LBMA restores access to gold, silver clearing data

My essay yesterday, "The LBMA Joins the Gold Squeeze Cover-Up" (http://www.gata.org/node/8858), was written after I attempted to access gold and silver clearing statistics at the London Bullion Market Association Internet site and encountered a password-protected log-in screen that allowed access only to members.

Interestingly today the information I sought was once again accessible in the public domain at the LBMA Internet site. So I called the LBMA to find out what had happened and spoke to Ruth Crowel in the public relations department.

Crowel said she didn't know why I couldn't get access to the clearing statistics because it has always been the LBMA's intention to make them public. She suggested that the problem perhaps had been with my computer, but I told her that others had been unable to get access to the data at the same time as well.

Only then did Crowel reveal that the LBMA had completely changed its Internet site architecture over the weekend and even had different software running it.

I don't know why that wasn't given as the immediate explanation of the likely cause of the blocking of the clearing statistics. But it appears that I and some others attempted to access the data while the LBMA was installing its new Internet site.

A bit strangely, today an inquiry to the LBMA from a major U.S. newspaper as to what had happened with the clearing data was met with "no comment."

So the question remains whether the new Internet site architecture initially blocked access to the clearing statistics and was modified after publication of my essay, or if the blocking was simply a glitch in the Internet site's updating.

We may never know but for the moment we may have to give the LBMA the benefit of the doubt.

Adrian Douglas

Marketforceanalys.com

Adrian Douglas is proprietor of the Market Force Analysis newsletter (www.marketforceanalysis.com) and a member of GATA's Board of Directors.