QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Some people say you will not admit markets are manipulated all the time. Yet you stood up and had all the evidence that would have damned the whole lot of the New York bankers for manipulating markets. This is very confusing how you can be against them in public yet people claim you refuse to admit the markets are manipulated all the time between the central banks and the New York bankers. Can you shed any light on this paradox?
ANSWER: I am a student of markets. I do not make up bullshit. I am of the school of Adam Smith – assume nothing – prove everything. Claiming markets are manipulated all the time is impossible. Marx tried that with communism and the free markets still won. This claim is merely a cop-out for admitting someone does not understand how markets function. Sure the banks manipulate markets individually. They cannot and do not do this systemically. Even in LIBOR they rig the game to make consistent profits but that does not mean they are capable of manipulating the entire trend. Even the central banks can control short-term rates within a trend but not long-term. This is why they then buy in long-term paper trying to INFLUENCE the long-term – they cannot dictate the price or trend. They have no direct power over markets. They can suppress the short-term like communism but the free markets will blow them out of the water when the Sovereign Debt Crisis hits. Why people put out this bullshit is amazing for if it was true then why buy gold at all for the system cannot ever collapse if it is all perfectly manipulated. This is just total gibberish from people who have ZERO experience inside the markets or behind the curtain. I had more than half the equivalent of the US National Debt under contract for advisory. I think I saw things no analysts has ever dreamed of no less understood. These people make up stuff to hide their inexperience – plain and simple. The banks told the government I manipulated the world economy BECAUSE they lost every time from Orange County, Solomon’s manipulation of US Treasury Auctions to the DOT.COM bubble and the 2007 Real Estate crisis. They ALWAYS blow up every time and run to government to get bailed out. How is this someone who manipulates the markets everyday? They should never fail if true.
You get mislead people swearing gold will rally to $10,000-$30,000 any day and when it falls out of bed they blame manipulation for being wrong. If the markets are manipulated ever day, then why trade against the trend using theories that purport the world will collapse any day? This is the real paradox to me. How can you say buy gold and when you are wrong you do not admit the mistake but blame manipulation? If it is manipulated then why tell people to buy something that can never rise?
We always tracked manipulations. I knew ABSOLUTELY every single one they did. We monitored the manipulations very carefully. The various manipulators hated my guts just like the goldbugs who will not listen. They tried to get me to join them figuring that when they lost it was because I had more followers than they did and therein started the allegation of manipulating the world economy that I had to defend against a subpoena from the CFTC demanding I turn over all names of clients worldwide so they could prove I was more powerful that the banks they protect. I defeated them in court. My lawyer at the time Chris Lovel stood up and told the judge even if I did manipulate the world, where was the law that said I could not no less how was it the domain of the CFTC?
I have written that written publicly that first PhiBro silver manipulation took place in 1993. The client was Warren Buffet. The CFTC went to PhiBro demanding to know who they were buying silver for. PhiBro refused to give up Buffet’s name. The CFTC would have thrown anyone else in jail and out of business. The CFTC is owned by the big players and is corrupt as hell right to the core. The CFTC simply said ok, no name, then exist the trade. No fines – jail – sanctions for that manipulations.
PhiBro and the “club” desperately tried to get me to join the second silver manipulation with Buffet. I have written about this stating publicly that PhiBro’s brokers walked across the COMEX pit and showed my floor brokers (Emerald Trading) Buffet’s orders and told me to join. They knew I would never trust these people for how would I know I was not the patsy to buy and they would use a another seller. I would never join them. Hence, PhiBro showed me the orders to convince me to join.
I then reported to our clients “they are back” knowing it was Buffet and PhiBro for a second time. They all got pissed-off at me even though I never mentioned names. The buying of silver was done in London. Therefore, they moved silver out of COMEX warehouses in USA and shipped the supply to London to pretend there was a shortage to justify the manipulation. The Wall Street Journal assisted in the rally.
The manipulators were steering the Buffet buying to London to avoid the 1993 problem with the CFTC. This is why AIG trading arm also set up in London. Buying silver in London justified moving it from the NY COMEX and this allowed them to get the manipulation going. COMEX supplies were reported in isolation. Moving the silver to London created the false image of a shortage to justify the higher prices. The Wall Street Journal was used to plant the story. On September 30th 1997 the stories appeared in headlines – “Silver Prices Hit Six-Month High On Steadily Declining Reserves, By PALLAVI GOGOI AP-Dow Jones News Service Updated Sept. 30, 1997 12:01 a.m. ET NEW YORK — Silver futures surged to a six-month high at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, a move analysts said was triggered by steadily declining warehouse stocks. The rally was boosted by preplaced purchase orders around the $5-per-ounce level…” This was the news created for the manipulation that was constantly played out in the newspapers. The Wall Street Journal again reported on November 17, 1997, “Silver Futures Prices Leap On Hints of Tight Supplies”, and again on December 4, 1997 the Wall Street Journal from London reported “Silver Surges on Strength In Supply-Demand Status By NEIL BEHRMANN Special to The Wall Street Journal Updated Dec. 5, 1997 12:01 a.m. ET LONDON — Gold may be in the doghouse, but silver is soaring like a bird”. The reporting of shortages continued to fuel the rally. The Wall Street Journal reported again December 24, 1997 for the manipulators “Silver Futures Advance As Inventories Plunge”
The interesting point is the manipulators know that if they rally the metals, the retail goldbugs rush in and buy proclaiming its the bull market every time. The manipulators then routinely turn around and sell to goldbugs at the top and the markets crash. This has become standard procedure protected by the CFTC and the goldbugs buy the high every single time without fail.
