Barclays Fined For Manipulating Price Of Gold For A Decade; Sending "Bursts" Of Sell Orders

Barclays Fined For Manipulating Price Of Gold For A Decade; Sending "Bursts" Of Sell Orders

Posted by Charleston Voice

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/23/2014 06:56 -0400

It was almost inevitable: a week after we wrote "From Rothschild To Koch Industries: Meet The People Who "Fix" The Price Of Gold" and days after "Barclays' Head Of Gold Trading, And Gold "Fixer", Is Leaving The Bank", earlier today the UK Financial Conduct Authority finally formalized what most in the "tin-foil" hat community had known for years, when it announced that it fined Barclays £26 million for manipulating "the setting of the price of gold in order to avoid paying out on a client order." Furthermore, the FCA confirmed that those inexplicable gold raids which come as if out of nowhere, and slam gold with a vicious force so strong sometime they halt the entire market, had a very specific source: Barclays, whose trader Daniel James Plunkett, born 1976, "sent out a burst of orders aimed at moving the price of the yellow metal."

This took place for a decade. As the FT reports:

The FCA said Barclays had failed to "adequately manage conflicts of interest between itself and its customers as well as systems and controls failings, in relation to the gold fixing" between 2004 and 2013.

Some further details on Plunkett's preferred means of manipulating the gold price.

The FCA said Mr Plunkett had manipulated the market by placing, withdrawing and re-placing a large sell order for between 40,000 oz and 60,000 oz of gold bars.

He did this in an attempt to pull off a "mini puke", which the FCA took to mean a sharp fall in the price of gold. As a result, the bank was not obliged to make a $3.9m payment to the customer under an option contract.

Which is precisely what we have shown many times here for example in "Vicious Gold Slamdown Breaks Gold Market For 20 Seconds", when a sell order so aggressive comes in it not only takes out the entire bid stack with an intent not for "best execution" but solely to reprice the market lower. Recall from September:

There was a time when, if selling a sizable amount of a security, one tried to get the best execution price and not alert the buyers comprising the bid stack that there is (substantial) volume for sale. Of course, there was and always has been a time when one tried to manipulate prices by slamming the bid until it was fully taken out, usually just before close of trading, an illegal practice known as "banging the close." It appears that when it comes to gold, the former is long gone history, and the latter is perfectly legal. As the two charts below from Nanex demonstrate, overnight just before 3 am Eastern, a block of just 2000 GC gold futures contracts slammed the price of gold, on no news as usual, sending it lower by $10/oz. However, that is not new: such slamdowns happen every day in the gold market, and the CFTC constantly turns a blind eye. What was different about last night's slam however, is that this time whoever was doing the forced, manipulation selling, just happened to also break the market. Indeed: following the hit, the entire gold market was NASDARKed for 20 seconds after a circuit breaker halted trading!

To summarize: a humble block of 2000 gold futs (GC) taking out the bid stack, and slamming the price of gold, managed to halt the gold market: one of the largest "asset" markets in the world in terms of total notional, for 20 seconds.

And Mr. Plunkett in action:

To be sure Barclays was truly sorry, and pinky swears that having been caught manipulating the gold market for ten years it will never do it again:

The news is also a fresh blow to Barclays' chief executive Antony Jenkins as he tries to overhaul the culture of the London-based lender. Mr Jenkins took over 18 months ago after his predecessor, Bob Diamond, stepped down amid the Libor scandal.

Analysts said the fine reflected badly on the industry – as well as the hard-charging, revenue-focused business model that Barclays had previously been operating.

Mr Jenkins said in a statement on Friday: "We very much regret the situation that led to this settlement . . . These situations strengthen our resolve to improve." The bank discovered the misconduct after the client complained. It then reported the incident to the regulator, for which it received a 30 per cent discount on its fine for co-operation.

Ian Gordon, analyst at Investec, said that in pure financial terms, the fine was "utterly inconsequential, both in a group context, and in relation to the quantum of other conduct costs". He was referring specifically to the bank's provisions for the mis-selling of payment protection insurance and interest rate hedging products.

So a wrist slap, we get that. One wouldn't expect more - after all the banks run the show.  And yet, one wonders: is this just a case of "Fab Tourre-ing" the scandal, and redirecting all attention to just one (preferably junior) person? To be sure, this one trader made handsome profits from gold manipulation...

