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Futures exchange operator renews discounts for secret trading by governments and central banks

Section: Daily Dispatches

11:36a ET Thursday, March 7, 2019

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Market manipulation by governments and central banks is right out in the open again, hiding in plain sight in the confidence that mainstream financial news organizations, financial letter writers, and gurus who purport to bring "technical analysis" to bear on markets will avert their gaze.

For as GATA's friend Jim Anderson of SD Bullion Inc. in Michigan (https://sdbullion.com/) pointed out this week, CME Group, operator of the major U.S. futures exchanges, has just renewed its "Central Bank Incentive Program," in which governments and central banks receive discounts for surreptitiously trading all major futures contracts on CME Group exchanges -- not just financial futures but also monetary metals futures and even agricultural futures.

... Dispatch continues below ...



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CME Group's previous discount schedule, called to your attention by GATA a year ago January --

http://www.gata.org/node/17976

-- was dated December 2017:

http://www.gata.org/files/CMEGroupCBIP-Q&A-December2017.pdf

Now a new one has been posted, dated last month --

https://www.cmegroup.com/company/membership/files/CBIPFAQ.pdf --

-- and has been copied to GATA's internet site here:

http://www.gata.org/files/CMEGroup-CentralBankIncentiveProgram-Feb2019.pdf

It has added bitcoin futures.

Some of the discounts have changed but governments and central banks continue to receive 15 percent discounts on fees for trading gold and silver futures.

Of course CME Group's trading discount schedule doesn't prove that any particular government or central bank has been trading any particular contract lately. But on Page 6 of its 2019 10-K form filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, CME Group continues to acknowledge that "the customer base of our derivatives exchanges includes professional traders, financial institutions, institutional and individual investors, major corporations, manufacturers, producers, governments, and central banks":

http://investor.cmegroup.com/node/43571/html

For safety's sake the form is copied to GATA's internet site here:

http://www.gata.org/files/CMEGroup-SEC-10-K-2019.pdf

This futures trading is never announced by governments and central banks, so some surreptitious intervention in the U.S. futures markets by governments and central banks is happening, but it continues to escape the curiosity of nearly everyone who would seem obliged to alert investors to it. Perhaps this is because if this surreptitious intervention was exposed, its efficacy would collapse, as government and central bank policy here is based on deception.

GATA will send this new documentation to many major financial news organizations and financial letter writers. Please send it to any monetary metals companies you are invested in, and let us know if you see anyone pick up on it.

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

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