Trouble afoot in markets, Part II

Commentary

— The following is the second of three edited parts of a speech presented at the recent Silver Summit in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

The realization that both the financial system and its reserve currencies are shaky will lead to an inevitable loss of faith and confidence in paper money. This will drive people out of paper assets into tangibles. Despite the recent appreciation in the price of commodities, we have seen nothing yet. Their rise over the past few years has occurred because of favourable supply-demand imbalances.

During this time, the faith in paper money has remained intact, as evidenced by the ongoing strength in the bond market. Patience, as always, is required, but a loss of faith in paper currency will be the biggest driver for gold and silver prices.

However, it is only one of several positive factors. Surging demand and stagnant supply have already driven many commodities up, and I certainly don’t see this dynamic changing any time soon. The great news for silver is that above ground stocks, which for years weighed on the market, now appear to be seriously depleted. I’m not sure that the market fully recognized the impact of the above ground inventories, particularly those controlled by the Chinese. Their depletion represents a watershed bullish inflexion point. At the same time, important new uses for silver, particularly in the medical field, should easily sustain demand.

There are others more qualified to speak on this particular subject, but allow me to say that I don’t see fabrication demand for silver to be any sort of negative in the foreseeable future.

However, investment demand for silver will be another important new positive for the metal. I don’t think one can overestimate the impact of the silver ETF over time as a powerful new force for demand. There are those who worry that the silver residing in the ETF may be used to influence the market at key moments, but I see that possibility as a minor negative when compared to the access the vehicle provides to the public to invest in silver. My partner Eric Sprott and I have been huge investors in physical silver, but it isn’t the easiest thing to deal in or store. Thus, a lot of investors, both institutional and individual, who would otherwise not bother, now have a vehicle that makes it incredibly easy to get involved. As the second leg of the precious metals bull market gets under way, I think the silver ETF will really ramp up demand. In effect, investors can now own the metal with the same ease with which they would purchase a stock.

On the mine supply side of the equation, higher prices are expected to lead to greatly increased supply. If only it were so simple. What goes largely unsaid is how difficult it is becoming to get a mine into production. The cost of everything that goes into mining, both the variable and fixed expenses, has exploded. In addition, the availability of competent personnel — miners, engineers, and geologists — is becoming a larger and larger issue. One close friend, who runs a Canadian mining company, used the word “frightening” to describe the situation. He anticipates a dramatic increase in compensation for mining personnel across the board.

Another factor to consider is that in so many instances, silver is a byproduct of base metal production. As you are all acutely aware, base metal prices have done spectacularly well. Yet they are much more dependent on the health of the international economy than precious metals, which will increasingly be seen as currencies rather than commodities. While I remain bullish on commodities in general over the long term, I strongly suspect that we could see a severe economic dislocation in the not-too-distant future. This could damage the demand and price prospects for base metals. On the plus side, lower base metal prices should constrain production, which in turn would limit fresh supply of silver byproduct.

Turning to geopolitics as a positive contributor to precious metals demand, I think the situation in the Middle East is arguably as tenuous as it has been anytime during my lifetime. Considering how long I’ve been around, that says a lot. With Iran seemingly progressing to eventual possession of nuclear weapons, the prospects for mayhem in that region are far higher than any rational human being would consider manageable. The implications for the oil price remain dramatic, despite the current quiescent period, and my partners at Sprott Asset Management think that oil is headed for triple digits. If oil production cannot rise materially from current levels, then growing demand in India and China alone should render this an easy call.

This has very positive implications for precious metals, which are already seriously under-priced compared to oil. If the average ratio of the price of oil to gold that has prevailed since 1971 were in effect today, gold would be close to $1,000 per oz. and silver would probably be at least US$20 per oz.

Perhaps even more important than oil, the U.S. dollar reserves that are piling up in central banks throughout the Middle East, Asia and Russia are going to be diversified into other assets, and I know gold and precious metals will receive more than passing consideration. Gold flows to where the wealth is being created. Not surprisingly then, bullion is leaving North America and Europe and heading for Asia. As Russia and China gain in economic strength, these trends will intensify.

Gold and, by extension, silver, will increase dramatically in price in all paper currencies, but most particularly in the doomed U.S. dollar.

I’ve talked about the prospects for silver as an investment, but at this point I’d like to switch gears somewhat. In my opening today, I made reference to the lemming-like unwillingness of the mainstream financial world to deviate from conventional wisdom. As it pertains to silver, this herd mentality has manifested itself in two important, interrelated respects. First, mainstream investment professionals and press outlets cannot bring themselves to regard silver as money.

Historically, this seems absurd. The Silver Institute notes that in 700 B.C. Mesopotamian merchants used the metal as a form of exchange. Not to be outdone, both the ancient Greeks and Romans employed currencies with substantial quantities of silver. More recently, the English sterling exhibited the stabilizing quality that silver contributes to the monetary system. Fast-forward to today, and Hugo Salinas Price is endorsing a silver-backed currency for Mexico.

Far from being a relic, silver seems poised to reassert itself. In short, it is near impossible to ignore the longevity of silver’s role as money. By contrast, the ancient empires would regard today’s stockpiling of U.S. dollars as potentially useful for hoarding ink, but an exercise in wealth-preserving futility.