Mr Plunkett boosted his trading book by $1.8m at the expense of a customer, who was later compensated. He has now been banned from "performing any function in relation to any regulated activity" and fined £95,600. At the time, Barclays was one of five banks that set the price of the precious metal twice a day. Tracey McDermott, the FCA's director of enforcement and financial crime, said: "A firm's lack of controls and a trader's disregard for a customer's interests have allowed the financial services industry's reputation to be sullied again."

... but is this just an attempt by the FCA to pass this off as the proverbial "only cockroach", especially when as we reported earlier this week, none other than Barclays head of trading Marc Booker quietly left dodge?

The speculation is further heightened when one considers that Plunkett had left Barclays nearly two years ago in October 2012! According to his FCA record:

Prior to Barclays Plunkett worked as a lowly junior trader at Dresdner and RBC - and this is the a manipulation mastermind? Further, considering the FCA found failures at Barclays starting in 2004 and Plunkett only joined in 2006, can the FCA please disclose who else was the frontman for gold manipulation at Barclays in the 2004-2006 period? READ MORE…

Related Posts

• Barclays Fined For Manipulating Price Of Gold For A Decade; Sending "Bursts" Of Sell Orders
• How to Debit Card with Bitcoin
• The Detroit Model: Permanent Rule by the Banks...to Circumvent Public Voting
• The History Of The London Silver Market Since 1600
• Lessons from the Great Austrian Inflation: You Need to Know Where We've Been - to Know Where You're Going

IRS Delays New Rules for Dark Money Groups

Published on Saturday, May 24, 2014 by ProPublica

IRS Delays New Rules for Dark Money Groups

The agency has pushed back indefinitely a hearing on new regulations for social welfare nonprofits that spend money on politics.

by Theodoric Meyer

(Photo: Light Brigading/ Creative Commons)After intense criticism from both ends of the political spectrum, the Internal Revenue Service has delayed indefinitely proposed rules that would have imposed new limits on social welfare nonprofits, which have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars from anonymous donors into recent elections.

The agency said yesterday it would postpone a hearing on the proposal it released in November defining more clearly what constitutes political activity for such groups, and would revise the plan to reflect some of the more than 150,000 comments it triggered.

Officials put no timeline on the process, disappointing those who had hoped the new regulations might kick in before this year's mid-term elections.

"I think it's unfortunate that new rules will be delayed even further and that we're going through another election cycle" without them, said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel with the Campaign Legal Center.

Others called the delay a prudent step that would give the IRS an opportunity to get a crucial change right.

"They're not going to put out some slapdash rule just to check it off their list," said John Pomeranz, a Washington lawyer who works with nonprofits that spend money on politics. He doesn’t expect the agency to finish the rules any time soon. “I think we’ll be lucky if they’re in place for the 2016 election.”

Social welfare nonprofits have poured money into politics since the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010, which allowed corporations, unions and nonprofits to spend unlimited money on elections.

Social welfare nonprofits spent more than $256 million in the 2012 cycle alone, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Campaign finance watchdogs have viewed their rise with concern, fearing the influence of so-called "dark" money from secret donors, and had called for more oversight from the IRS.

Under IRS regulations, the groups can spend some of their resources on politics, but must devote themselves mostly to social welfare to keep their nonprofit status. But the rules defining what is and isn't politics are murky.

Late last year, the IRS moved to clarify the issue, but its proposal came under fire from both the left and the right.

Conservatives complained that the rules would stifle political speech. The American Civil Liberties Union chafed at a provision in the proposed rules that would prevent nonprofits from backing ads that even mentioned politicians in the two months before a general election.

"We have no doubt that the Service is acting with the best of intentions, but the proposed rule threatens to discourage or sterilize an enormous amount of political discourse in America," the ACLU said in its written response to the proposal.

The plan was also criticized for impeding nonpartisan election work such as voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote efforts.

The IRS, still facing fallout from accusations that it singled out the applications of conservative nonprofits for special scrutiny in the run-up to the 2012 election, decided it would make revisions.

"Given the diversity of views expressed and the volume of substantive input, we have concluded that it would be more efficient and useful to hold a public hearing after we publish the revised proposed regulation," the agency said in statement.

