From FT Alphaville:
Gartman ponders the ’1st whistleblower of many’
FT Alphaville drew attention on Thursday to an alleged whistleblower letter that arrived in the CFTC’s mailbox this week.Previously, in no particular order:
The author of said note claimed to be a JP Morgan employee with inside information about the bank’s (supposdely less than honest) activities in the precious metals market. He wrote that he was whistleblowing because he no longer had faith or belief that what the bank was doing for society was “bringing value to people”.
He also hinted very strongly that the bank may have had something to do with gold’s steep slide on February 29:
So what’s someone like Dennis Gartman, author of the eponymous Gartman letter, to make of all this? Readers might remember that Gartman, having won the sympathy of goldbugs with his talk of central bank intervention this month, followed up with a swift denial about his weakness for the “goldbug” case....MORE
"CFTC's Chilton Sees 'Fraudulent Efforts' to Control Silver Prices" (JPM; SLV)
"CFTC Probes JP Morgan's Silver Trading" (JPM; SLV; HBC)
Gold: Now Here's a Conspiracy Theory! (GLD)
"Feds probing JPMorgan trades in silver pit" Civil AND Criminal Investigations (JPM; SLV)
"RICO Suit Filed Against HSBC And JPMorgan For Silver Market Manipulation" (JPM; HBC)
Here's JP Morgan's Head of Global Commodities:
Pierre Jovanovic’s New book on JP Morgan’s Blythe Masters Can Now be Ordered (in French) JPM
"Woman Who Invented Credit Default Swaps is One of the Key Architects of Carbon Derivatives, Which Would Be at the Very CENTER of Cap and Trade"
I was struck by the irony that she would be running JPM's carbon trading ops at the same time she headed up the coal traders:
JPMorgan increases stake in China's Yanzhou Coal to 11.13% Loses Money on Coal Trade (JPM; YZC)
JP Morgan Buys MORE Yanzhou Coal, Upping Stake to 13.23% (JPM; YZC)
Brilliant: Maxwell's SILVER Hammer Came Down on Blythe Masters' Head (SLV; JPM)
The oeuvre of songs about serial killers is not as limited a genre as one may at first suspect.
Most everyone, with a little thought, will come up with Mack the Knife (rape, murder, arson) and of course the Talking Heads' Psycho Killer ("psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?").
As part of the British Invasion the Rolling Stones contributed Midnight Rambler (Boston Strangler) and Sympathy for the Devil (Nazis, Communists, Satan).
Best of the bunch has to be the Beatles' Maxwell's Silver Hammer (kills his girlfriend, his teacher and the sentencing judge).
Blythe Masters is the head of commodities trading for J.P. Morgan and was one of the co-inventors of Credit Default Swaps which played such a large part in the financial meltdown of 2007-09.
Ms. Masters urged regulators to distinguish between tools and their users: “Tools that transfer risk can also increase systemic risk if major counterparties fail to manage their exposures properly.”
I'm assuming the reader is familiar with the run in silver and the conspiracy theories about JPM's positioning.
Here's a commenter at Clusterstock:
imdwightgooden on Feb 18, 12:53 PM said:
Blythe was quizzical, studied pataphysical
Science in the home
Late nights all alone with a test-tube ohh oh oh oh
Maxwell Edison majoring in medicine
Calls her on the phone
Can I take you out to the pictures, Blythe?
But as she's getting ready to go
A knock comes on the door
Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer
Came down upon her head
Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer.....
