Just Another Bullion Bank Intervention

December 07, 2023

by Craig Hemke Sprott Money

In thirteen years of monitoring the precious metals, I’ve seen countless interventions and manipulations in the gold market. Some are obvious and overt, but most are subtle and missed or overlooked by traders and investors. What you just saw on Sunday, December 3, was definitely not an intervention of the subtle variety.

Looking at other obvious manipulations designed to control or reverse sentiment and momentum in the gold market, several events come to mind. The most notorious was on September 6, 2011. Gold had been rallying all summer on safe-haven and sound money concerns, and early in the morning of September 6, the Swiss National Bank unveiled a plan to weaken the franc by pegging it to the euro. This was an extraordinarily bullish development for gold, and price was poised to surge to additional all-time highs above $1900. At that point, every gold short ever created was underwater. Uh-oh. Look at what happened next: