{"id":99088,"date":"2013-12-15T08:24:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-15T08:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?guid=22d8d0ccc2b6a64029cc54e8ca69a260"},"modified":"2013-12-15T08:24:00","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T08:24:00","slug":"rigging-foreign-exchange-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/rigging-foreign-exchange-markets\/","title":{"rendered":"Rigging Foreign Exchange Markets"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\"><b>Rigging Foreign Exchange Markets<\/b><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">by Stephen Lendman<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;s the world&#8217;s largest financial market. It trades around $5 trillion daily. It&#8217;s more than all global equity markets combined. It operates round-the-clock. It&#8217;s manipulated for profit. More on that below.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Grand theft reflects official Wall Street policy. It&#8217;s longstanding. High crimes go unpunished. Bankers make money the old-fashioned way. They steal it. They do it lots of clever ways.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\"><span style=\"color: black;\">They do it through fraud, grand theft, <\/span>market manipulation, front-running, misrepresentation, scamming investors, naked short selling, precious metals price suppression, controlling Washington, getting open-ended low or no interest rate bailouts when needed, and assuring world financial capitals are banker occupied territories.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">They do it artfully. Few people know what&#8217;s going on. Scandals rarely surface. Budding ones are usually buried. Little more than dust gets kicked up. Headlines disappear in short order.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">In June 2012, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified before the Senate Banking Committee. He discussed his firm&#8217;s trading losses at the time.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It was more of a homecoming than grilling. Washington is Wall Street occupied territory. Regulators don&#8217;t regulate. Oversight is absent.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Investigations rarely happen. Initiated ones are whitewashed. Criminal fraud is institutionalized. It&#8217;s encouraged, not curbed.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Congress, the administration, SEC, and credit rating agencies &nbsp;incestuously collude with giant banks and other major financial institutions. Whatever they want, they get. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Wall Street never had it so good. Senators didn&#8217;t lay a glove on Dimon. His grand theft business model wasn&#8217;t discussed.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Former bank regulator\/financial fraud expert Bill Black&#8217;s book titled<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Best-Way-Rob-Bank\/dp\/0292721390\"> <span style=\"color: #0044c3;\">&#8220;The Best Way to Rob A Bank Is To Own One&#8221;<\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #0044c3; text-decoration: underline;\"> <\/span>explains well.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">He coined the term &#8220;control fraud.&#8221; It lets corporate officials commit grand theft. Finance capital never had it so good. Trillions of dollars are stolen. Nothing intervenes to stop it.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">MF Global (MFG) looted customer accounts. Former Goldman Sachs chairman\/CEO Jon Corzine ran operations.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">MFG faced a run on its holdings. In October 2011, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Months before doing so, it moved hundreds of millions of dollars in customer money from its US brokerage unit to Bank of New York Mellon Corp.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It looted them. It used client money to speculate, pay down debt and cover losses. It committed grand theft. It&#8217;s longstanding Wall Street practice.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Why not when rare punishments at most are wrist slaps. Top Wall Street officials aren&#8217;t punished. They free to steal again.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Markets are rigged. Movements up or down aren&#8217;t random. The&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Wall Street controlled Fed and high-level insiders manipulate them for profits.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Washington facilitates their lawlessness. It does it with business friendly legislation. It does it with similar executive orders. It does it by turning a blind to the worst of what goes one.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\"><span style=\"color: #323333;\">Market rigging is longstanding practice. It&#8217;s part of the system. <\/span>On March 18, 1989, Ronald Reagan&#8217;s Executive Order 12631 created the Working Group on Financial Markets (WGFM).<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;s commonly called the Plunge Protection Team (PPT). Officials involved (or their designees) include:<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; margin: 0px;\">the President;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; margin: 0px;\">the Treasury Secretary as chairman;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; margin: 0px;\">the Fed chairman;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; margin: 0px;\">the SEC chairman; and<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; margin: 0px;\">the Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">PPT&#8217;s &#8220;Purposes and Functions: Recognizing the goals of enhancing the integrity, efficiency, orderliness, and competitiveness of our Nation&#8217;s financial markets.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">&#8220;(T)he Working Group shall identify and consider:<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">(1) the major issues raised by the numerous studies on the events (pertaining to the) October 19, 1987 (market crash and consider) recommendations that have the potential to achieve the goals noted above; and<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">(2)&#8230;.governmental (and other) actions under existing laws and regulations&#8230;.that are appropriate to carry out these recommendations.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Government and Wall Street collude. They manipulate markets doing so. They move them up and down. Enormous profits are made both ways. Most people don&#8217;t know what goes on.