The following chart from Kitco.com shows how gold traded during three 24-hour periods: 4th August, 5th August and 6th August. The green line shows the 6th August trading and is the line in which we are interested.
Notice the near-vertical surge beginning at 8.00am NY Time on 6th August. This represents a sudden increase in buying from ‘out of the blue’.
When this type of price action happens in the opposite direction, that is, when a sudden increase in selling pressure causes a near-vertical price drop, it is always cited by some commentators as evidence of manipulation, but when the sudden price change or price acceleration is to the upside it is never cited as evidence of manipulation. Instead, it is supposedly due to gold’s bullish fundamentals coming to the fore. The logic (using the word very loosely) goes something like this:
1. Markets that are free of manipulation always move in synch with the fundamentals. (Reality: No, they don’t.)
2. Gold’s fundamentals are always bullish. (Reality: No, they aren’t. For example, gold’s fundamentals were bearish from mid-2012 through to mid-2013 and only turned unequivocally bullish in April-2014.)
3. Therefore, whenever the gold price falls it must be due to manipulation. (Reality: Two wrongs don’t make a right.)
The fact is that there are just as many sudden, ‘inexplicable’ price rises in the gold market as there are sudden, ‘inexplicable’ price declines, but the manipulation-centric bloggers and newsletter writers only tell you about the latter. Also, experienced traders know that these sudden and often-unpredictable price moves happen in ALL commodity futures markets.
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