Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver):
Market analyst Ted Butler today reports "stunning" increases in the monetary metals derivatives positions of JPMorgan, Chase Bank, and Bank of America and expresses concern that the latter bank could get in trouble with its derivatives insofar it is "inexperienced" in this market.
But what if the huge monetary metals derivatives positions attributed to these banks are not really the banks' own positions at all? What if they are really U.S. government positions, with the banks acting as brokers?
After all, a few years ago, JPMorgan executives insisted that the bank had no proprietary position in silver and traded the metal only for clients. Of course, nobody asked the bank whether those clients included the government. But if the JPMorgan and Bank of America derivative positions in the monetary metals are as disproportionate as Butler finds – that they "tower" over gold and silver trading on the New York Commodities Exchange – more than ordinary trading is indeed going on.
Really, how can anyone not suspect U.S. government involvement with those outsized derivatives positions when the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission repeatedly has refused to answer, even for a member of Congress, whether it has jurisdiction over manipulative trading undertaken by or at the behest of the U.S. government?
The CFTC's refusal to answer that question – and the failure of financial journalists and market analysts to ask it – gave the game away long ago.
Butler's analysis is headlined "Another Stunning OCC Report" and it's posted at GoldSeek's companion site, SilverSeek, here:
https://silverseek.com/article/another-stunning-occ-report-1
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