Anomalous calm in markets, not volatility, has become the sign of crisis

6p ET Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Kitco's Sarah Benali notes that CNBC market analyst Jim Cramer today marveled at gold's inability to rise despite the growing political turmoil in Washington, particularly President Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey.

"If this is a 'constitutional crisis,' gold should be flying," Cramer said on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" program. "If this is a constitutional crisis, the S&P should be down a percent and a half."

Benali's report and video of Cramer's comments can be found at Kitco here:

http://www.kitco.com/news/2017-05-10/Jim-Cramer-Gold-Should-Be-Flying-If...

Of course such anomalous and counterintuitive behavior in the markets has been happening for a long time, and today's behavior doesn't mean that Comey's firing is not a "constitutional crisis" or at least a political one. More likely it means that surreptitious intervention by governments in the markets has become more aggressive than ever.

Fortunately for the intervenors, apparently nothing will ever prompt CNBC's Cramer or even Kitco's Benali to try putting to government and central bank officials a few specific questions about such intervention, questions that arise from the documentation collected by GATA and compiled here:

http://www.gata.org/node/14839

Asking critical questions of government and central bank officials would constitute journalism, of which there is precious little in the financial markets and even less in the gold market these days.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org