This recognition is increasingly important in an age of depreciating paper currencies, confined to ongoing debasement by the twin burdens of accumulated debt and future government obligations. No less than Ben Bernanke has boasted that the U.S. government can create an unlimited supply of dollars via the supposed magic of the printing press. We should all give thanks that silver’s value cannot be eradicated by the same means. If anything, the allure of precious metals will soar as investors come to realize the decline of fiat money.

It is exactly due to silver’s historic role as money, and in particular the metal’s relationship to gold, that governments and their allies have an interest in suppressing its price. This silver market manipulation, understood as part of a larger pattern of increasing market intervention by central banks, is the second major fact ignored by mainstream commentators. It is also the subject that will shape the remainder of my talk today.

I am concerned not simply that the price of silver is being tampered with, but that silver’s natural allies mostly combat this activity with stone-cold silence. In the face of obvious price-fixing, th
e response is a neglect that is tantamount to aiding and abetting the manipulators. My abiding hope is that this silence will abate, that the silver community can summon the courage to stand up for themselves and their product, all the while permitting silver to reclaim its rightful role as money.

As some of you are no doubt aware, my colleague Andrew Hepburn and I have written two studies on market manipulation for Sprott Asset Management.

Let me first discuss our 2004 report, Not Free, Not Fair: The Long-Term Manipulation of the Gold Price. We carefully documented every major piece of evidence indicating that the gold market was unfairly influenced by the manipulative trading activities of central banks and well-connected bullion banks.

Understanding that the subject was controversial, we provided a litany of footnotes to support our claims. It was our explicit wish that the investment community would engage our material, by either challenging our report on its merits, or accepting its conclusions and publicly voicing disapproval at the management of gold’s price. Neither one occurred. Privately, we received very positive feedback from those inclined to the manipulation viewpoint. We have informed reasons to believe that some of the most well-known gold industry executives reside in this camp.

Discretion demands that we not publicize our private indications in this regard, but fortunately the public record is sufficiently bountiful to show that the industry does not consider the allegations to be baseless.

In May 1999, John Willson, then chief executive of Placer Dome was quoted by London’s Financial Times as saying: “I find it difficult to believe, given what (Alan) Greenspan said in the middle of last year, concerning the central banks’ intention to maintain a low gold price, that there is not some concerted action going on between central banks to hold inflation down through holding down the price of gold.”

Willson was not alone. Also in 1999, in response to persistent rumours that Gold Fields had recently sold forward large quantities of gold, the company issued a press release denying such actions. The statement quoted company chairman Chris Thompson asserting that, “These rumours appear to be emanating from New York-based bullion dealers. The seeming explanation for these unfounded and persistent rumours is a desire by the short end of the market, or the dealers, to talk the gold price down. We do not wish to be associated with these efforts.”

About a month after this press release, the London’s Sunday Times quoted Thompson to the effect that “there was a large amount of circumstantial evidence that investment banks were involved in a plot to “depress gold prices.”

Later that year, AngloGold spoke of the industry’s role in achieving the September 1999 Washington Agreement, which limited European central bank gold sales and leasing. In an interview with U.K.’s The Independent, an AngloGold spokesman said: “For a long time we, as producers, saw people manipulating our market and had no part in the game.”

The spokesman’s suggestion was that this realization underpinned industry efforts to secure the central bank accord. Even charitably assuming this is true, the silence of the gold industry after the agreement cannot be overlooked. Gold may be rising, but gold’s suppression has intensified. The gathering courage displayed by the gold industry in 1999 has disappeared. In its place, the silence of 2006 reigns supreme.

It’s one thing for people who believe a market is rigged to remain silent for fear of recrimination. What was so startling about our report on gold manipulation was the widespread refusal of detractors to publicly challenge our central thesis.

Not one mining company publicly said we were wrong. Not one investment bank said we were wrong. And no central bank said so either. Statements by central bankers that have surfaced since we published our report likely explain official reticence on the subject. First, in a speech delivered in 2005, William White, head of the Monetary and Economic Department of the Bank for International Settlements, admitted that a major objective of central bank co-operation was “. . . the provision of international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful.”

When, you might ask, might joint efforts to influence gold prices be useful to central banks? To answer this, one only need venture into the published memoirs of Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve. Discussing a multilateral agreement in the 1970s to adjust the exchange rates of the yen, European currencies, and the dollar, Volcker remarked that, joint intervention in gold sales to prevent a steep rise in the price of gold, however, was not undertaken. That was a mistake. Through March, the price of gold rose rapidly, and that knocked the psychological props out from under the dollar.

As John Brimelow, a very perceptive gold analyst, has delicately articulated, “One can infer that the mistake of allowing gold an unrestrained voice at times of policy shifts was subsequently guarded against.”

Volcker’s statement has important contemporary implications. On May 14, 2006, The Guardian newspaper reported the following: “The International Monetary Fund is in behind-the-scenes talks with the U.S., China and other major powers to arrange a series of top-level meetings about tackling imbalances in the global economy, as the dollar sell-off reverberates through financial markets.”

Almost to the day, the price of gold peaked at US$720 an oz. A good source of mine was told that around this time, the U.S. government ordered the gold price taken down, evidently fearful of the implications of bullion’s rise for financial markets.

— The author is the chief investment strategist with Toronto-based Sprott Asset Management. Next week: The third and final part.