New LME gold and silver Reference Prices: Will anyone notice?

Submitted by Ronan Manly, BullionStar.com

On 29 August, the London Metal Exchange (LME) began publication of a set of daily reference prices for gold and silver. These reference prices aim to capture and reflect paper gold and silver market prices as at 10:30 am, 12:00 midday, and 3:00 pm London time.

Anyone familiar with the former London gold and silver fix auctions, or the successor LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price auctions, will know that the LBMA gold auction is conducted twice daily at 10:30 am and 3.00 pm London time, while the silver auction is held once daily at midday. These auctions are also for unallocated book entry gold and silver (paper gold and silver) in the London market. ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA) is the auction administrator for both of these LBMA auctions.

Peak Liquidity

As these new reference prices published by the London Metal Exchange are timed to report ‘market’ prices for gold and silver at exactly the same times as the LBMA Gold and LBMA Silver auctions, they add an element of future competition between the LME and ICE in the benchmark price provision business. However, the LME’s prices for both gold and silverare calculated at each of the 3 times of the ICE / LBMA auctions, i.e. at 10:30am (LBMA morning gold auction), 12:00 (LBMA silver auction) and 3:00pm (LBMA afternoon gold auction), periods which the LME describes as having ‘peak liquidity’.

In July 2017, the LME launched a suite of gold and silver futures contracts (LME Gold and LME Silver) for the London market, 2 of which are Spot daily contracts in gold and silver, respectively. Under the hood, these new gold and silver daily reference prices published by the LME are just volume weighted average prices (VWAP) of these LME Gold and LME Silver spot contracts calculated over a 2 minute window at the relevant times each day (i.e. 10:30 am, midday, and 3:00 pm) based on trades on  the LMEselect trading platform. These contracts also represent claims on unallocated book entry paper gold and silver in the London market.

Therefore, the LME reference prices are not based on any auction trades, and merely use prices ‘discovered’ (generated) on the LME’s own trading platform at the time of the LBMA / ICE auctions. Given that these new LME reference prices only began to be published on 29 August, there are only about 50 daily data points so far for each of gold and silver. All prices since 29 August can be seen on the LME website for gold and silver.

Different But Similar

But are these LME prices the same as those generated by the ICE / LBMA daily auctions? No, they are not the same, but they are similar. The reason both sets of prices are not the same is that they are derived differently. The LBMA price resulting from an auction is the price derived in the final round of an auction when the imbalance between the auction’s buy and sell volumes is in tolerance (less than 10,000 ounces). The LME reference prices are average prices calculated (and volume weighted) using trades executed on the LME’s trading platform over a 2 minute interval from the start of an auction until 2 minutes after the start of an auction.

The LBMA auction prices and the LME reference prices are similar in that they are both based on market activity over similar time periods within the wholesale gold and silver markets, and in practice (or at least in theory), arbitrage trading should act to keep prices in the OTC market, and in the LBMA auctions, and in COMEX precious metals futures trading, and in LME gold and silver futures trading in line with each other.

Like their predecessors the London Gold fix and London Silver fix, the LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price are used every day to value everything from ISDA contracts to  gold-backed ETFs, and the daily auction prices are also referenced widely in the global precious metals industry to execute trades involving miners, refineries, bullion banks, central banks, jewellers and coin shops. In short, these LBMA gold and silver reference prices are the dominant incumbent reference prices, and they also qualify as Regulated Benchmarks regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority. But will anyone end up using these new LME precious metals reference prices? Possibly, but it could it a while.

In 2018, the LME intends to offer trading based on its new gold and reference price reference levels. According to a Reuters article from 10 October:

“As of mid-2018 participants will be able to trade at those prices, Chamberlain [LME CEO] said, with technology being developed to match buy and sell orders for execution at the settlement price.

‘Benchmarks take a long time to evolve,’ he said. ‘What we can do is put in place the infrastructure, show that we have day after day of robust prices, but ultimately it is for end-users to decide what they want to use."”

Being able to trade at the LME reference prices will add more relevance to the published numbers and could add legitimacy in terms of market data and financial media interest.

Conclusion

Right now the LME gold and silver reference prices are published daily and are “available for market participants to use free of charge.” But real world usage in the sense of being used to value precious metals funds, contracts or transactions looks to be a case of “down the road” rather than today.

