It appears "Dr.Copper" is about to be relegated to "ignore" status once again.

And why your average joe American should care... the Copper/Gold Ratio is misfiring and more likely to revert back to UST10Y levels. The correlation broke in late August.

De-Dollarization Accelerates: China Readies Yuan-Priced Crude Oil Benchmark Backed By Gold

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The world’s top oil importer, China, is preparing to launch a crude oil futures contract denominated in Chinese yuan and convertible into gold, potentially creating the most important Asian oil benchmark and allowing oil exporters to bypass U.S.-dollar denominated benchmarks by trading in yuan, Nikkei Asian Review reports.

The crude oil futures will be the first commodity contract in China open to foreign investment funds, trading houses, and oil firms. The circumvention of U.S. dollar trade could allow oil exporters such as Russia and Iran, for example, to bypass U.S. sanctions by trading in yuan, according to Nikkei Asian Review.

To make the yuan-denominated contract more attractive, China plans the yuan to be fully convertible in gold on the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges.

Last month, the Shanghai Futures Exchange and its subsidiary Shanghai International Energy Exchange, INE, successfully completed four tests in production environment for the crude oil futures, and the exchange continues with preparatory works for the listing of crude oil futures, aiming for the launch by the end of this year.

“The rules of the global oil game may begin to change enormously,” Luke Gromen, founder of U.S.-based macroeconomic research company FFTT, told Nikkei Asia Review.

The yuan-denominated futures contract has been in the works for years, and after several delays, it looks like it may be launched this year.

Some potential foreign traders have been worried that the contract would be priced in yuan.

But according to analysts who spoke to Nikkei Asian Review, backing the yuan-priced futures with gold would be appealing to oil exporters, especially to those that would rather avoid U.S. dollars in trade.  

“It is a mechanism which is likely to appeal to oil producers that prefer to avoid using dollars, and are not ready to accept that being paid in yuan for oil sales to China is a good idea either,” Alasdair Macleod, head of research at Goldmoney, told Nikkei.

Did China's Bronze Swan Just Arrive? Copper Inventories Crash Most In History

Buyers withdrew more copper from the London Metal Exchange’s global warehouse network on Wednesday than at any time since daily records began in 1996, extending a 19-day drop.

As Bloomberg notes, while the net decline in percentage terms was also the biggest since the height of China’s raw-materials boom in 2006, some have warned against reading such moves as an end to a years-long supply glut. A tug of war between financial traders with opposing views of the market has led to sharp swings in metal moving in and out of storage in the past year.

However, stockpiles also slumped 8.2% on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, which is notable because last year we saw the London and Shanghai inventories see-sawing (up in London, down in Shanghai, and vice versa)...

A question that emerged is what China is spending all this newly created money on. One answer emerged overnight when Bloomberg reported that after tumbling in the first half of 2015, copper inventories at the Shanghai Futures Exchange had been steadily rising, and in the most recent week soared by 11% to an all time high of 305,106 tons.

At the same time reserves at the London Metals Exchange declined for 11 days to the lowest level in more than a year, in other words China is shifting idle inventory from Point A to Point B.

But, this most recent withdrawal surge (the largest in history) suggests a sudden failure of the long-running commodity "collateralization" transaction - or CCFD - regime implemented in China years ago, as described in this post and summarized in the chart below...

Copper, as China pundits may know, is the key shadow interest rate arbitrage tool, through the use of financing deals that use commodities with high value-to-density ratios such as gold, copper, nickel, which in turn are used as collateral against which USD-denominated China-domestic Letters of Credit are pleged, in what can often result in a seemingly infinite rehypothecation loop (see explanation below) between related onshore and offshore entities, allowing loop participants to pick up virtually risk-free arbitrage (i.e., profits), which however boosts China"s FX lending and leads to upward pressure on the CNY.

And sure enough, we have seen USDCNY surging in recent months... (even if the RMB basket against global currencies has stabilized)

An example of a typical, simplified, CCFD

In this section we present an example of how a typical Chinese Copper Financing Deal (CCFD) works, and then discuss how the various parties involved are affected if the deals are forced to unwind. Exhibit 3 is a ‘simplified’ example of a CCFD, including specific reference to how the process places upward pressure on the RMB/USD. We believe this is the predominant structure of CCFDs, with other forms of Chinese copper financing deals much less profitable and likely only a small proportion of total deal volumes.

To summarize, Goldman notes that these shadow banking vehicles - CCFDs - involve a long copper physical positions and a short futures position on the LME.

And so, the current crackdown on leverage in the system by Chinese authorities may be forcing unwinds of the CCFDs - thus putting upward pressure on Copper futures (unwinding short positions) and selling physical copper (which would mean procuring the physical metal before passing it on). These are exactly what we are seeing in the market currently.

So is this the bronze swan?

*  *  *

Barclays has also called the copper rally overhyped, while Bank of America Merrill Lynch said it’s the metal most at risk of a reversal, with the optimism of investors in financial futures disconnected from slow conditions in the physical market.

“When you look at the state of the refined copper market, you certainly question why prices have risen so significantly,” Snowdon said by phone from London.

And finally, bear in mind that the lagged response to China"s credit impulse is about to hit base metals...The rise and fall in China"s credit impulse that has been so highly correlated (on a lagged basis) with copper for the last eight years...

However, as one analyst noted,

“Getting short in any base metal is risky right now when you have this broad positive macro theme and increasing investor participation, particularly in China’s onshore market."

“This is probably one to stand back from and wait for Chinese macro sentiment to turn.”

And finally, bringing the narrative back to American shores, DoubleLine"s Jeff Gundlach tweeted recently about the "Copper/Gold ratio soaring to the high of the year!"...

Adding

"Not good news for the "1.50% 10 year" crowd. Neither is 10 year Bund holding above 50 bp."

If China"s legged credit impulse is about to have its peak effect on Copper (as we showed above) then perhaps, just perhaps, the real pain trade (given the surging shorts in T-Bonds), is a 1.50% 10Y yield after all... driven by a plunge in copper prices.

Is the COMEX Rigged?

