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Are leading precious metals ETFs based on undisclosed conflict of interest?
6:25p ET Monday, May 3, 2010
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver):
Do financial houses HSBC and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have a conflict of interest in serving as custodians of the metal held by the major gold and silver exchange-traded funds, GLD and SLV, even as those financial houses are themselves holding major short positions in the precious metals? And does the failure of the prospectuses of those ETFs to note the short positions of their metal custodians constitute a material omission in violation of U.S. securities law?
Those questions are raised today in a compelling report written by Catherine Austin Fitts, founder and managing member of Solari Investment Advisory Services LLC, publisher of The Solari Report (http://solari.com/store/the_solari_report/), and a member of GATA's Board of Directors, along with her lawyer, Carolyn Betts.
Fitts and Betts note the increasing evidence that more claims to gold and silver have been sold than there is real metal to fulfill them. Of course GATA long has expressed skepticism about the precious metals ETFs and has wondered whether they are used in part for market manipulation, to make investor-owned metal available for shorting and price suppression at strategic moments, against the interests of the ETF investors.
The Fitts-Betts inquiry is titled "GLD and SLV: Disclosure in the Precious Metals Puzzle Palace" and you can find it at the Solari Internet site here:
http://solari.com/archive/Precious_Metals_Puzzle_Palace/
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
Prophecy Resource Corp. Appoints Rob McEwen to Advisory Board
Prophecy Resource Corp. (TSX.V: PCY, OTC: PCYRF) is pleased to announce the appointment of Rob McEwen to the company's Advisory Board. McEwen is a leading Canadian mining industry entrepreneur. He is the chairman and CEO of U.S. Gold Corp. and Minera Andes Inc. McEwen was the founder and former chairman and CEO of Goldcorp Inc., whose Red Lake Mine in northwestern Ontario, Canada, is considered to be the richest gold mine in the world. During his tenure at Goldcorp, McEwen transformed the company from a collection of small companies into a mining powerhouse, growing its market capitalization from $50 million to approximately $8 billion.
For Prophecy Resource Corp.'s complete statement:
http://www.prophecyresource.com/news_2010_mar11b.php
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Anglo Far-East Bullion Co., the Original Private Bullion Custodian
http://www.anglofareast.com/
For two decades Anglo Far-East Bullion co. has been providing select international clientele the highest degree of privacy, security, and access to buy, hold, and sell allocated gold and silver bars.
-- Allocated gold and silver bars: AFE will not only provide you with the individual bar numbers of the bullion bars you own, but you can also rest safely in the knowledge that each bar is sight-verified by a top Swiss auditor and annually checked off against AFE accounts to ensure that your metal is locked away safely.
-- Guaranteed market access and liquidity: AFE buys and sells directly with LBMA-certified metal refineries only. In bypassing the commodities market exchanges such as the Comex and bullion banks, AFE provides clients a means of access to the global physical precious metals markets that may not be available to others should systemic issues in the bullion markets arise.
-- Stand for delivery: If at any time you wish to take delivery of your metal, AFE will arrange to have bars shipped to you anywhere in the world.
-- Zero tolerance for leverage: AFE refuses to deal with "paper gold." We believe our clients want the metal itself so they may avoid the risks of the paper markets. AFE will not introduce such risk to its clients.
-- Metal vaulted outside the banking system: None of AFE's clients have to worry that their metal is exposed to encumbrances bearing on bullion banks and commodities markets. None of AFE's vaulting partners or other strategic providers are controlled or majority-owned by banks. This is by design, not by accident.
-- Access to the LBMA system of refineries, vaults, and security providers. This allows AFE clients to maintain London Good Delivery status of their metal, ensuring ease of sale or transfer, while being insulated from the "paper gold" market.
-- Total privacy: AFE accounts are managed as numbered accounts in the Swiss private banking tradition. At no time does identifying information such as name and address appear on any account statement or other account documents.
-- Geo-political diversification: In the words of the wise King Solomon, "Place a portion of seven and eight throughout the land, for you know not where evil may arise." Many of AFE's clients choose AFE specifically because their metal is safely vaulted outside the jurisdiction they reside in.
-- Iron-clad governance: By contract with AFE's vaulting provider, no access may be made to the vaults without the attendance of an agent of the vault as well as an agent of the third-party signatory trustee, in this case top Swiss auditor Grant Thornton. All metal going into and -- more importantly -- coming out of the vaults requires the approval of a third-party signatory trustee as well as a detailed, sight-verified report of each bar and serial number by the auditor.
For more information and a personal consultation with one of our private account liaisons, please contact us:
Anglo Far-East Bullion Co.
E-mail: newclients@anglofareast.com
USA: 1-206-905-9961
Panama: 507-264-0164
New Zealand: +64-9337-0715
Australia: +61-8-8334-6855
Switzerland: +41-43-508-0351
United Kingdom: +44-208-819-3911
Hong Kong: +852-8124-1265
