Courtesy of Pam Martens
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
On December 6 of last year, Bloomberg News reported that Goldman Sachs and the Justice Department were in discussions to settle criminal charges related to the 1MDB Malaysia sovereign wealth fund bribery and kickback scheme for possibly $1.5 to $2 billion. Bloomberg reporters wrote that “a settlement could be announced as soon as next month.” It’s 10 months later and there has been no such settlement with the Justice Department. So you might want to factor that into your reading of the latest reporting at Bloomberg News predicting an imminent settlement between the Justice Department and JPMorgan Chase over the bank’s role in rigging precious metals markets. (Although JPMorgan might, indeed, be eager to settle the case with this Justice Department rather than gamble on a new Justice Department under a different president.)
While multiple indictments have been handed down against JPMorgan precious metals traders since last year by the Justice Department, charging some of the traders with RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) crimes, the bank itself has yet to be charged.
Apparently, the gang that has been rounded up is good enough to give the giant Swiss bank, UBS, the confidence to put out a “buy gold” call. Kelvin Tay, the Regional Chief Investment Officer for UBS, put out a “buy” call on CNBC today, stating that “We like gold, because we think that gold is likely to actually hit about $2,000 per ounce by the end of the year.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but that call would have been a lot better on July 16 when gold was trading at $1800 an ounce. (See chart above.) A “sell” call would have also been handy on August 6 when gold hit an historic intraday high of $2089.20 on NYMEX. It’s been on a downward slope ever since.
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