Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Bucket Shops - Hidden Pricing In Electronic Bond Sales

"Because so few of the world’s real producers, consumers and investors deal on the COMEX, the exchange has developed into a 'bucket shop' or a private betting parlor exclusively comprised of speculators. Again, this is an intentional development as much more trading volume is generated by speculative High Frequency Trading (HFT) than by legitimate hedgers (like miners) transferring risk to speculators.

Legitimate hedgers don’t day trade. It is no exaggeration to say that the COMEX has been captured by speculators and abandoned by legitimate hedgers."

Ted Butler, Butler Research LLC, March 19, 2014

You may wish to keep what Ted Butler has said in mind.

I find it difficult to understand how so many otherwise intelligent people are willing to blind themselves to what is going on in so many  markets and key benchmarks, often with a sense of false sophistication and snide superiority. 'Oh yes of course there is price rigging, insider trading, and corruption in the markets. But that is only for the little people, who really deserve to be cheated. It is not for people like us. We know better.'

Bloomberg
SEC Said Examining Hidden Electronic Bond Trading Prices
By Lisa Abramowicz Mar 20, 2014

"The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is examining how electronic bond-trading platforms allow dealers to give clients different prices on the same securities in the $40 trillion market, potentially hurting smaller investors.

SEC regulators want to understand why brokers sometimes block their rivals and clients from seeing some of their prices for municipal, corporate and other bonds, according to a person with direct knowledge of the examination. They’re concerned that being able to turn quotes on and off may allow market manipulation, and that smaller buyers may not get the best prices, the person said..."

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Better Than Expected - A Faithful Companion

“Some animals are more equal than others.”

George Orwell

The economic news this morning was 'better than expected.'

A frog in a pot full of water on the stove can think that being in the pot is better than being in the fire underneath.

Tomorrow is a triple witch stock option expiration.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Another Triumphant FOMC Day

There was intraday commentary on the Fed Statement here, and some comments on the nature of the Fed's policy error in the US equity charts and review here.

There is an option expiration for stocks on Friday, and I suspect that call option owners of the mining companies and various related metals products got quite a ride today.

Have a pleasant evening.

Postscript:   Here is an interesting chart from Median Macro.   I like its presentation format which is easy to read and compactly informative.   However, notice that they are showing the change in the price of gold for the entire week.  I would have preferred to have seen the change in the price of gold from the day before the FOMC meeting to the day after the announcement. 

But I included this because it was interesting that there was no change in the months in which there were no meetings.  They should consider going back a year or two at least to obtain more observations, say at least to the beginning of QE since the hypothesis is that the Fed is engaging in perception management.

Source: Meridian Macro (h/t ZH)