Traders Are Talking About A Gold Conspiracy Theory And There's Evidence To Back It Up

thenews 2013.07.23 18:16

No discussion about gold is complete without a good conspiracy theory.

While most theories are easily dismissed, some stay around for a while due to a confluence of circumstantial evidence surrounding them.

Wall Street veteran Art Cashin addresses one such theory in this morning's Cashin's Comments.

He builds off of this weekend's New York Times story about Goldman Sachs' aluminum warehousing operation and Monday's gold spike.

A quick note about jargon: Commodities like gold will have a futures price and a spot price. The futures price is the price you'd see on a contract, which is traded on an exchange like the NYMEX. The spot price is the current price of the commodity. Backwardation occurs when the spot price is above the futures price. Typically, these two prices converge when the futures contract matures.

From Cashin:

All That Glitters Is Not Arbitrage – Monday, spot gold spiked up $45 and the media pundits pointed to things from China to the FOMC. While all the cited may have been factors, veteran traders saw the bulk of the move resting in a conspiracy story.
In my mid-day email to friends I had noted this:

Gold soars as NYT story on metal warehouses fans flames of conspiracy theorists that gold warehouse stores have been "lent" out. That theory also aided by backwardation (spot price far above near future).