Ignoring years of silver price manipulation, Orwellian CFTC now goes after Reddit Apes
Ronan Manly, Bullion Star, 04 March 2021
On Monday 1 March, an article in Bloomberg Law by CFTC connected lawyers from law firm Clifford Chance revealed that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is reportedly investigating retail silver trader activity in the silver price and that the US Department of Justice looks set to investigate as well.
Before looking at this shocker of an Orwellian development, it’s helpful to provide some context on the CFTC’s track behavior in this area and to show how hypocritical such a development would be.
Rewinding exactly one month previously to Monday 1 February, as the spot price of silver rallied to an 8-year high of just under US$ 30 per troy ounce amid heightened retail interest and the emergence of the #SilverSqueeze, it was predictable that the establishment on Wall Street and in Washington DC, an establishment with a collective vested interest in a low and suppressed silver price, would feel the heat and attempt to counteract the rally.
On the regulator front, this was demonstrated by none other than the US Government’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), whose acting Chairman Rostin “Russ” Behnam, released an unprecedented statement, actually on 01 February, saying that:
“The CFTC is closely monitoring recent activity in the silver markets. The Commission is communicating with fellow regulators, the exchanges, and stakeholders to address any potential threats to the integrity of the derivatives markets for silver, and remains vigilant in surveilling these markets for fraud and manipulation.”
Although a short statement from the CFTC, it signaled panic, panic on Wall Street and in Washington, that a #SilverSqueeze triggered demand surge in physical silver could pressure the supply side and thus trigger the collapse of the gigantic ongoing paper silver trading charade.