Submitted by Ronan Manly, BullionStar.com

The COMEX gold futures market and the London OTC gold market have a joint monopoly on setting the international gold price. This is because these two markets generate the largest ‘gold’ trading volumes and have the highest ‘liquidity’. However, this price setting dominance is despite either of these two markets actually trading physical gold bars. Both markets merely trade different forms of derivatives of gold bars.

Overall, the COMEX (which is owned by the CME Group) is even more dominant that the London market in setting the international price of gold. This is a feat which financial academics ascribe to COMEX being a centralized electronic platform offering low transaction costs, ease of leverage, and “the ability to avoid dealing with the underlying asset” (i.e. COMEX allows its participants to avoid dealing with gold bars). Because of these traits, say the academics, COMEX has a ‘disproportionately large role in [gold] price discovery”.

Over 95% of COMEX gold futures trading is now conducted on CME’s electronic trading platform Globex, with most of the remainder done on CME’s electronic Clearport, where futures trades executed in the OTC market can be settled by CME. Next to nothing in gold futures is traded any more via pit-based open outcry.

Open Outcry: A distant memory for gold futures trading on COMEX

The existence of gold price manipulation in the London and COMEX gold markets is well documented, it is hard to refute, and it has presented itself in many forms over the recent past. Examples include:

• Bullion bank gold traders in the late 2000s colluding in chat rooms to manipulate the gold price as documented in current consolidated class action law suits going through New York courts

• Barclays Bank manipulating the London Gold Fixing price in 2012 so as to prevent triggering option related pay-outs to Barclays clients

• Recent CFTC (US Commodities regulator) prosecutions of futures traders on the CME for ‘spoofing’ gold futures orders

• Flash crashes in gold futures prices which have no underlying explanation to, or connection to, events and developments in any physical gold markets

This last point, ‘flash crashes’ in gold futures prices, is particularly relevant for COMEX. Many readers will recall reading about one or more of these COMEX gold futures price ‘flash crashes‘ during which large quantities of gold futures are shorted in a concentrated interval of time (e.g. within 10 or 20 seconds) which causes the gold price to completely collapse in free fall fashion over that very short period of time.

For example, on 26 June this year, the COMEX gold price free fell by nearly 1.5% within a 15 second interval, amid a huge spike in trading volume to more than 18,000 August gold futures (56 tonnes of gold) during the 1-minute period around the crash event.

On January 6, 2014, the COMEX gold price fell by over $30 in a few seconds, from $1245 to $1215 on huge volume, forcing the CME to introduce a temporary trading halt.

On April 12, 2013, aggressive selling of gold futures contracts representing over 13.4 million ounces (more than 400 tonnes of gold) hit COMEX gold futures in two waves during the London morning trading session sending the gold futures price down by more than 5%. The following Monday, April 15, 2013 the COMEX gold price rapidly fell by another 10%.

Whether these flash crashes are the result of trading errors, futures market illiquidity, computerized trading patterns or deliberately engineered moves is open to debate. Engineered price takedowns, where an entity initiates an order with the intention of moving the futures gold price in a downward direction, are distinctly possible.

However, concentrated gold futures shorting over tiny time intervals doesn’t have to be in the form of one large trade or a series of relatively large trades. All a shorting tactic of this type has to do is to either trigger the price to move down through certain thresholds which then triggers stop-loss orders, or to trigger and induce trading reactions from trading algorithms that monitor gold futures prices. Once sentiment is damaged through rapid downward price movements, the result can affect gold futures trading sentiment for the rest of the day and indeed over subsequent days.

But beyond the possible or probable individual acts of price manipulation on the COMEX, it is important to realize that the very structure and mechanics of the COMEX create a system in which gold futures trades can be executed in large volumes in a virtual vacuum which has no connection to the physical gold bullion market, no connection to gold bar and gold coin wholesalers and retailers, and which doesn’t even have any connection to the vaulted gold residing within the COMEX approved vaulting  facilities (aka COMEX warehouses aka COMEX vaults).

These underlying mechanics of COMEX, which are discussed below, allow the generation of massive gold futures trading volumes and open interest, huge leverage and large non-spot month position limits, a high concentration of speculative trading by a small number of banks, and a lack of transparency into the gold ‘delivery’ process. And at the foundation of the system, there are very small physical gold holdings in the COMEX approved vaults.

COMEX 100 oz gold futures, USD Price, Volume, and Open Interest: 8 months-to-date. Source: www.GoldChartsRUs.com

The Mechanics

COMEX gold futures contracts are derivatives on gold. Importantly, a COMEX gold futures contract comes into existence any time two parties agree to create that contract. This means that COMEX gold futures contracts can continue to be created as long for as there are interested buyers (longs) and sellers (shorts) willing to bring these gold futures contracts into existence.

Therefore, there is no hard upper bound or supply limit on the amount of gold futures contracts that can be created on COMEX. This is very similar to the unit of trading of gold in the London market, i.e. unallocated gold, which is also a derivative that can be created in unlimited quantities. In both cases there is no direct connection to real physical allocated and segregated gold bars.

Technically, the value of any futures contract is derived from the value of its underlying asset, and in this case the underlying asset, nominally anyway, is physical gold. But perversely in the global gold market, the value of the gold futures is not being derived from the value of the underlying asset (physical gold). Instead, the value of the world’s physical gold is now being consistently and continually derived via this out-of-control and unhinged gold futures trading.

Contractually, COMEX 100 ounce gold futures contracts (COMEX code GC) are futures contracts that offer a physically deliverable option, i.e. to deliver/receive 100 ounces of minimum 995 fine gold (in either 100-ounce gold bars or 1 kilo gold bars format) on a specific future date.

However, the vast majority of COMEX 100 ounce gold futures are never delivered, they are offset (closed out) and cash-settled, or else they are rolled over. Only a tiny fraction of these gold futures contracts are ever ‘delivered’. Again, this is similar to unallocated gold in the London market, which is a cash-settled gold derivative.

