CFTC Commissioners Need To Be Fired & Roasted On The Spit

CFTC Directors Neglecting Their Duties With Respect To The Silver Market

The silver market has been and is currently being manipulated. As a consequence, silver prices have been kept dirt cheap for decades.

This is both good and bad.

The good part: with "below free-market" price levels, silver is cheap to buy. In fact, it's a lot less expensive to buy pure bullion silver (Ag) than it is to mine the stuff out of the earth, purify it, assay it, pour it into ingots, weigh them, mark their weights and place a serial number on each bar.

But the flip side (the bad part of the silver price manipulation): holders of bullion silver, silver coins and silver artifacts have to continue waiting before selling their silver else they sell for less than what the true market price would be if a truly free market was determining silver prices.

Silver Analyst Theodore (Ted) Butler says:

In my opinion, and only the CFTC and COMEX know for sure, the bottom line
true open interest in silver futures, minus all the spreads, is under 66,000
contracts. If I am correct, the 4 largest traders control 54% of the entire
market and the 8 largest traders control 67% of the market on a net basis, not
the 36% and 45% amounts listed... This is outrageous and clear proof of
dominance and control and manipulation.

A silver contract is for 5,000 ounces of the metal. So the open interest in silver futures affects 330,000,000 ounces of silver (directly) but indirectly affects the market price for all silver.

The manipulation has occured primarily by deep pocketed market traders who create paper contracts (options) in which they agree to sell a certain amount of silver by a certain time in the future at a price that is less than the current market's spot price at the time the contracts are written. This is known as short-selling and it has the effect of depressing the price of silver. If sufficient short-selling occurs it can push the price of the "shorted" item down.

From my understanding, many informed individuals have complained to the CFTC about the silver manipulation. But the CFTC has ignored the warnings.

If a real manipulation is occurring, and the evidence clearly indicates that it is, the CFTC should and must step in and investigate the situation. So far it looks like the CFTC is looking the other way. If the CFTC is indeed side-stepping the Silver manipulation matter then the ultimate responsibility lies with the commissioners for failing to uphold the mission of the entity that they are obligate to oversee. But, if the CFTC refuses to act...

There's one way to get the free market to pop back into action... and that is for silver investors to purchase and take physical possession of silver...

They should buy as much as they can, as often as they can because it is to their advantage insofar as the silver prices are currently low. And those prices will continue to remain low until the short-sellers are forced out of the market.

Time will tell.

Oh, by the way...

Did I neglect to add that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has the mission of protecting market users and the public from fraud, manipulation, and abusive practices relating to the sale of commodity and financial futures and options, and to foster open, competitive, and financially sound futures and option markets?

I thought you'd like to know.

Respectfully,

Gerard LeBlond