Ideally the London gold and silver markets do not need an additional benchmark reflecting fractionally-backed unallocated gold and silver trading, but a benchmark and reference price reflecting the trading of real physical gold and silver. However, as the LME has chosen not to upset the status quo of the London unallocated trading system, a system which remains one of the key determinants of the international gold price, then real physical gold and silver reference prices in the London market will unfortunately remain a pipe dream.

This article originally appeared on the BullionStar.com website under the same title.

A Tale Of Two Gold Markets

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

In the early morning hours of Monday, June 26, gold fell about 1%, from $1,254 per ounce to $1,242 per ounce, in a matter of seconds.

And that the equivalent of 1.8 million ounces of gold were sold at once. The 1.8 million ounce amount is equivalent to about 59 metric tons of gold. That’s about 2% of the entire gold mining production of the world for a full year. No one sells that amount of physical gold.

Besides, mining output is almost 100% pre-sold these days, meaning that if you wanted to buy that much gold directly from a mine, you couldn’t do it, because it’s already committed to fulfill existing contracts.

Forget about getting gold elsewhere too.

The largest gold mining country in the world, China, produces almost 500 metric tons per year. But China also prohibits the export of gold, so you can forget about sourcing physical gold from China.

Gold refiners won’t sell you any gold either. The largest refiners are working triple shifts around the clock to meet existing demand. Many refiners are having trouble sourcing gold in the form of doré from mines, scrap jewelry or existing bars to keep their refining operations going.

Gold is also leaving the custody of commercial banks and heading to nonbank storage at secure logistics providers such as Loomis and Brinks. These transfers do not change the total supply, but they do diminish the floating supply available to support the leveraged paper gold products offered by London Bullion Market Association dealer banks.

In effect, more and more paper gold is poised on top of on an inverted pyramid with less and less physical gold at the base.

All of this information about acute shortages of physical gold relative to demand is well documented. In addition, I have gathered a large body of firsthand confirmation of these facts.

In the past year I have visited gold vaults in the U.S., U.K., Australia and Switzerland. I have visited gold refineries in Switzerland. I have visited gold mining operations in Canada and the U.S., and I have met with major bank and nonbank gold dealers in the U.S., U.K., Canada and China.

Everywhere the story is the same. Physical gold is scarce, difficult to source and already spoken for when you can find it. Meanwhile, demand for physical gold remains robust.

I met with the heads of gold dealing for two of the largest banks in China, ICBC and UOB. They both told me that demand for physical gold among Chinese retail buyers is strong, despite some reports to the contrary.

Your correspondent standing on the Bund, a waterfront thoroughfare along the Huangpu River in Shanghai, China, during a recent visit. Behind me is the original headquarters building of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. (now HSBC), built in 1923. While in Shanghai, I met with the heads of gold trading for two of the largest banks doing business there, ICBC and UOB. Both reported that supplies of physical gold were tight and demand remains high despite some reports to the contrary.

A gold refiner in Switzerland told me, “Jim, if you called to buy gold and I did not know you personally, I would not even return the call. We have none available.”

With that as background to the physical supply-and-demand situation, why is the price of gold not soaring? That’s how markets usually respond to tightness in supply.

A higher gold price would encourage more mining (although new mines take five–seven years to actually produce gold), which would increase supply and equilibrate markets at a new higher price point.

The answer is that there really is no true market for gold, just a rigged game consisting of physical gold and paper gold trading side by side as if they were one and the same. They’re not.

The June 26 flash crash in gold is a good case in point. If I sold 59 tons of physical gold short and had to make good delivery, I couldn’t do it, nor could a bullion bank or dealer. Given the situation I described, you’d be lucky to source 5 tons in 30 days; even that would be difficult for anyone other than JPMorgan or HSBC. I would ultimately default on the contract and face a lawsuit for contractual damages and possible fraud charges.

But in the paper gold world, it’s not a problem.

You just pick up the phone, put the order in to your broker, post a relatively small margin amount (maybe $100 million on a $2 billion short sale, or 5% of the notional contract value) and you’re done. You’ve just destroyed the price of gold with no actual gold involved.