COMEX is also a speculative market, where leverage (due to the use of trading margin) is used to create outsized trading volumes, and where initial position limits for individual traders are far larger than the quantity of underlying gold being stored in the COMEX approved vaults.

These factors combine to create what is in effect a Las Vegas type casino. This casino encourages vast speculative trading of futures which will never be delivered, and vast shorting (selling) claims on large quantities of gold which a) the shorter does not possess, b) are not even stored in the COMEX system, and c) are many multiples of annual gold supply). Conversely, the buyers are going long on claims on gold which will a) will never be delivered and b) which nearly none of the trading counterparties even wants to have delivered. The players in this casino have no interest in secure gold storage or allocated gold bars or bar brands or bar serial numbers. After all, as the academics put it, the COMEX provides “the ability to avoid dealing with the underlying asset”.

Even when COMEX gold futures for used for hedging purposes, much of this hedging is by bullion bank traders so as to hedge unallocated London gold using COMEX futures, i.e. hedging cash-settled paper bets with cash-settled paper bets. And both sets of instruments structurally have nothing to do with the real physical gold market.

Even back in December 1974, when COMEX gold futures were about to be launched (and which coincided with a lifting of the ban on US private ownership of gold), a group of major gold dealers in London including 3 of the 5 primary London gold dealers, i.e. Samuel Montagu & Co, Mocatta & Goldsmid, and Sharps Pixley & Co, told the US State department that they believed that this new gold COMEX futures market would dwarf the physical gold market i.e. “would be of significant proportion, and physical trading would be miniscule by comparison“.

These dealers expected that “large volume futures dealing would create …. a highly volatile market” whose “volatile price movements would diminish the initial demand for physical gold” that the US Government feared from the lifting of the gold ownership ban.

In hindsight, it was perceptive and prophetic that these major participants of the then fully allocated gold market in London in 1974 saw that the introduction of gold futures would create what we are seeing now, i.e. huge trading volumes, high price volatility, and a market (COMEX) which has an adverse effect on pricing in the physical gold market.

Trading Volume Metrics

Two revealing trading metrics for COMEX gold futures are trading volumes and the “Open Interest” on gold futures contracts. “Open Interest” simply means the number of gold futures contracts that are outstanding at any given time that have not been closed or delivered.

For 2016, COMEX gold futures trading generated a trading volume of 57.5 million contracts, representing 178,850 tonnesof gold. This is nearly as much gold as has ever been mined in the history of the world, i.e. which is estimated to be 190,000 tonnes. This COMEX trading volume in 2016 was also a whopping 37% higher than in 2015. In 2016, while 57.5 million gold futures contracts traded, only 71,380 COMEX gold contracts were ‘delivered’. This means that only 0.12% of COMEX gold contracts that traded in 2016 were ‘delivered’.

Delivered in this context means that the delivery option on the contract was exercised and a warrant representing 100 oz of gold on that contract changed hands, i.e. title documents to gold were shunted around a COMEX/vault recording system, mostly between bank holders. Delivered does not mean gold was withdrawn from a COMEX approved vault and delivered to an external location. The concept of gold vault withdrawal numbers, which is a bread and butter metric for the physical Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), is totally alien to the COMEX and its trading participants.

Number of gold ounces delivered on COMEX in 2017: 1.23 million ounces = 38 tonnes. Source: www.GoldChartsRUs.com

For the first six months of 2017, trading volumes in the main COMEX gold futures contract (GC) reached 32.7 million contracts, representing 101,710 tonnes of gold. This was 12% up on the same period in 2016. When annualized, this suggests than in 2017, COMEX is on course to trade more than 200,000 tonnes of gold, which will be more than all the gold ever mined throughout history.

In the first half of 2017, only 12,320 gold futures contracts (representing 38 tonnes) were delivered on COMEX. This means that from January to June 2017, only 0.037% of the COMEX gold contracts traded in that six month period were ‘delivered’, or just 1 in every 2650 contracts traded.

Open Interest

Beyond the trends and snapshots that trading volumes provide, COMEX Open Interest shows how much real physical gold would be needed if all longs who hold gold futures contracts decided to exercise every contract into the 100 ounces of physical gold that each contract supposedly allows for.

For example, currently there are 480,000 GC gold futures contracts outstanding on the COMEX, each of which represents 100 ounces of gold. This means that buyers of the contracts are long 480,000 contracts, and sellers of those same contracts are short 480,000 contracts. With each contract worth 100 ounces of gold, this is an open interest of 48 million ounces (1500 tonnes) of gold, which is about half a year’s global gold mining output.

Currently 46% of this open interest is in the front-month August 2017 contract (nearly 750 tonnes), with another 40% in the December 2017 contract. Together the August and December contracts represent over 85% of the current open interest. During 2017, open interest has fluctuated roughly between 400,000 and 500,000 contracts at any given time.

Registered Gold Inventory and Eligible

However, there are only currently 22 tonnes of ‘Registered gold’ in the COMEX approved vaults in New York, which is equivalent to about 700,000 ounces. What this means is that there are only 22 tonnes of gold currently in the vaults that the vault operators previously attached warrants to as part of the COMEX futures delivery process. This 22 tonnes of gold, if it was held in Good Delivery gold bar format, would only occupy one small corner of one of the COMEX’s 8 approved gold vaults when stacked 6 pallets high across 3 stacks, and another 4 pallets in an additional stack. That’s how small the COMEX registered gold inventories are.

The amount of Registered gold backing COMEX futures gold trading is also at a 1-year low. For example, in August 2016 there were 75 tonnes of Registered gold in the COMEX vaults. Now there’s only 30% of that amount.

COMEX Registered gold inventories: 700,000 ounces = 22 tonnes. Source www.GoldChartsRUs.com

There is also no independent auditing of the gold that the COMEX reports on its registered and eligible gold inventory reports. So there is no way of knowing if the COMEX report is accurate. For example, HSBC claims to have 165 tonnes of eligible gold and a measly 1.5 tonnes of registered gold stored at its COMEX approved vault. This vault is located in the lower levels of 1 West 39th Street in Manhattan (the old Republic National Bank of New York vault). However, I heard from a former New York Fed senior executive that HSBC don’t keep a lot of gold in this Manhattan vault since they moved a lot of it to Delaware after 9/11 for security reasons. If this is true, then the question becomes, on the COMEX report, does the total for HSBC represent the amount they have in the midtown Manhattan location, or the total in midtown and Delaware (assuming they have gold stored in Delaware).

