Rickards: 'Unallocated Gold Is a Euphemism for No Gold.'

I think that Rickards is correct in his judgement, and joins many others including Kyle Bass, who because of their backgrounds are much harder to ridicule and dismiss by the creatures of the bullion banks.  And in some of their more recent remarks about this, one can almost feel the desperation.  And here and there, the rats seem to be leaving the ship.

When this pyramiding of bullion and price manipulation falls apart, which history suggests that it must, there will be many angry investors demanding explanations of officials and regulators and bankers who will be shuffling from one foot to another, trying to excuse their lack of good fiduciary judgement and responsibility.

I just wonder if they will try to wait for some 'big event' to disclose this, in the hopes that fewer questions will be asked, and will be more easily dismissed.

As Rickards notes, and again I think he is right, they will 'close the gold trading window' and force settlements for cash at one price, and then reopen the price for actual bullion at a price that will climb  shockingly higher, despite a determined PR campaign by their friends in the media.

Perhaps I am wrong about this, but to me it has seemed for some time to be all too similar to the improbable sustainability of the Madoff scheme, and other such arrangements that depend on large numbers of people accepting a proposition that is dangerously misconstructed, misrepresented, and therefore mispriced in terms of risks.

"If JP Morgan leases gold from the US Treasury it does not mean that they back up a truck in Fort Knox and drive the gold away. There is no need for that. It is just a paper transaction. The gold can sit in Fort Knox. JP Morgan can take a hypothecatable title. Now once JP Morgan has the gold what they do is they sell it at times 100 to gold investors who think they have gold but what they really have is what is called unallocated gold.

Unallocated gold is a euphemism for no gold. If I call up JP Morgan and I say, 'You know I wanna buy a million dollars worth of gold,' they will say, 'Fine. Here is our contract. Send us the million dollars.' I sign the contract. I send the million dollars. They send me a confirmation and it says I own a million dollars worth of gold subject to the contract.

Well, read the fine print in the contract. What it says is your gold is unallocated which means that they do not claim to have any specific bar with a serial number or your name on it. In reality they have taken the same bar of gold and sold it to a hundred different investors.

Now that is fine if we are happy with the paper contract, but if all 100 of us show up at JP Morgan and they have only got one bar of gold, the first person may get the gold. The other 99 people, they are going get their contracts terminated. They are going to get a check for the value of gold at the close of business yesterday, but they are not going to get today's price movement or tomorrow's price movement when super spiking going up to $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 an ounce. That is when you want your gold for the price protection when everything else is falling apart. That is when you are going to discover that you do not have gold."

Read the entire interview with Jim Rickards here.

Very unlikely you say? Do you remember what happend to those who were holding their bullion in these warehouses through MF Global? And this was a relatively isolated event. A more general break in the chain of cross ownership and counterparty risks at 100 to 1 leverage would create a market dislocation that would be quite memorable.

And as a reminder, here is what Kyle Bass had to say about unallocated and hypothecated gold, even that held within a 'fractional reserve' exchange structure.

Do Not Look at These Charts Showing Registered 'Deliverable' Gold Bullion In New York

“The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil."

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash of 1929

Here are a few charts that show the rather striking decline in 'registered' gold, that is gold available for those standing for delivery, in the Comex warehouses.

'Standing' by the way means standing around and waiting for someone to choose to fulfill your request for your contract to be fulfilled with actual bullion before the cut off date.

You can see from the first chart that the likelihood of someone actually standing for delivery and receiving bullion has never been less at The Bucket Shop.  Real metal is unfashionable amongst our financial sophisticates.

As for delivery and withdrawal of bullion, it is getting stronger and stronger in the East.  Second chart.  What can one say at such embarrassing behaviour?  What a bunch of rubes!

The shills and shrills for the bullion banks will tell you, in hair-splitting and often misleading detail that none of this means anything.    And you better listen to them because they are the ascended masters of the universe.