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Wall Street\/Washington invisible hands work better than Adam Smith imagined. They do it in dirty ways unknown in his day.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Mythology holds that prices move up or down randomly. Market forces do so, it&#8217;s claimed. Manipulation isn&#8217;t mentioned.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;s commonplace. It&#8217;s longstanding. Tools are much more sophisticated than earlier. Computer technology facilitates blatantly illegal practices.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">The 1934 Gold Reserve Act created the Treasury&#8217;s Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF).&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Section 7 of the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreements made its operations permanent.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">The Treasury runs the Fund. Congressional oversight is bypassed. Manipulation keeps sharp dollar fluctuations up or down from disrupting financial markets. &nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Treasury operations include stabilizing foreign currencies, extending credit lines to foreign governments, and guaranteeing money market funds against losses up to tens of billions of dollars.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">In 1995, Clinton provided Mexico a $20 billion peso credit stabilization line. It did so in time of crisis.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Earlier administrations extended loans or credit lines to various other countries. Current US lending to the IMF tops $35 billion.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Years earlier it was $57 billion. In 2009, Congress expanded contributions by $108 billion. The Treasury&#8217;s web site states:<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">&#8220;By law, the Secretary has considerable discretion in the use of ESF resources.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">&#8220;The legal basis of the ESF is the Gold Reserve Act of 1934.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">&#8220;As amended in the late 1970s&#8230;.the Secretary (per) approval of the President, may deal in gold, foreign exchange, and other instruments of credit and securities.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">In other words, the Treasury maintains a slush fund. It uses it for whatever purposes it wishes. It manipulates markets. It operates secretly.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">In 1999, the Counterparty Risk Management Policy Group (CRMPG) was established. It followed the Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) crisis.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">CRMPG manipulates markets beneficially for Wall Street giants. It lets them collude through large-scale program trading. Doing so manipulates markets up and down advantageously.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Troubled giants get bailed out. Ordinary people get sold out. The process repeats as needed. A secret FDIC plan involves looting bank accounts.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Depositor theft may follow. Doing so is called bail-ins. It&#8217;s code language for grand theft.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Ordinary people and richer ones have trillions in bank accounts. It&#8217;s low-hanging fruit. It&#8217;s a treasure trove begging to be looted. Legislative shenanigans may legitimize it.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Cypriot officials did it. Canada approved it. So did Eurozone member states and New Zealand. It&#8217;s theft by other means.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Leading US banks warned about charging depositors. They may do so if the Fed cuts interest it pays them on bank reserves.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Imagine being charged for checking, savings and\/or money market accounts. Depositors already earn virtually nothing on them. Penalizing them further may follow.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Libor markets are rigged. It&#8217;s an acronym for London Interbank Offered Rate. It&#8217;s a fundamental rate-setting benchmark. It&#8217;s set daily between UK banks for overnight to 12 month durations.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;s produced for ten currencies with 15 maturities. It represents the London market&#8217;s lowest cost of unsecured funding. It&#8217;s the primary global short-term rate benchmark.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">In the 1980s, it began expanding exponentially in importance. London&#8217;s status grew as an international financial center. It&#8217;s the world&#8217;s largest.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It handles over 20% of all international bank lending. More than 30% of foreign exchange transactions go through London.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Demand grew for an accurate measure of the real rate at which banks and other financial institutions could borrow from each other.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It affects the price and availability of capital. The higher Libor goes, the greater the borrowing cost for business, individuals, real estate and other loans.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">When things work right, operations are hardly noticed. When trouble occurs, all hell breaks loose.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Libor rigging affects countless trillions of dollars. Amounts involved exceed global GDP multiple times over.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Predatory banks manipulate things advantageously. Practices are too corrupted to fix. The longer they go unaddressed, the more harm done.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Financial giants, central bankers and complicit politicians bear full responsibility. Dirty policies persist out-of-control.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Libor rigging is one of many manipulative market practices. Systemic corruption breeds more of the same. An illusion of stability &nbsp;conceals business as usual.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Gold and other precious metals markets are rigged. Naked short selling offsets rising bullion demand. Prices are driven lower.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Naked shorts reflect what sellers don&#8217;t have. It&#8217;s illegal. It persists anyway. Bullion prices would be much higher otherwise. Eventually they&#8217;ll rise to their true value. When remains to be seen.