COMEX approved vaults also report another category of gold known as ‘Eligible’ gold. This ‘Eligible’ gold is unrelated to COMEX gold futures trading and could be owned by anyone, for example owned by mints, refineries, jewellery companies, investment funds, banks or individuals, who would just happen to be storing this gold in the New York vaults that the COMEX also uses, such as the Brinks vaults.

In other words, this ‘eligible’ gold is merely innocent bystander gold that just happens to be stored in the COMEX approved vaults in the form of 100-ounce gold bars or 1 kilo gold bars. At the moment, there are 243 tonnes of this eligible gold in the vaults. But this gold is not involved in COMEX gold futures trading. Some of this gold is probably owned by banks that engage in COMEX gold futures trading because there are sometimes movements of gold from the eligible category to the registered category, but still, as long as it’s in the eligible category, this gold does not have any COMEX related warrants attached to it.

With an Open Interest of 1500 tonnes of gold on COMEX, and with registered gold in the New York vaults totalling only 22 tonnes, this means that there are currently 68 “Owners per Ounce” of registered gold. The holders of allocated gold bars stored in a secure vault, such as BullionStar’s secure vault in Singapore no not face this 68 owners per ounce problem, as each gold bar is owned by one person and one person only.

Since the beginning of 2017, this COMEX “owners per ounce of registered gold” metric has risen sharply, more than doubling from under 30 owners per ounce to the current ratio of 68 owners per ounce. This is because registered gold inventories have fallen sharply over this time.

Even adding into the equation all the eligible gold in the New York vaults, which is a calculation that doesn’t really mean much given the independent nature of eligible gold, there are still 5.7 “owners per ounce” of the combined COMEX “eligible and registered gold” total.

The physical gold foundations to the entire COMEX gold futures trading process are therefore very tiny in comparison to COMEX trading volumes and open interest. And all the while, gold futures trading volumes continue to rise, owners per registered ounce of gold continues to rise, and the amount of physical gold backing these contracts on COMEX continues to shrink.

The Dominant Players

The latest Commitment of Traders (COT) report produced by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), for 11 July, includes market concentration data for the percentage of contracts held by the largest holders. This COT report currently shows that “4 or Less Traders” are short 35% of the COMEX GC gold futures open interest, while “8 or Less Traders” are short a combined 51% of the open interest. Note that the “4 or Less Traders” are a subset of the “8 or Less Traders”.

The CFTC also publishes a Bank Participation Report (BPR) showing metrics for banks involved in gold futures trading. The latest BPR for 11 July shows that 5 US banks are short 78063 contracts (16.4% of the total open interest), and 29 non-US banks are short another 67,373 contracts (14.2% of open interest). In total, these 34 banks were short 145,000 contracts or 30% of the open interest. The same banks were long 40,688 contracts, so were net short 105,000 contracts.

CFTC Bank Participation Report (BPR) of COMEX (and ICE) gold futures positions. Source www.GoldChartsRUs.com

Neither the COT report nor the BPR report reveal the identity of the ‘traders’ or the ‘banks’ that hold these concentrated large positions because the bank friendly CFTC choses not to do so, but even without their identities being revealed, it’s clear that a small number of entities are dominating trading of the COMEX gold futures contracts.

When is a Delivery not a Delivery?

The COMEX delivery report is known as the “Issues and Stops Report”. This report ostensibly shows the number of contracts that were ‘delivered’ on the COMEX each month, but in reality just shows a series of numbers representing the quantity of title warrants (to gold bars) that were shunted around each month between a small handful of players.

The COMEX does not publish any gold bar weight lists of registered or eligible gold inventories held in the COMEX approved vaults. It is therefore impossible to check to what extent the same gold bars or some of the same gold bars are moving back and forth between a few parties over time. On an annual basis, each COMEX approved vault must conduct a precious metal inventory audit on behalf of the COMEX and file this audit with the COMEX within 30 days of completing it. However again, the CME Group does not publish these inventory audits, which only adds to the existing opacity of the system. Is the registered gold in the COMEX vaults even specifically insured? Who knows, because the COMEX does not divulge such details.

Some of the bank institutions which are prominent on the COMEX gold delivery reports are also some of the same institutions which operate the COMEX approved vaults, e.g. HSBC, JP Morgan and Scotia, and these same names are undoubtedly some of the names underlying the CFTC’s Bank Participation Report given that they are always prominent on the COMEX delivery reports. By the way, these same banks essentially run the LBMA in London and run the unallocated gold clearing system, LPMCL, in the London Gold Market.

As regards, the COMEX’s assignment of delivery for gold futures contracts, this is also out of the hands of a contract holder looking for delivery. When a contract is presented for delivery, it is the Exchange (COMEX) which assigns the delivery to a specific warehouse. Not the contract holder. The contract holder (long) has no say in choosing which New York warehouse that contract will be assigned to, no choice of which bar brand he/she will receive, and no choice even of whether the assigned gold will be in the form of a 10 ounce bar of three 1 kilogram gold bars. But even to the long holder seeking delivery, delivery just means gaining an electronic warehouse warrant issued in the long holder’s name or broker’s name (title to the warrant).

To take real delivery of gold bars (withdrawing gold from one of the New York vaults) that would arise from a COMEX ‘delivery’ is a laborious and discouraging extra step. Armed with a copy of an electronic receipt, the procedure involves the receipt holder directly contacting the warehouse in question and telling them you want physical delivery. How they would react to such as phone call is not clear. My guess is that it would be like visiting the mailroom in a large company, the reaction being ‘Who are you? No one ever comes down here‘.

After navigating the withdrawal negotiations with the vault in question,  the pickup and transport of the gold bars is then organized using one of the list of secure transport alternatives that approved warehouse will allow.

