Wednesday, August 20, 2014

CFTC Confirms Its Reported Gold And Silver Market Data Is Erroneous

Patrick Heller at CoinWeek writes:
Over the past few years, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has paid more than $25 billion in fines and penalties for a variety of infractions. However, the July 29 announcement by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of filing and settling charges against JPMorgan Securities LLC (JPMS), a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase & Co., for a fine of $650,000 may be as important as any of the other fines and penalties paid by this bank.

To read the CFTC’s news release click here.

The specific infraction was, “for submitting inaccurate reports to the CFTC relating to the required reporting of positions held by certain large traders whose accounts are carried by JPMS. The reporting violations occurred despite the CFTC notifying JPMS of numerous errors in its reports.” The CFTC noted that these inaccuracies had occurred going back to at least 2012.
In the CFTC news release on this matter, the CFTC Director of Enforcement, Aitan Goelman, noted, “The large trader reports are vital to the CFTC’s role in monitoring market behavior and are important to members of the public, many of whom rely on that information in forming marketing strategies. Therefore, submission of accurate and reliable data to the CFTC is essential.”
Heller goes on to make a point that I have emphasized (SEE: How to Monitor the Economy) for a long time:
This episode reinforces my contention that government statistics are often incorrect, and that invariably the errors are skewed to benefit the governments, central banks, and their trading partners. In other words, individual Americans once more got fleeced.
-RW

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