Money and Metals

An analyst at Silver Seek has this column the silver ETF. "I started writing on the Internet, almost ten years ago, about a financial practice, precious metals leasing and forward selling, that I labeled as being as dumb as dirt. In addition to being dumb, the practice, which involved the dumping of huge quantities of physical gold and silver on the market under the guise of legitimate hedging, was also manipulative to prices."

"With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to see that the practice had a pronounced influence on the price of gold and silver, first pushing prices to historic low points and then allowing prices to rise when the dumping stopped. The practice was as manipulative as it gets."

"What made this leasing/forward selling so dumb? Well, in the case of the mining companies which participated, like Barrick Gold, Placer Dome and AngloGold, in addition to initially lowering the price of what they produced, it left them in the position of being liable for potentially hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in losses if the price of gold rose high enough. Which is precisely what happened."

"To this day, billions of dollars of open losses from these stupid forward sales still haunt these companies. The managements responsible for loss of shareholder wealth should be drawn and quartered. I genuinely believed that the rocket scientists on Wall Street had hit the peak of stupidity when they concocted precious metals leasing/forward selling. I have come to realize that I was wrong. They’ve actually come up with something dumber."

"This proposed silver ETF, as well as any ETF on any commodity, is as dumb as a bag of rocks. Sure, it will make the price explode, and precisely for that aspect virtually all silver investors, including me, look upon it favorably. Suddenly take away a big chunk of any commodity’s supply and there will be a big impact on price. That’s elementary. But there is more to the story than that."

"My main objection with commodity ETFs is that, in addition to artificially altering supply and demand, they turn legitimate commodity law and regulation on its head. The main thrust of commodity law is to prevent concentrated speculative buying and selling from artificially influencing prices. This primary premise and intent of commodity law is obliterated by the concentrated buying (and selling someday) that a commodity ETF insures."

"One of the most basic tools that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) employs to safeguard against manipulation is its Large Trader Reporting Program. This program mandates that traders must report their trades and any affiliated trades in every commodity over a certain number of contracts. In the existing gold ETFs, as well as the proposed silver ETF, there are no reporting or disclosure requirements. Any entity could hold as many equivalent ounces of metal in an ETF, whether ten times or a hundred times Large Trader Reprting levels, and effectively evade any and all disclosure requirements. Additionally, there is zero protection against entities banding together for the express purpose of manipulation."

"I know, perhaps better than anyone, that silver prices have been manipulated for a very long time. But I don’t think two wrongs make it permissible to overcome one manipulation with another. The silver manipulation will end. I question if the means justifies the end, if it involves a different manipulation. What I am taken back about is the lack of free market voices who will proclaim the commodity ETFs to be just what they are, gimmicks and devices that facilitate concentrated buying and selling and manipulation. Sure the ETFs make it easy to buy and hold metals, where they couldn’t be bought before. They also make it easier to evade commodity law and manipulate the price. Is this the government’s intent?"

"I realize that the regulatory authorities are in a serious bind. If they approve the silver ETF and it causes disorderly prices, they will be damned. If they reject the silver ETF, they will face scrutiny on why they allowed the gold ETFs. The reason they are in such a bind is because the very concept of a commodity ETF is seriously flawed. Barclays and others did not think them through completely. No matter what actually transpires, I think we will look back on this whole issue of commodity ETFs as being ill conceived."