Futures markets exist ostensibly for hedging purposes, but it’s difficult to see why any commercial player would need to hedge 56 tons all at once. (By the way, orders of that size are usually “worked” over days or weeks. That avoids exactly the kind of market impact seen in this case, which hurts the hedging party because they get a lower price.)

Futures markets also allow speculation, which is considered to add liquidity and enable legitimate price discovery. But there’s a fine line between legitimate speculation and outright manipulation, which is fraudulent.

The difference between legitimate speculation and fraudulent manipulation is often difficult to prove, because it requires some finding of “intent” in the mind of the manipulator. That can be elusive unless there is a smoking gun email or other written evidence.

In some ways, this doesn’t matter, because regulators have shown no appetite to enforce the law. The message to manipulators is that this is a big boy’s market and players can do whatever they want as long as it’s not too blatant.

There is a lot of speculation about the actual motive of the flash crash paper gold short seller. Was this a so-called “fat finger” trade where the trader made a mistake by entering the wrong quantity or pushing the wrong button? That’s possible, but a more nefarious explanation comes to mind.

Paper gold trades not only as futures and bank forwards, but also as options on futures. The flash crash happened the day before an important expiration date in the options market.

Was a seller of call options at, say, $1,245 per ounce trying to sink the price the day before expiration in order to avoid a $10 per contract loss? That’s entirely possible, even plausible. We’ll probably never know, because enforcement in this area is almost nonexistent.

One of the most frequently asked questions by gold investors is, “Why should I invest in gold if the price is just going to get slammed by paper gold sellers with no actual gold? What’s the point?”

More broadly, where does the price of gold go from here?

The most important signal is that gold’s uptrend, which began on Dec. 15, 2016, remains intact. Even after the flash crash, gold remains just a bit below the previous low of $1,210 per ounce on May 10, 2017. That means gold is set for a rally above $1,300 per ounce, which would exceed the prior high of $1,293 per ounce on June 6.

The next powerful indication is the marked slowing of the U.S. economy in reaction to rate tightening by the Fed. This is showing up in auto sales, retail sales, disinflation, lower labor force participation and many other indicators.

The result of this slowing will be that the Fed will have to reverse course and use “forward guidance” to signal that they will not hike rates in September. That’s a form of ease that will lower the dollar index and raise the dollar price of gold.

Finally, investors can take comfort from the fact that all manipulations fail in the long run. Whether it’s the “gold corner” of 1869, the “gold pool” of 1968, Kissinger’s secret “gold dump” of the late 1970s, or “Brown’s bottom” (when the U.K. sold most of its gold at 30-year low prices) of 1999, or the more recent gold games on the Comex, all manipulations fail. Gold prices always find their way higher, because paper currencies always lose value over time.

The key response functions to manipulation are patience, confidence in the long-run path of gold and nimbleness in stepping up to buy gold at interim lows when manipulation gets out of hand, as it just did.

The gold rally that began on Dec. 15, 2016, is poised to continue despite the trauma of the flash crash. The crash represents a gift to investors. We now have a better entry point for what will still be much higher gold prices later this year.

"When Gold Goes Above 1430 We Whack It"

Submitted by Allan Flynn via ComexWeHaveAProblem blog, 

As it goes in silver, so it goes in gold. In London at least. 

In a bid to have UBS reinstated as a defendant in a London Gold Fix antitrust lawsuit, plaintiffs documents submitted to a New York Court last week include explosive chat room transcripts of UBS and traders from different banks encouraging each other to “push,” “smack,” and “whack” gold prices.

The transcripts are equally as startling as those described of banks of the London Silver Fix and UBS given to the court the previous day and described last week in this article.

On December 6th attorneys for plaintiffs in a consolidated class action against banks of the London Gold Fix and UBS, asked the court for leave to amend with a Third Amended Complaint. The TAC includes additional facts based on a “limited set of cooperation materials” produced by former defendant Deutsche Bank, as part of a settlement agreement and further statistical analysis.

Supporting documents say the amended complaint addresses the Court’s October finding that the previous complaint failed to plausibly plead firstly that UBS was part of the antitrust conspiracy, and secondly that the conspiracy existed prior to 2006.