COMEX – Not Designed for Physical Bullion

The COMmodity EXchange (COMEX) is a derivatives exchange that is not designed for buying physical gold, storing or delivering that gold, or even selling physical gold. The COMEX primarily facilitates speculation and hedging, with the delivery option just existing as a little -used side option.

Flash crashes continue to occur but neither the CME nor the CFTC ever publishes explanations for the causes of these flash crashes.

It looks certain that in 2017, COMEX will again smash its gold futures trade gold futures representing more gold than has ever been mined in human history, i.e. more than 200,000 tonnes equivalent.

So far in 2017, only 1 in every 2650 gold futures contracts traded on the COMEX has resulted in delivery i.e. less than 0.038% of the contracts go to delivery. The rest, 99.962% of contracts are cash-settled and closed-out / rolled.

The open interest in COMEX gold futures is currently 1500 tonnes, yet there are only 22 tonnes of Registered gold in the COMEX vault inventories. This means that there are 68 owners per ounce of registered gold.

There is continually a high concentration of short futures positions held by a small number of banks on COMEX. The CFTC doesn’t name these banks. When contract deliveries occur on COMEX, it is not a delivery in the sense of a gold bar movement but is merely a transfer in title of a warrant attached to a bar.

Withdrawal of a gold bar or bars out of the COMEX vaulting network to be really delivered to another location is not straightforward.

Physical Bullion

With the London Gold Market trading unlimited quantities of unallocated gold which the bullion banks create out of thin air, and with COMEX trading gold futures which are also created out of thin air, the disconnect between the world of unlimited paper gold and the world of limited physical gold is becoming ever more stark.

On one side lies paper claims on gold which come into and out of existence through cash-settled market mechanisms. On the other is real physical gold that is segregated, allocated and unencumbered, with full title held by the gold holder. Paper gold ownership is fleeting, speculative and prone to counterparty and conversion risks. Real gold is tangible, has inherent value, has no counterparty risk, and can be securely stored.

When real gold is ‘delivered’ to a gold buyer, it actually is delivered to the buyer to wherever they want it delivered, unlike COMEX deliveries where an electronic warrant is merely updated. When real gold is held in a secure vault, such as BullionStar’s vault in Singapore, the gold is fully-insured and the gold holder has full audit and control.

Unlike the COMEX and the London OTC gold market, the traditional gold buying markets of Asia and the Middle East are markets know the real value of physical gold as a form of money and a form of saving. In the physical gold market, especially in Asia, gold buyers demand high purity gold (9999s purity) in convenient bar sizes such as 1 kilogram and 100 grams, and not the 100 ounce bar size traditionally made for COMEX delivery.

Physical gold buyers want gold bars from trusted and well-known sources, and also want choice and variety for example a cast bar from the German Heraeus refinery, or a highly designed minted bar from the Swiss refinery PAMP. Kilobars and 100 gram gold bars also have the lowest premiums of any bars on the retail market since many refineries compete to supply this segment and the demand is widespread and international. Most kilobars and 100 gram bars have their own unique serial numbers which facilitates tracking and auditing.

As COMEX pursues its record-breaking attempt  in 2017 to trade gold futures representing more than 200,000 tonnes of gold, the disconnect between COMEX and the real world is becoming all too clear. COMEX flash crashes will continue as long as the CME and CFTC let them continue. And many people will continue to believe that these flash crashes were deliberately orchestrated. But at the heart of the contradiction between paper gold and real gold is not whether such and such a flash crash was deliberate. The heart of the contradiction is that the very structure of the COMEX system is detached from the reality of physical gold and such a structure can easily allow flash crashes to happen, some or all of which may be deliberate attempts to rig the gold price.

BullionStar will be exhibiting at the FreedomFest event in Las Vegas, which this year runs from July 19 to 22 at the Paris resort in Las Vegas. For those attending FreedomFest please drop by our stand and say hello (Booth number 321). BullionStar CEO Torgny Persson will also be speaking at FreedomFest at 2:30pm on Friday July 21, on why today’s gold price is not reflecting what’s happening in the world and not reflecting what’s happening in the physical gold market. 

This article originally appeared on the BullionStar website under the same title "Is the COMEX Rigged?" 

And The Worst Performing G-20 Stock Market This Year Is...

When it comes to stock market performance this year, there’s no uniting the U.S. and Russia.

The S&P 500 and the Micex began the year at almost the same level, but equities in the former Soviet nation have tumbled amid losses in crude and evaporating optimism over the lifting of sanctions under U.S. President Donald Trump.

Spot the odd one out...

As the leaders of the G-20 met in Hamburg, equities in almost every other market in the group have risen.. but Russia has collapsed.

CME Stays Silent on Cause of COMEX Silver Flash Crash

Submitted by Ronan Manly, BullionStar.com

Silver futures prices on the COMEX futures trading platform briefly plummeted at approximately 7:06am Singapore time yesterday, with the price for the front month (most active) September silver contract falling from a US$16.06 quote down to a low of US$14.34 all within  a 1 minute interval. The futures price then recovered nearly all of its losses in the subsequent 2-3 minute period. High to low, this COMEX silver futures contract saw its price fall by just over 10.7%, before rebounding nearly 11%.

During this time when the COMEX price crashed, there was nothing fundamentally happening in the wider financial markets, or indeed in the physical silver market, to justify these price gyrations in COMEX silver futures prices. Which all goes to show that the COMEX ‘paper’ futures silver prices is completely detached from the physical silver market, and that COMEX silver futures prices have no anchoring in the real silver market.

This price movement in the September 2017 silver futures contract (contract code SIU7 aka SIU17) can be seen in the below 1-minute tick candlestick chart from CME. Times in the chart are New York Time (NYT), which is 12 hours behind Singapore.

During this one minute period between 19:06 NYT and 19:07 NYT, the SIU7 contract saw trading volume of 4954 contracts (the 4.954K in the chart below), with the price falling from a high of 16.065 to a low of 14.34, before ending that minute period at US$ 14.68.

