Gold Conspiracy Theories

One of the conspiracy theories that's popular in the gold community right now is that when the CME and various brokers increased the margin required to hold silver, this caused the price to fall from $49 to $34.  Of course, observing the silver basis does not confirm this claim.

Today, Zero Hedge has a short piece allegedly explaining why the price of gold fell in a short time from $1680 to $1660: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/margin-calls-force-start-gold-liquidation

This is an attempt to have it both ways.  On the one hand, "prices should not be set in the futures market" according to GATA and Ted Butler.  On the other hand, margin calls (which obviously do not apply to physical metal holdings) can and do cause the price to drop sharply.

I don't see how one can get much of an understanding of the gold market from such hit-and-run pieces, much less actually try to trade and make money!

One of my goals for this blog is to discuss gold and silver without the breathless conspiracy theories.  More later...