Millions Worldwide March Against Monsanto

Published on Saturday, May 24, 2014 by Common Dreams

Dr. Vandana Shiva: "We did not choose to target Monsanto. Monsanto chose to target our seed and food freedom, our scientific and democratic institutions, our very lives."

- Lauren McCauley, staff writer

Marchers in Durban, South Africa. (Photo: @Revonews/ Twitter)"It's time to take back our food!" was the cry as people in 52 countries worldwide took to the streets in a global day of action on Saturday against chemical behemoth Monsanto.

The third annual March Against Monsanto (MAM) is slated to be the biggest yet, according to movement founder Tami Canal, with millions of people in over 400 cities expected to take part.

“From Agent Orange to Monsanto’s pending patents directly affiliated with weather modification to the gross government corruption, MAM has evolved to expose all the insidious tentacles that Monsanto possesses,” said Canal in an interview with Anti-Media.

Across social media, protesters shared images from demonstrations around the world where people called for the permanent boycott of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and other harmful agro-chemicals.

"People often ask me 'Why Monsanto?'" wrote food justice advocate Dr. Vandana Shiva in a statement on the March. "My response is, we did not choose to target Monsanto. Monsanto chose to target our seed and food freedom, our scientific and democratic institutions, our very lives."

"Monsanto wants superprofits through total control over nature and humanity," Shiva continued.

"The greed and violence of one corporation cannot be allowed to destroy life on Earth, the lives of our farmers, the lives of our children," Shiva added. "That is why we March Against Monsanto."

Citing recent successes such as a ban on GMO cultivation in two Oregon counties and thepassage of a GMO labeling initiative in Vermont, Canal said the movement has already seen a number of "positives" this year, where people "truly battled the Goliath biotech industry and overcame the odds and financial power of companies like Monsanto."

Though GMOs have been at least partially banned in over 15 countries and must be labelled in 62 countries, according to MAM organizers, food safety advocates face an uphill battle in the U.S.

"The revolving door between Monsanto employees, government positions, and regulatory authorities has led to key Monsanto figures occupying positions of power at the FDA and EPA," the group writes in their call to action.

A list of all March Against Monsanto demonstrations can be found here.

Report: Hillary Clinton is Scared of Trey Gowdy's Investigation

Report: Hillary Clinton is Scared of Trey Gowdy's Investigation

Report: Hillary Clinton is Scared of Trey Gowdy's Investigation.

Report: Hillary Clinton is Scared of Trey Gowdy’s Investigation

When it comes to the Benghazi terrorist attack, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should bear most of the blame.  She is the one responsible for cuttingsecurity at the compound, refusing the requests for more security, and then hiring a radical Islamic militia to help guard the compound.

After the attack, even while it was still on-going, Hillary was the first to lie about the cause of the attack.  She then deliberately continued to lie about the attack being the result of a protest over a video, when she knew right away that it was instead a planned and coordinated terrorist attack.

Now with the formation of the Benghazi Select Committee, which has overwhelmingsupport from the American people, it is looking a little more likely that those responsible for the attack will finally be held accountable.  Trey Gowdy, Chair of the Benghazi Committee, has promised to use his subpoena power to question and depose Hillary Clinton, compelling her to testify under oath.

Follow Conservative Tribune

Gowdy’s Benghazi Committee has Hillary Clinton and her team of advisers worried that their coverup will finally fall apart.  Now that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has finally appointed five Democrats to fill out the rest of the Benghazi Committee, there is speculation that Clinton’s team may have had a hand in picking those Democrats committee members, in order to help her out during testimony.

(H/T American Thinker)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) publicly considered boycotting the panel, an idea that Clinton supporters feared would leave the potential 2016 candidate exposed to the enemy fire of House Republicans.So Clinton emissaries launched a back channel campaign, contacting several House Democratic lawmakers and aides to say they’d prefer Democrats participate, according to sources familiar with the conversations. Pelosi’s staff said they have not heard from Clinton’s camp.

“Republicans are making it clear they plan to use the power of the Benghazi Select Committee to continue to politicize the tragedy that occurred in Benghazi, which is exactly why Democratic participation in the committee is vital,” a Democrat close to Clinton world said. “Inevitably, witnesses ranging from Secretary Clinton to Secretary [John] Kerry will be subpoenaed to testify, and the Democrats appointed to the committee will help restore a level of sanity to the hearings, which would otherwise exist solely as a political witch hunt.”

