Turquoise Hill Resources, Ltd. (Ivanhoe Mines LTD) (TRQ)

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The Greatest Lie Ever Told
Theodore Butler | July 18, 2016 - 11:25am

http://silverseek.com/commentary/greatest-lie-ever-told-15774

It’s important to understand that there is a big difference between a large short (or long) position held by many different traders and a large position held by a few traders. It’s impossible for hundreds or thousands of different traders to intentionally conspire to manipulate prices. Crowds may be irrational at times, but that’s far removed from deliberate price manipulation. Only a few traders conspiring together make manipulation possible and US commodity law recognizes that. That’s why the CFTC monitors and publishes concentration data. Of course, monitoring and publishing are different from preventing manipulation or busting it up when it exists.

The concept of preventing concentration is common in the body of all antitrust and anti-monopoly law and, in fact, is the basis for such law. And while simple in concept, it takes some effort to grasp why the concentrated short position is at the center of the silver manipulation.

In my case, the lightbulb that went off in my head when I first uncovered the COMEX silver manipulation 30 years ago had to do with the size of the total open interest in COMEX silver being so out of whack with all other commodities in terms of world production. It was years later, in the mid-1990’s, that I uncovered that the key feature was not just the size of the open interest, but in how few in number were the traders who were short. That’s the key and because I began to press the CFTC on the specific issue of concentration on the short side of COMEX silver, this is what led to greatest lie in the history of market regulation.

Because the issue of concentration is at the core of market regulation, whenever I wrote to the agency about the matter, particularly if great numbers of readers joined in, the CFTC was, in essence, forced to respond. In fact, not only did the agency respond to my concerns about the short side concentration in COMEX silver on more than one occasion, it also did so in public releases, both in May of 2004 and 2008 in separate 15 page letters. Of course, the CFTC vehemently denied on both occasions that there was any manipulation as a result of a short side concentration in COMEX silver futures.

Far from resolving the matter, the issue of concentration has never been more important than it is today, because the concentrated short position in silver (and gold) has never been larger than it is currently. But let me deal with the greatest lie ever first. In the 2008 public letter, the CFTC lied through its teeth. It took me a year and a half to uncover the lie because there was not sufficient data available to know that at the time. I try to avoid+ incessant linking to past articles, but this one won’t take very long. (Embedded in the article is the link to the CFTC’s 2008 public letter).

http://www.investmentrarities.com/ted_butler_comentary12-21-09.shtml

Let me summarize what the CFTC wrote and why it was a lie. The subject of the letter was the activity of large short traders in COMEX silver and the agency took great pains to dismiss any and all concerns of a short concentration causing any price manipulation or potential clearing failure. But check the timeline and the facts as we all have come to know them to be. The CFTC’s letter was dated May 13, 2008, nearly two months after Bear Stearns, who we now know was the largest concentrated short in COMEX silver and gold, went under, with its massive concentrated short position passed along to JPMorgan at the urging of banking authorities.

There is much more at the link above...

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