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">QE reflects Fed market rigging. Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities are bought. Too-big-to-fail banks hold enormous amounts of junk. Fed buying substitutes dollars for toxic assets.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Banks get lots of cash to speculate. Markets are manipulated up in response. It&#8217;s artificial. It&#8217;s not real. It can&#8217;t last. It continues until bubbles eventually pop.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Foreign exchange markets are rigged. On October 12, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/finance-and-economics\/21587824-are-foreign-exchange-benchmarks-latest-be-manipulated-bankers-fx\"><span style=\"color: #1255cc;\">The Economist<\/span><\/a> headlined &#8220;The FX is in,&#8221; saying:<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;s &#8220;been a dreadful couple of years for financial benchmarks.&#8221; Banks rig libor. &#8220;Commodities prices from crude oil to platinum have been the subject of allegations and inquiries.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Authorities now scrutinize global foreign exchange (FX) markets. Trillions of dollars are involved daily. &#8220;(S)uspect banks have tampered with those, too.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">On October 4,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2013\/10\/04\/us-swiss-probe-forex-idUSBRE9930B420131004\"><span style=\"color: #1255cc;\"> Reuters <\/span><\/a>headlined &#8220;Switzerland probes banks over possible forex rigging.&#8221;<span style=\"font-size: 20px;\"> <\/span>FINMA said it&#8217;s &#8220;currently (investigating) several Swiss financial institutions in connection with possible manipulation of foreign exchange markets.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It&#8217;s coordinating with regulators in other countries. &#8220;(M)ultiple banks around the world are potentially implicated.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">UBS is Switzerland&#8217;s largest bank. It was fined $2.7 billion for market rigging. Credit Suisse may be involved. So are major Wall Street banks.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Bloomberg said major ones use advance customer order knowledge to push through trades manipulatively.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">They colluded with other banks doing so. FX markets are poorly regulated. Most trading takes place away from exchanges. It&#8217;s a shadowy anything goes realm.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Price rigging is standard practice. Hundreds of banks trade currencies. Four dominate the market: Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Barclays and UBS.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Concerns center around what&#8217;s known as the &#8220;London Fix.&#8221; It&#8217;s a daily snapshot of currency prices.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Enormous shifts happen during a 60-second window before 4PM London time. It&#8217;s when markets are especially liquid.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Banks set a certain rate for trades of one currency against another. Shortly afterwards, prices revert to normal rates.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Forex traders call the practice banging the close. It reflects blatant market manipulation. Betting the right way yields huge profits in seconds.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">A fraction of a cent is all it takes. Trading involves a measure called a &#8220;pip.&#8221; It represents one basis point or 1\/100th of 1%.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Multiple trades near the London Fix can yield enormous profits. Repeating the process many times daily multiplies it hugely. A few pips in the right direction is all it takes.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">The so-called WM\/Reuters (WMR) rate works as follows. It&#8217;s when &#8220;more than 40% of daily global FX trading is done. It&#8217;s the nearest thing to a closing price in a 24-hour, self-regulated market.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Unwary traders are fleeced big time. Banks know big trades they&#8217;ll execute on behalf of others.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Moving forex prices ahead of the fix yields big profits. Major banks do it at the expense of unsuspecting clients.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">According to New York University&#8217;s Stern School of Business Professor Marti Subrahmanyan:<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">&#8220;There&#8217;s no policeman. These things have sort of fallen through the cracks. Foreign exchange is really nobody&#8217;s kind of baby.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Major forex traders collude in electronic messaging groups. They&#8217;re called &#8220;the bandits club&#8221; and &#8220;the cartel.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">They profit at the expense of clients. They do so by manipulating markets up or down. Regulators do virtually nothing to stop it.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Investigations come and go. Minor penalties at most are imposed. It&#8217;s part of the system. It shifts enormous wealth to major players.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Forex trading is a buyer&#8217;s beware market. Traders call it the wild west. Volatility is valued. Sharply enough rice movements create profit opportunities. Stability minimizes them.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #323333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Manipulation is part of the system. Forex trading shenanigans reflect grand theft. Who said crime doesn&#8217;t pay?<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">His new book is titled &#8220;Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">http:\/\/www.claritypress.com\/LendmanII.html<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.<\/div>\n<div style=\"font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;\"><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px;\">http:\/\/www.progressiveradionetwork.com\/the-progressive-news-hour<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rigging Foreign Exchange Marketsby Stephen LendmanIt&#8217;s the world&#8217;s largest financial market. It trades around $5 trillion daily. It&#8217;s more than all global equity markets combined. It operates round-the-clock. It&#8217;s manipulated for profit. More on that b&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-99088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}