Also, for the first time a gold producer has been added to the class action of those claiming losses in gold trading due to the manipulation. Compania Minera Dayton, SCM the Chilean subsidiary of Australian resources company Lachlan Star is said to have “sold gold on many of the specific days on which Plaintiffs demonstrated manipulation of gold investments” totaling $287.4 million over the period 2004 to 2013.

In support of allegations that UBS shared customer order information and executed coordinated trades to manipulate gold markets, samples of “dozens” of chat room messages between UBS and Deutsche Bank are contained in the revised document indicating "many efforts to artificially suppress gold prices, and to manipulate gold prices at the time of the Fixing.”

Filings include the following script reminiscent of an 1980’s arcade game scene. Rather than competing for business in the marketplace, supposed competitors UBS and Deutsche Bank however are seen coordinating tactics as they anticipate the most illiquid of days to jointly execute their sell orders for greatest negative impact on the market.

Deutsche Bank: bro japan holiday today

Deutsche Bank: think it’ll be quiet

Deutsche Bank: well, illiquid, not quiet haha

Deutsche Bank: illiquid means wild wild west

UBS:okay when gold pops 1430

UBS: we whack it

UBS: u sell your 50k

UBS: i sell my 20k

UBS: then we double that up and produce our on liquidity too

UBS: that should be enough to cap it on a holiday

Deutsche Bank: haha yeah

Deutsche Bank: lol

One chat see"s a Deutsche Bank trader confirming with a UBS trader his trading had indeed influenced the Gold Fix: “u just said u sold on fix.”  The UBS traded replied “yeah,” “we smashed it good.”

The secret associations between traders appear to be close knit, with the members willing to assist their opposite numbers at every chance: UBS “im feeling helpful to ubs today.”  The UBS trader then said “need to push this back wer,” to which the Deutsche Bank trader replied “ok,” and “lets do it.”

Counter-intuitively, the banks special penchant to suppress the price of gold is repeated throughout the examples. As the gold ticker rose on this occasion the indignant traders teamed up to push it back down, commending themselves sarcastically meanwhile.

Deutsche Bank: someone still trying to push our gold up

UBS: so u should pay the mkt right away

Deutsche Bank: nope

UBS: cause chances are someone else got hit and u f*ck them up

Deutsche Bank: no touchy

Deutsche Bank: im short 15k

Deutsche Bank: xau

Deutsche Bank: too much fire

UBS: im gonna sell more silver and gold

Deutsche Bank: k

Deutsche Bank: i really think we are on the right side today, being short

Not only are they pushing the market down but also there appears to be intent to harm client interests as the November 2014 FINMA investigation loosely reported.

Here a UBS trader gives information to a Deutsche Bank trader about a client’s order query on Nov 16th 2010, and strategizes to punish them by whacking the price lower if purchased from another party.

UBS: boc sniffing around in gold

Deutsche Bank: likewise

Deutsche Bank: passed my bid

Deutsche Bank: dude

Deutsche Bank: so their round

Deutsche Bank: is from u

Deutsche Bank: to me

Deutsche Bank: haha

UBS: not always

UBS: anyway good to give each other heads up

UBS: if we find out side, whack it

Deutsche Bank: yeah

Bank of China, one of the largest state-owned commercial banks in China, and which offers customers “a wide range of gold investments in gold bars and gold bullion coins” have yet to respond to this author’s query if the bank could be the buyer referred to as “BOC” in the above conversation.

A central tenant of this lawsuit is that the banks have chosen one particular part of the trading day to act secretly. The strategy of banks that "colluded around the PM Fixing to ensure prices moved the direction they wanted, when they wanted," was enabled in this case by the same Deutsche Bank trader who appears in multiple chats over a period of years with various others sharing their presumably winning strategies around the afternoon benchmark.

2007

During a trading day which had been less successful the Deutsche Bank trader assured his opposite trader from Bank of Nova Scotia that “at least the fix will be fun . . . make it all back there!!!!!! : ?”
 

Another day the Deutsche Bank trader remarked to a different trader at Bank of Nova Scotia “hahahahaha, we were all short going into that fix.”