All of these categories and procedures at The Bucket Shop are meaningless.   And the holders of these millions of dollars in bullion often change the designations of their metal in new but meaningless ways in their quest to baffle the world.  And provide makework for their brokers and clerical staff.

The Bucket Shop is not likely to fall into a hard default.  You cannot lose when you own the game and set the rules, and can always force settlement.

Try not to underestimate the skillfulness and determination of market manipulators.  And especially their shamelessness. They hate it when you refer to the obviousness of their schemes. Like rigging almost every global market, and selling tailor made toxic instruments which they later bet against.  And getting caught, paying a wristslap fine to their cronies, and then claiming that they are the real victims of zealous prosecutors and your envy at their well-deserved success.

So nothing to see here.  Better not to look at it or ask any questions. About anything. Just leave your money and move along.

MBF Clearing Sued By CFTC For Failing to Segregate Customer Funds at JPM

MBF Clearing describes itself as:

"widely-recognized for our preeminent role within the global futures markets, and for being one of the Industry’s leading futures commission merchant (FCM). Our status in 2012 has changed from Clearing to Non Clearing FCM with a clearing relationship with FC Stone.

Our presence extends across all major exchange-traded futures markets, including energy, metals, soft commodities, currencies, interest rates, and equity-related indexes.

MBF provides the gateway to a wide menu of major market centers, and we play an integral role supporting the industry’s most demanding exchange-based traders, premiere hedge fund managers, financial institutions, and a select group of highly-sophisticated retail customers...

MBF Clearing Corp. is particularly well-known for supporting a significant number of professional floor traders, “upstairs” fund managers, and boutique trading firms, including The Fisher Proprietary Trading Group, an elite team of 75+ traders and quantitative analysts that are renowned for their prowess and their disciplined incorporation of the ACD Methodology, a quantitative approach to trading a wide variety of liquid markets."

I wonder if this is more a procedural error, and the money was in fact held safely in government securities on behalf of customers, who received the full benefit of their funds. Or was it some variant of illegal hypothecation in support of MBF's own proprietary trades.

If MBF had gone bust, could the monies may have been lost?  Were they pledged as collateral?  MF Global was certainly not benign at all in their misuse of customer funds, a nice way of saying it was theft, completely mispricing the risk for the customers and taking the differences for themselves.

In other words, MBF may indeed be 'sloppy,' but MF Global was certainly much more than that. It is nice to see that the CFTC is doing something.  I wonder how they found out?  A little help from their friends?

How is the lawsuit the CFTC filed against MF Global going?  Or have they even filed one?

We will have to wait and see.

Bloomberg
MBF Clearing Is Sued by CFTC Over Claims Customer Funds Weren’t Segregated
By Patricia Hurtado
March 13, 2012

MBF Clearing Corp. was sued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and accused of failing properly to segregate customer accounts from its own and of violating the Commodity Exchange Act.

MBF employees from September 2008 to March 2010 deposited $30 million to $60 million in customer funds into a U.S. government money market fund at JPMorgan Chase & Co. without properly segregating them, the CFTC alleged today in a complaint in federal court in New York.

The funds were not properly titled, and redemption provisions didn’t comply with CFTC regulations, the agency said. Nor was there proper documentation for the account, it said. MBF also allegedly failed to obtain customer segregation acknowledgement letters on two accounts holding funds for foreign customers from February 2007 to April 2010.

“MBF failed to diligently supervise its employees and agents,” the CFTC said in the complaint. “MBF did not have any written policies or procedures governing the opening and maintenance of customer segregated accounts.”

The firm was accused of failing to maintain sufficient funds in segregation on approximately 322 business days from Oct. 3, 2008, to March 26, 2010.

The CFTC asked for a court order barring MBF’s “unlawful acts and practices” and unspecified civil penalties.

Quinlan Murphy, a lawyer representing MBF Clearing Corp., didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment about the lawsuit.

New York-based MBF Clearing Corp. describes itself on its website as a purchaser and seller of commodities futures contracts and says it was founded in 1987.

The case is CFTC v. MBF Clearing Corp., 12-cv-1830, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).