The COMEX SI silver futures contract, which is a deliverable contract but which in practice is rarely delivered; is a futures contract for 5000 troy ounces of silver. The 4954 contracts traded during the 1 minute period in theory represent 24.77 million ounces (770 tonnes) of silver and would be valued at $397.8 million at the opening price of US$ 16.06 at 19:06 NYT.

Overall within these 4 minutes, more than 8,300 September silver contracts were traded.

COMEX September Silver futures (SIU7): Flash crash at 19:06 NYT 6th July

Following this 1 minute flash crash, in the subsequent minute between 19:07 NYT and 19:08 NYT,  the SIU7 contract price rebounded sharply, rising from US$ 14.67 to US$ 15.62 on a trading volume of 1495 contracts. This rebound reflected in the below chart which also shows the opening and closing prices of each minute period. The price continue to rebound between 19:08 and 19:09 on volume of 936 contracts to close the minute at US$ 15.07, and then between 19:09 and 19:10, the price again closed higher at US$ 15.90 on volume of 932 contracts.

Overall, from the low quote of US$ 14.34, the price had rebound within the next 3 minutes to US$ 15.90, a rebound of 10.95%, and just 1% lower than the price had been (US$ 16.06) 4 minutes earlier.

COMEX Sept Silver futures (SIU7): Rebound between 19:07 – 19:10 NYT 6th July

Note that the same price flash crash also affected the next most actively traded COMEX silver contract for December 2017 (code SIZ7). See COMEX silver futures summary table below, and notice the lows for the September 2017 and December 2017 contracts at US$ 14.34 and US$ 14.44, respectively.

CME Summary table of COMEX Silver Futures contract prices showing Highs and Lows

What caused this momentary price plummet in the COMEX silver futures is not clear. This is because the CME Group, operator of the COMEX futures platform, has provided no explanation for these price gyrations. Possible causes could include market illiquidity, deliberate manipulation, a trading error or errors, or algorithmic trading programs triggering stop losses or inducing abnormal trading patterns. The flash crash in silver at 19:06 NYT also rippled into COMEX gold trading during the same minute (19:06 NYT), causing the COMEX August 2017 gold futures (contract code GCQ7), which had been minding its own business trading in a tight band around US$1224, to stage its own sharp drop from which it didn"t recover through the remainder of the Asian day. Perhaps this was the intention, to get gold lower via its sidekick silver. 

   

COMEX August Gold futures (GCQ7): 19:06 NYT on July 6

Until the CME Group releases a statement on this (which it probably won’t as it never does), the exact cause of this futures price flash crash remains unclear. What the CME did do yesterday however was as follows: At 19:06:38, the CME systems implemented a 10 second halt in the COMEX silver futures contracts. Within 20 minutes, CME made an announcement in a messaging broadcast that it was reviewing all SIU7 (September futures) trades that had taken place under US$ 15.84 and all SIZ7 (December futures) trades that had taken place under US$ 15.94. After another 20 minutes, CME announced in a messaging broadcast that for SIU7, any trades executed below US$ 15.54 would be adjusted up to US$ 15.54, while for SIZ7, all trades executed below 15.64 would be adjusted up to US$ 15.64.

These speedily introduced price adjustments would appear to suggest that the CME Group quickly determined that whatever caused the sharp price falls in the COMEX silver futures prices was not part of normal COMEX futures market trading, and that the CME made the call to back out and cancel at least some of the effects of this abnormal market trading. This would also seem to suggest the CME found evidence of something untoward, either price manipulation, or unfair algorithmic trading, or unjustified stop-loss triggering etc.

While these ‘paper’ trading markets in the form of the OTC London silver market and the COMEX futures market unfortunately do have a real impact on the international silver price that is inherited by physical silver markets, this latest pricing fiasco on the COMEX again demonstrates that COMEX trading of precious metals futures and London trading of fractionally-backed unallocated precious metals spot and forwards contracts are becoming more and more detached from the underlying reality of the physical gold and silver markets. In time, this may also have an adverse effect on investor sentiment in the paper markets which could a trigger a shift in gold and silver price discovery away from paper and towards physical.

Exposing "The Legend" - How Traders 'Spoofed' The Precious Metals Markets

Following last week"s admission by a former Deutsche Bank trader that he and many other traders conspired to manipulate the precious metals markets, court documents expose chat messages that show the level of rigging and how an uknown trader known as "the legend" taught them the "tricks from the... master."

The Deutsche Bank trader, David Liew, pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago to conspiring to spoof gold, silver, platinum and palladium futures, according to court papers. Bloomberg notes that spoofing involves traders placing orders that they never intend to fill, in an attempt to manipulate the price.

Following an introductory period that included orientation and training, LIEW was eventually assigned to the metals trading desk (which included base metals and precious metals trading) in approximately December 2009. During the Relevant Period, LIEW was employed by Bank A as a metals trader in the Asia-Pacific region, and his primary duties included precious metals market making and futures trading.

...

Between in or around December 2009 and in or around February 2012 (the "Relevant Period"), in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastem Division, and elsewhere, defendant DAVID LIEW did knowingly and intentionally conspire and agree with other precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, and palladium) traders to: (a) knowingly execute, and attempt to execute, a scheme and artifice to defraud, and for obtaining money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, and in furtherance of the scheme and artifice to defraud, knowingly transmit, and cause to be transmitted, in interstate and foreign commerce, by means of wire communications, certain signs, signals and sounds, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343,which scheme affected a financial institution; and (b) knowingly engage in trading, practice, and conduct, on and subject to the rules of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange ("CME"), that was, was of the character of, and was commonly known to the trade as, spoofing, that is, bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution, by causing to be transmitted to the CME precious metals futures contract orders that LIEW and his coconspirators intended to cancel before execution and not as part of any legitimate, good-faith attempt to execute any part of the orders, in violation of Title 7, United States Code, Sections 6c(a)(5)(C) and 13(a)(2); all in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.

...

Defendant LIEW"s employer, Bank A, was one of the largest global banking and financial services companies in the world. Bank A"s primary precious metals trading desks were located in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Defendant LIEW and other precious metals traders, including traders at Bank A, engaged in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution and spoofing, in the trading of precious metals futures contracts traded on the CME.