The “cluib” was pissed-off that I would not join and I warned my clients they were back manipulating silver. A pretend analyst on the payroll I believe of PhiBro got a journalist from the Wall Street Journal to try to discredit me. The fake analyst told the WSJ I was short silver and trying to talk it down. The journalist accused me of this nonsense and we argued on the phone. It got quite heated and frankly I was not retail so could care less what they printed. My clients were the real deal who all knew the truth about journalism and how it was just a pawn of the “club”. In fact, my clients did not ever want me to give interviews about market forecasting to the press for their view was hey – we pay for that info.
Nevertheless, the WSJ journalist kept arrogantly taunting me and said if silver was being manipulated, then give him the name so I said fine, go ahead, let me see you print it, knowing he never would print Warren Buffet the saint of Wall Street – thanks to the press. The name I gave him was Warren Buffet. He laughed. Told me everyone knew Buffet did not trade commodities I told him that was how much he knew.
The Wall Street Journal published the article. The London newspapers were fed stories by the “Club” that I was now the largest silver trader in the world. This became all a joke to me. It demonstrated how bad the press really was. They were the pawns of the manipulators and probably didn’t even know it.
The mistake made by the “Club” by turning out the press against me, was they actually created such a worldwide story that silver was being manipulated the CFTC was forced to call me – it was public now and they had no choice. They knew I was not the source of the manipulation. Even the CFTC could look at positions and knew I was not the biggest player in silver. The CFTC then asked me, where was the manipulation taking place? I told them it was in London, out of their jurisdiction. The CFTC told me that they could pick up the phone and investigate London. I told them that they had to make that clear decision. I hung up. Never did I expect that they would really do anything. Yet, they never asked me who because the question was jurisdiction.
A few hours later, my phone rang. It was a good source in London who also was helping to monitor the “Club” actions. He told me that the Bank of England had called an immediate meeting of all silver brokers in London in the morning. I was shocked. The CFTC had made the call. But then again, I had given them no names so perhaps in their mind, this was fair game.
Within the hour, Warren Buffet made a press announcement. He admitted he had purchased $1 billion worth of silver, in London . He denied he was “manipulating” the market. Claimed the silver was a long – term investment. Everyone was shocked that Buffet was suddenly exposed as a commodity trader after all. The very next day the Wall Street Journal called me. The writer asked – “How did you know?” I told him it was my job to know! Silver thereafter declined and made new lows going into 1999. So much for Buffet’s long-term investment since he sold out.
When one trader from New York joined our firm, he called Goldman Sachs to ask about us. He has publicly stated on the record that their response was they had butted heads with me many times but I usually won.
Exposing the silver manipulation trying to turn the press against me was a huge mistake. The CFTC would have never called the Bank of England just because I reported the manipulation to our clients. That was private. Exposing the issue in the press forced them to respond. My brokers on the floor were Emerald Trading. I routinely traded AGAINST the manipulators and defeated them many times. Just as the goldbugs do not like me, neither do the manipulators and it far too often seemed to coincide when they were trying to goose the metals markets UP – not down. Contrary to the bullshit, they need people to BUY the metals to create a pool of longs to bury. They are NOT interested in forcing a metal down to compel people to sell for goldbugs are notoriously stubborn. That is not very profitable for they want the emotional traders who buy highs. Of course the goldbugs will say I am wrong but have never been in the same circles and some of them I question if they are not the people paid on the side by the manipulators.
There have been major manipulations of markets such as rhodium and then there was the manipulation of Platinum. I had recorded tapes and tons of documents on every manipulation. This was all seized by the court and I stood up instructing the court that these tapes Alan Cohen was demanding involved criminal activity on the part of the banks. I had it all for years. Alan Cohen then was made a board member of Goldman Sachs yet still remained as the court appointed person to run Princeton Economics. That is totally illegal and a conflict of interest. Law does not matter in New York City. (see Transcripts below).
To say I will not admit markets are manipulated is absurd. To claim they are always manipulated is impossible. Yet the real paradox is when the metals rally, they never seem to be manipulated – those are always “real” bull markets and the failures are the manipulations. Great propaganda! Amazingly, the metals are unique, They become manipulated only when they decline.
Not even the central banks can manipulate everything. Sure people try. But not everything. They target one market and go after that. The central banks have been trying to manage the economy to eliminate recessions. They have never succeeded even once. The central bankers know this is a confidence game just as the market manipulators. You NEED the public to move a trend. They cannot do it alone. If they were all-powerful, then Bretton Woods would never have collapsed.
There is a huge difference from a short-term manipulation within the trend, like the Buffet silver move, and a systemic every day manipulation that produces no big windfalls. Where is the PROOF of systemic manipulation? I have never seen any evidence of that – EVER. It is just nonsense.
