You are here
Dodd-Frank claims niche form of gold trading
By Claudia Assis
MarketWatch.com
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dodd-frank-claims-niche-form-of-gold-tr...
SAN FRANCISCO -- A little-known form of gold investing used by some retail currency traders is disappearing, ahead of tighter regulations scheduled to go into effect next month.
Forex.com, a large retail foreign-exchange operation, on Friday told clients it will discontinue its gold and silver over-the-counter products marketed to retail investors who are U.S. residents. It asked investors to close their positions by July 15.
"It is our interpretation that we just can't offer it legally" in response to regulatory provisions in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act that kick in after July 15, said Alicia Brown, a spokeswoman for Gain Capital, the parent company of Forex.com.
... Dispatch continues below ...
Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit,
Extending the Mineralization of the Southwest Vein on the Property
Company Press Release, October 27, 2010
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sona Resources Corp. reports on five drillling holes in the third round of assay results from the recently completed drill program at its 100 percent-owned Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property in the Lillooet Mining District of southern British Columbia. Highlights from the diamond drilling include:
-- Hole E10-66 intersected 17.4g gold/ton over 1.54 metres.
-- Hole E10-67 intersected 96.4g gold/ton over 2.5 metres, including one assay interval of 383g of gold/ton over 0.5 metres.
-- Hole E10-69 intersected 85.4g gold/ton over 4.03 metres, including one assay interval of 230g gold/ton over 1 metre.
Four drill holes, E10-66 to E10-69, targeted the southwestern end of the Southwest Vein, and three of the holes have expanded the mineralized zone in that direction. The Southwest Vein gold mineralization has now been intersected over a strike length of 325 metres, with the deepest hole drilled less than 200 metres from surface.
"The assay results from the Southwest Zone quartz vein continue to be extremely positive," says John P. Thompson, Sona's president and CEO. "We are expanding the Southwest Vein, and this high-grade gold mineralization remains wide open down dip and along strike to the southwest."
For the company's full press release, please visit:
http://sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR19_2010.pdf
The allure of gold as an alternative to paper currencies has helped propel the precious metal to record highs, alongside a surge in retail currency trading.
Trading gold and silver over the counter -- bypassing a futures exchange -- offered investors a chance to enter a highly speculative, leveraged market that also left many investors at risk of fraud, according to one trade group.
"In order to trade, it needs to be done in a exchange, or it can't be done at all," said Dan Driscoll, a vice president with the National Futures Association.
The industry group asked Congress for such changes, due to numerous cases of fraud in such contracts. Doing business with a futures exchange offers retail investors more protections and transparency, he said.
Firms that "continue to offer these run the risk of government action," Driscoll said.
After July 15, commodities transactions between retail investors that are leveraged and not delivered in 28 days, must be conducted in a "designated contract market," a board of trade or exchange designated by the CFTC, according to the new rules.
Contracts fully paid for or delivered within 28 days, and commodity futures contracts trading on an exchange such as the CME Group and others, will not be affected.
Forex.com knew the requirements were scheduled to come into effect this July, a year after the act passed, and prior to the letter to clients Friday disclosed its intention to cease the products in filings, Gain Capital's Brown said
FXCM, another large retail foreign-exchange firm, has not offered the over-the-counter precious metals investments. There were clients that "on occasion" would ask for such products, but ultimately FXCM decided not to offer it, said spokeswoman Jaclyn Sales.
"Our bread and butter is (foreign-exchange) products," she said. "We looked into it ... and decided not to move forward" particularly after the Dodd-Frank Act passed, she said.
* * *
Join GATA here:
Gold Rush 2011
GATA's London Conference
Thursday-Saturday, August 4-6, 2011
Savoy Hotel, London, England
http://www.gatagoldrush.com
Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins:
https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12
Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt:
Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009:
http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal
Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon:
Help keep GATA going
GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:
To contribute to GATA, please visit:
Lewis E. Lehrman on How to Solve the U.S. Debt Problem
Lewis E. Lehrman, chairman of the Lehrman Institute, sponsor of The Gold Standard Now project, advises that to reduce the $1 1/2 trillion U.S. deficit, the Republican Party must initiate an investment program.
Working Americans are not saving, which enables the banks to lead the country into a cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust.
Lehrman says: "Eliminating the budget deficit of a trillion and a half dollars cannot be done overnight. The proposal by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan was very dramatic -- one Republican called it radical -- but it was not happily received. The solution, of course, is to design an American program for prosperity, because you can solve these entitlement problems with a growing economy.
"We need a tremendous program of investment, and investment comes from savings. When you pay savers, middle-income professionals and working people, 0 percent at the bank, you are not going to encourage them
to save. Then we are left with a bank cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust."
To read more and to sign up for The Gold Standard Now's free, noncommercial, weekly report, "Prosperity through Gold," please visit:
http://www.thegoldstandardnow.org/gata