Hillary is worried because she knows she’s vulnerable to harsh criticism for her non-action inthe diplomatic compound in Benghazi prior to the attack. She had her own Commission – the Pickering whitewash, that placed the entire blame for the tragedy on a couple of low level State Department flunkies who weren’t even fired – absolve her of any incompetence and wrongdoing.

Now, Congress is going to look at things for real and her team is rightly scared. And unlike the Pickering Commission, Hillary is likely to testify.

As stated before, Hillary Clinton is the one that is most responsible for what happened in Benghazi, and she knows it.  Eventually, she will have to come before Trey Gowdy and his committee, and face some tough questioning that will likely break through the coverup and reveal the truth and the lies for what they are.

Hillary Clinton has already lied to Congress in her previous appearance before a committee.  For that, she should also be held accountable, and prosecuted for her lies, something any of us would be prosecuted for if we did it.

Once the truth is finally revealed, it should be the stake in the heart of any Presidential aspirations Hillary may still be entertaining.  Benghazi is just the latest in a long list of reasons why Hillary Clinton must never become the President of these United States.

 

Judge Jeanine: What would we do if the lights went out?

 

Vulnerability of the U.S. power grid

Judge Jeanine: What would we do if the lights went out?
Sun, 23 Feb 2014 18:25:26 GMT

Report: 25% of Americans saving $0 for retirement

 

(NBC NEWS) Retirement savings for about a quarter of Americans amounts to … $0.

One out of every four Americans is not saving for retirement at all, either because they are not thinking about it, do not really know how, or worse, do not feel they can afford to, according to a report by Country Financial.

Americans between the ages of 18-29, often called “millennials“, are among the worst when it comes to saving for retirement, the firm said. A full 32 percent of them aren’t saving at all for their “golden years.”

Report: 25% of Americans saving $0 for retirement
-NO AUTHOR-
Fri, 23 May 2014 19:43:24 GMT

Pelosi drops brand-new whopper with VA blame

 

WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is blaming former President George W. Bush for the Veterans Administration scandal, but, according to the VA’s own numbers, she has the facts wrong.

Pelosi never mentioned Bush by name at a press briefing Thursday, but she left no doubt as to whom she was talking about.

She referred to “the ramifications of some seeds that were sown a long time ago, when you have two wars over a long period of time and many, many more, millions more veterans.”

Pelosi then blamed the VA scandal on an increase in veterans due to recent wars.

“[W]e go in a war in Afghanistan, leave Afghanistan for Iraq with unfinished business in Afghanistan. Ten years later, we have all of these additional veterans. In the past five years, two million more veterans needing benefits from the VA. That’s a huge, huge increase.”

Actually, according to government statistics, there are far fewer veterans in the VA.

According to the VA, the number of vets declined by 4.3 million from 2000 to 2013.

Democrats such as Pelosi claim more money is the solution.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said, “If the VA does not have enough doctors to see these patients, then these problems are a result of a lack of funding.”

But spending on the VA actually tripled from 2010 to 2013.

John Merline at Investor’s Business Daily crunched the numbers and found the VA’s budget has been exploding, even as the number of veterans steadily declines.

Even more telling, wounded warriors coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are not increasing treatment costs.

Those vets are actually far cheaper to treat than aging vets.

In fact, the costs of treating veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is almost half of what it cost to treat other vets.

A Congressional Budget Office report found that the younger vets cost $4,800, on average, in 2010 compared with $8,800 for other veterans who used the system.

It also found, while the Iraq and Afghan vets account for 7 percent of patients treated, they were responsible for only 4 percent of health costs.

Iraq and Afghan vets, the report found, “are typically younger and healthier than the average VHA patient and as a result are less expensive to treat.”

A problem that Democrats such as Pelosi face in trying to blame Bush for the scandal is Obama’s long history of declaring the VA needed fixing and claiming he was working on the problems.

In a 2007 speech, then-Sen. Obama said: “Keeping faith with those who serve must always be a core American value and a cornerstone of American patriotism. Because America’s commitment to its servicemen and women begins at enlistment, and it must never end.”

During his transition into the White House in 2008-09, Obama even proposed in his “Obama-Biden” plan to “make the VA a leader of national health care reform so that veterans get the best care possible.”