2008

The Deutsche Bank trader was informed by a HSBC trader: “i kick some out and take it back after the fix,” describing a tactic to sell gold high before the fix and buy it back after the fix at a lower price. Plaintiffs say the traders knew it would nearly always be cheaper after the fix. The Deutsche Bank trader replied ironically: “ yeah no one else is thinking that : - ?.”

2011

The Deutsche Bank trader this time to another HSBC trader: “everyone shrt into the fix i swear it’s the only time ppl trade,” to which the opposite party at HSBC replied “hahahhahahahahahahahha shocking absolutely shocking.”

2012

The Deutsche Bank trader said to his opposite number at Barclays, “im glad u are now interbank.” Barclays trader: "Why?" Deutsche Bank trader: “it’s a good alliance.”

That day the Deutsche Bank trader informed another trader at Barclays, “im a tiny buyer at the mom.”  Barclays trader: “think im buyer too,” Deutsche Bank trader: “means we fix lower.”

An example of further statistical analysis from plaintiff"s Third Amended Complaint, TAC is a chart showing UBS spot gold price quotes over the period 2004-2012. The complaint says the bank "used its transactions and substantial presence in the gold market to drive prices downward, thus playing a key role in the conspiracy."

Deutsche Bank"s proposed settlement of the London Gold Fix class action amounting to $60 million including the provision of cooperation materials was given the Court"s preliminary approval on December 9th subject to a Fairness Hearing. This follows the non-UBS defendant banks of the London Gold Fix; Bank of Nova Scotia, Barclays, HSBC, and Société Générale being ordered in October to face charges in the lawsuit along with London Gold Market Fixing Limited, LGMF a private company owned by the five banks. Deutsche Bank"s settlement offer of $38 million including cooperation materials in a similar antitrust lawsuit involving the banks of the London Silver Fix was given the court"s preliminary approval earlier.

Opinion

The new chat evidence in silver and gold described in this and other articles provides the missing narrative to the volumes of statistical analysis incorporated in the original and amended complaints closely scrutinized by court and counsel at the April hearings. It lifts the curtain for once and all on the dirty role of bank suppression in gold and silver markets, and its not just the London Fix. The Court has already acknowledged plaintiffs evidence of symbiosis between the London Fixes and the pricing of other silver and gold products. The Court"s preliminary approval of the Deutsche Bank settlements may provide for class claims in bullion, coins, options, futures, spot and other markets including exchange traded funds, ETF"s within the US.

The collective evidence also neatly deals with the court"s October supposition that further amending the complaint would be "futile."

Given the damming nature of material against UBS particularly, it remains all the more mystifying why the 2014 Swiss Supervisory Market Authority FINMA report into foreign exchange and precious metals trading at UBS said so little comparatively about UBS" precious metals trading misconduct, and specifically nothing about gold trading misconduct. As discussed in an earlier article, the word “gold” is conspicuously absent from the 2014 report.

Were it not for the early moral act of Deutsche Bank in providing the cooperation materials, which presumably gave them a settlement advantage, UBS directors might be sleeping much easier this week. If the remaining non-UBS defendants agree to settle, which is an increasing likelihood, there will be no need for the court discovery scheduled for 2017 and civil trial beyond. In the meantime we wait to see how long UBS hangs in there.

The appearance of a precious metals producer among the class of plaintiffs will also see shareholders and directors reaching for the calculator. SCM is but one of thousands of producers who have sold precious metal in the US throughout the period and like any other plaintiff if the case is successful could be entitled to treble damages with interest if granted standing.

Plaintiffs analysis indicates that manipulation of the London Gold Fix led to average losses of up to four basis points or four hundredths of a percentage point in the gold price on the days affected. Therefore, a small gold producer similiar to SCM with say $500 million of gold sales over 8 years could tally treble claims of $600,000 plus interest.

Supposing as statute 28 U.S.C. 1961 directs, the present Treasury constant maturities nominal- 1-year interest rate currently at 0.83% is applied to this figure over an average sale date midway through the class period of say December 2008, and an optimistic successful conclusion of the lawsuit comes a year from now. Interest then of $54,793.64 could bring a theoretical claim of $654,793.64 for just one class member like this. In this context Deutsche Bank"s $60 million, plus the cooperation materials supplied, appear to be money well spent.