Defendant LIEW placed, and conspired to place, hundreds of orders to buy or to sell precious metals futures contracts that he intended to cancel and not to execute at the time he placed the orders (the "Spoof Orders").

And now, as Bloomberg reports, after pleading guilty to fraud charges last week and agreeing to cooperate, Liew has become a prime government witness for U.S. prosecutors investigating whether traders at the world’s biggest banks conspired to manipulate prices in silver, gold, platinum and palladium.

His chats with colleagues -- part of an FBI affidavit filed in Chicago and placed under seal -- provide a window into the investigation by the Justice Department, which began looking into such activities at a dozen of the biggest global banks two years ago.

"Tricks from the ...master," Liew typed in a chat after working with a colleague to move gold futures prices while Liew executed a trade. In the course of a year, Liew and his colleagues used fake orders to try to manipulate prices, an illegal practice called spoofing, more than 50 times.

In his court plea, Liew described working with others at his own bank and at two other operations. He refers to “The Legend,” without naming him, at another unidentified global bank. Many details are cloaked.

According to the documents, at least two senior colleagues taught Liew how small orders could be placed and then quickly pulled, pushing prices in a direction to benefit traders with client orders to fill. Within a couple years, he was teaching newer traders to do the same. In all, according to the filings, he attempted to move prices on Chicago’s CME more than 300 times before he left.

After trading silver futures on March 29, 2011, Liew wrote to the trader he called The Legend. "Look at silver … all algo play … basically I sold out … by just having fake bids," according to chats transcribed in the FBI affidavit.

By June 2011, Liew had begun teaching others the mechanics of spoofing, according to the FBI affidavit. In a chat with a trader from an unidentified trading firm, Liew explained how he used high-speed traders to move the market to his advantage. "I just spam … then cancel a lot … its actually stupid … cause im risking … but it gets the job done."

That August, Liew and a colleague discussed Dodd-Frank and their trading strategy in a chat, then engaged in spoofing to help Liew’s position in gold futures, according to the affidavit. "dodd frank gonna get me fired," Liew wrote.

Eight minutes later, Liew wrote, "I bought some gold for us … get ready .. to buy a bit more." The two then spoofed the market through a series of orders, according to the FBI account. Later, they boasted about their profits.

"u greedy for 50cents pumpkin … but Im greedy for $5 …lol," Liew wrote. His Deutsche Bank colleague replied, "I think we made … a lot … its ok … ahaha."

As we noted last week, Liew quite his job in July of 2012 to start a tech company, remarking on his personal blog that he was "uncomfortable with some of the things I witnessed/experienced."

Still we are sure that anyone uttering the word "rigged" around these markets will be chopped down to size by the mainstream, despite the reams of evidence (and facts), because all that matters is financial repression, precious metals suppression, and stock market acceleration.

Deutsche Bank Trader Admits To Rigging Precious Metals Markets

After months of "smoking guns" and conspiracy theory dismissals, a Singapore-based Deutsche Bank trader (at the center of fraud allegations) finally confirmed (by admitting guilt) what many have suspected - the biggest banks in the world have conspired to rig precious metals markets.

The Deutsche Bank trader, David Liew, pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago to conspiring to spoof gold, silver, platinum and palladium futures, according to court papers. Bloomberg notes that spoofing involves traders placing orders that they never intend to fill, in an attempt to manipulate the price.

Following an introductory period that included orientation and training, LIEW was eventually assigned to the metals trading desk (which included base metals and precious metals trading) in approximately December 2009. During the Relevant Period, LIEW was employed by Bank A as a metals trader in the Asia-Pacific region, and his primary duties included precious metals market making and futures trading.

...

Between in or around December 2009 and in or around February 2012 (the "Relevant Period"), in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastem Division, and elsewhere, defendant DAVID LIEW did knowingly and intentionally conspire and agree with other precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, and palladium) traders to: (a) knowingly execute, and attempt to execute, a scheme and artifice to defraud, and for obtaining money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, and in furtherance of the scheme and artifice to defraud, knowingly transmit, and cause to be transmitted, in interstate and foreign commerce, by means of wire communications, certain signs, signals and sounds, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343,which scheme affected a financial institution; and (b) knowingly engage in trading, practice, and conduct, on and subject to the rules of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange ("CME"), that was, was of the character of, and was commonly known to the trade as, spoofing, that is, bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution, by causing to be transmitted to the CME precious metals futures contract orders that LIEW and his coconspirators intended to cancel before execution and not as part of any legitimate, good-faith attempt to execute any part of the orders, in violation of Title 7, United States Code, Sections 6c(a)(5)(C) and 13(a)(2); all in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.

...

Defendant LIEW"s employer, Bank A, was one of the largest global banking and financial services companies in the world. Bank A"s primary precious metals trading desks were located in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Defendant LIEW and other precious metals traders, including traders at Bank A, engaged in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution and spoofing, in the trading of precious metals futures contracts traded on the CME.

Defendant LIEW placed, and conspired to place, hundreds of orders to buy or to sell precious metals futures contracts that he intended to cancel and not to execute at the time he placed the orders (the "Spoof Orders").

...

Bank A operated a global metals trading team with traders in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Asia-Pacific region. Throughout his tenure on the metals trading desk at Bank A, defendant LIEW was supervised by and interacted with more experienced traders on the team. LIEW was supervised by other metals traders in the Asia-Pacific region, and, due to the nature of the nearly 24-hour trading cycle, LIEW interacted with members of the trading team in the United States and the United Kingdom. It was after joining the metals trading desk that LIEW was taught to spoof by other metals traders, including other metals traders at Bank A.

Defendant LIEW generated Spoof Orders manually. That is, LIEW physically clicked his computer mouse or keyboard keys to enter each Spoof Order, and physically clicked his mouse or keyboard keys to cancel that order.

