Are gold benchmarks being manipulated? The price-setting processes for gold and silver in the spot market are the latest to come under review from global regulators, with authorities in Europe investigating the mechanisms for both precious metals.
In the U.K., the Financial Conduct Authority is reviewing how the gold price is set, said a person familiar with the investigation, who added that it is at an early stage. In Germany, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, or BaFin, is looking into the rate-setting processes for gold and silver, according to a representative at the regulator.
"In addition to the Libor and Euribor interest rates, BaFin is looking at other bench-marking processes such as gold and silver price fixing at individual banks," the watchdog said in a statement.
"The probe was launched a number of months ago and is still ongoing," BaFin said, adding that for confidentiality reasons it could not say which banks are concerned or the state of the investigation.
In private meetings this year, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates derivatives, also discussed reviewing how gold prices are set.
The London fix, the benchmark rate used by mining companies, jewelers and central banks to buy, sell and value the metal, is published twice daily after a telephone call involving Barclays Plc, Deutsche Bank AG, Bank of Nova Scotia, HSBC Holdings Plc and Societe Generale SA.
Participants on the London call can tell whether the price of gold is rising or falling within a minute or so, based on whether there are a large number of net buyers or sellers after the first round, according to gold traders, academics and investors interviewed by Bloomberg. It’s this feature that could allow dealers and others in receipt of the information to bet on the direction of the market with a high degree of certainty minutes before the fix is made public, they said.
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