Obama was also warned of severe problems at the VA repeatedly over the years, even before he became president.

• WND discovered that Obama was briefed on problems at the VA as far back as 2005, when he was a senator and a member of the Veterans Affairs committee.

• The Washington Times reported Monday that the Obama administration received notice more than five years ago that VA medical facilities were reporting inaccurate waiting times and experiencing scheduling failures that threatened to deny veterans timely health care.

• VA officials reportedly warned the Obama-Biden transition team in the weeks after the 2008 presidential election that the wait times the facilities were reporting were not trustworthy.

• More recently, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., wrote a letter to Obama on May 21, 2013, that warned of “an alarming pattern of serious and significant patient care issues at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMCs) across the country … (including) failures, deceptions, and lack of accountability permeating VA’s healthcare system. Miller concluded: “I believe your direct involvement and leadership is required.”

• WND reported last week that Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., reminded VA Secretary Eric Shinseki that Congress had been informed two years ago that gaming the system at the VA was so widespread, employees would look to get around regulations as soon as the rules were implemented.

Pelosi even had the temerity to suggest Obamacare might be the key to fixing the VA scandal, stating, “We have the Affordable Care Act that is out there that is providing resources for more federally-qualified health clinics around the country.”

Critics such as Rush Limbaugh have pointed out just the opposite, warning that the immense problems with government-run healthcare at the VA are a preview of such horrors as death panels under the Affordable Care Act.

Similarly, John Fund wrote in National Review that the VA scandal was “a warning sign of what could happen as the pressure to ration, inherent in all government-managed health care, is applied to the general population.”

However, Pelosi did make a suggestion favored by advocates of free-market reforms of the health-care system.

She implied it might be better to treat vets in private clinics rather than at VA facilities.

“Maybe we should take a look at how we deal with our veterans’ needs in a way that says let’s help them closer to home, whether that’s a federally qualified health clinic or in some other institution that provides health care closer to home. [It's] especially important for our veterans who live in rural areas.”

Many Republican critics have said recently that having the federal government provide vouchers to allow vets to see private doctors would be a humane way to get them help and an efficient method to deal with the tremendous backlog in the VA system.

When Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., floated the idea, even the editorial board of his home-state paper, the left-of-center Arizona Republic, said “that might make sense.”

In the video below, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., who served as a physician at the prestigious Johns Hopkins Hospital and as a medical officer in the Naval Reserve, makes the case for health-care vouchers so vets can opt out of the VA health system, calling it “the real free-market solution for helping our veterans.”

Follow Garth Kant on Twitter @DCgarth

Pelosi drops brand-new whopper with VA blame
Garth Kant
Fri, 23 May 2014 21:01:59 GMT

Mortar round kills dozens of Assad supporters at rally

 

(Los Angeles Times) Anti-government rebels lobbed a mortar shell at a campaign rally supporting President Bashar Assad in southern Syria on Friday, killing several dozen people and wounding many others, according to state media and opposition sources.

The attack heightened fears of escalating violence in pro-regime areas as the June 3 election approaches.

The Syrian state news agency SANA said the mortar shell struck a tent full of Assad’s supporters in the border city of Daraa early Friday morning. The agency blamed “armed terrorist groups,” a term the Syrian government uses to describe opposition fighters.

Mortar round kills dozens of Assad supporters at rally
-NO AUTHOR-
Fri, 23 May 2014 21:50:01 GMT

Who gave the U.S. gov’t permission to control the ionosphere in the first place?

 

(Truthstream Media) Yes, HAARP — the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program — can be used to manipulate the weather… …but even though the actual HAARP patent itself — “Weather modification is possible by, for example, altering upper atmosphere wind patterns or altering solar absorption patterns by constructing one or more plumes of atmospheric particles […]

Who gave the U.S. gov’t permission to control the ionosphere in the first place?
Melissa Melton
Thu, 22 May 2014 04:05:49 GMT

Taking on the Divide and Conquer Keeping Humanity Down

 

Joe Joseph welcomes Tempest Harbor, Kev Baker, and Marty of the Kev Baker show to discuss all of the divide and conquer tactics that are employed to keep humanity fighting amongst each.

website: thefreedomlink.net

Taking on the Divide and Conquer Keeping Humanity Down
freedomlink
Sat, 24 May 2014 02:00:00 GMT