A common technique employed by defendant LIEW was to place and cancel one or more Spoof Orders on one side of the prevailing market price. The intent of these Spoof Orders was to facilitate the execution of an existing Primary Order on the opposite side of the market. By placing Spoof Orders opposite the Primary Order, LIEW intended to create a false appearance of supply or demand and induce other market participants to react to this false information in order to move the market price and/or increase the available quantity at the desired price of the relevant futures contract. During the time the Spoof Order was live in the market, or shortly after it was cancelled, LIEW"s Primary Order on the other side of the market would often execute at a more favorable price than was otherwise available before the Spoof Order had been placed.

...

Coordinated spoofing involved one or more additional participants. When engaging in coordinated spoofing, defendant LIEW and/or one or more co-conspirators would place one or more Spoof Orders on one side of the market in order to facilitate the execution of Primary Orders placed on the opposite side of the market by either LIEW or a coconspirator. For example, LIEW would place a Spoof Order in order to facilitate the execution of a Primary Order placed by a co-conspirator, or a co-conspirator would place a Spoof Order in order to facilitate the execution of a Primary Order placed by LIEW. At other times, LIEW and one or more co-conspirators would each place one or more Spoof Orders in order to facilitate the execution of a Primary Order placed by LIEW or a co-conspirator.

During and in furtherance of the conspiracy, defendant LIEW engaged in solo spoofing or coordinated spoofing with traders at Bank A hundreds of times.

Prosecutors have brought very few cases against alleged spoofers but have stepped up their enforcement since the adoption of the Dodd-Frank financial law.

Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

From a July 2012 blog post, we discover that Liew quit banking then to start a tech company...

A bit like Vinicius, I was (and still am) in my third year out of University and making a very comfortable living as a trader at Deutsche Bank. Here in Singapore (sadly), a sort of toxic culture has been brewing that your “success” is deemed by your salary. Yes, I was getting a 6 digit annual salary, yes I was in the top % of wage earners of my age group (I’m turning 27 this year). A lot of people have labelled me “crazy” to “throw all I had away”, to which I would reply “This is my life, not yours. But thanks and good luck to you too”

This is not the first time Deutsche Bank has been involved, implicated, and exposed to rigging the precious metals markets.

As we noted in December, when we first reported that Deutsche Bank had agreed to settle allegations it had rigged the silver market in exchange for $38 million, we revealed something stunning: "in a curious twist, the settlement letter revealed that the former members of the manipulation cartel have turned on each other", and that Deutsche Bank would provide docments implicating other precious metals riggers. To wit: "In addition to valuable monetary consideration, Deutsche Bank has also agreed to provide cooperation to plaintiffs, including the production of instant messages, and other electronic communications, as part of the settlement. In Plaintiff’s estimation, the cooperation to be provided by Deutsche Bank will substantially assist Plaintiffs in the prosecution of their claims against the non-settling defendants."

Overnight we finally got a glimpse into what this "production" contained, and according to documents filed by the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit, what Deutsche Bank provided as part of its settlement was nothing short of "smoking gun" proof that UBS Group AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, Bank of Nova Scotia and other firms rigged the silver market. The allegation, as Bloomberg first noted, came in a filing Wednesday in a Manhattan federal court lawsuit filed in 2014 by individuals and entities that bought or sold futures contracts.

In the document records surrendered by Deutsche Bank and presented below, traders and submitters were captured coordinating trades in advance of a daily phone call, manipulating the spot market for silver, conspiring to fix the spread on silver offered to customers and using illegal strategies to rig prices.

“Plaintiffs are now able to plead with direct, ‘smoking gun’ evidence,’ including secret electronic chats involving silver traders and submitters across a number of financial institutions, a multi-year, well-coordinated and wide-ranging conspiracy to rig the prices,” the plaintiffs said in their filing.

The latest evidence is critical because as the plaintiffs add, the new scheme “far surpasses the conspiracy alleged earlier.” As a result, the litigants are seeking permission to file a new complaint with the additional allegations, i.e., demand even more reparations from the defendants who have not yet settled, and perhaps even more evidence of ongoing market rigging. Their proposed complaint broadens the case beyond the four banks initially sued to include claims against units of Barclays Plc, BNP Paribas Fortis SA, Standard Chartered Plc and Bank of America Corp.

Representatives of UBS, BNP Paribas Fortis, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Scotiabank didn’t immediately respond to e-mails outside regular business hours seeking comment on the allegations. Barclays and Bank of America declined to immediately comment.

The Deutsche Bank documents show, among other things, how two UBS traders communicated directly with two Deutsche Bank traders and discussed ways to rig the market. The traders shared customer order-flow information, improperly triggered customer stop-loss orders, and engaged in practices such as spoofing, all meant to destabilize the price of silver ahead of the fix and result in forced selling or buying. It is also what has led on so many occasions to the infamous previous metals "slam", when out of nowhere billions in notional contracts emerge, usually with the intent to sell, to halt any upside moment in the precious metals/ 

"UBS was the third-largest market maker in the silver spot market and could directly influence the prices of silver financial instruments based on the sheer volume of silver it traded," the plaintiffs allege. "Conspiring with other large market makers, like Deutsche Bank and HSBC, only increased UBS’s ability to influence the market."

Some examples of the chats quoted are shown below. In the first example a chart between DB and HSBC traders in which one HSBC trader says "really wanna sel sil[ver" to which the other trader says "Let"s go and smash it together."

Another chat transcript from May 11, 2011 reveals a Deutsche Bank trader telling a UBS trader that the cartel "WERE THE SILVER MARKET"(sic) based on feedback from outside traders to which UBS replies, referring to the silver market "we smashed it good", leading to the following lament "fking hell UBS now u make me regret not joining."

Finally, for all those traders who wonder what happened to their stops as a result of dramatic moves in the price, here is the answer: a June 2011 chat between a UBS and a DB trader comes down to the following: "if you have stops... who ya gonna call... STOP BUSTERS"

Liew"s admission of guilt to a conspiracy to spoof precious metals markets seems like the final nail in the coffin of any conspiracy theory deniers - theory is now fact once again. The question is - will the regulatory crackdown on these manipulations actually reduce rigging in the markets?