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Gold/Mining/Energy : Silver prices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TD who wrote (3018)	10/24/2000 8:03:33 AM
From: long-gone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8010

7:52 PM 1/12/1998 Silver market falls on allegations of manipulation scheme CHICAGO (AP) -- Silver prices plummeted around the world Monday after a market analyst said lawyers in the United States are preparing to sue over an alleged scheme to corner the silver market in an attempt to drive prices higher. Gold may have lost its luster for investors, but silver shined so much last year that speculation has been rampant in the market that its rise has more to do with manipulation than solid physical and investment demand. Martin Armstrong, president of the advisory group Princeton Economics International, has argued for weeks that the silver market is being manipulated. He was quoted Monday by the Financial Times in London as saying a lawsuit seeking class-action status will be filed soon by a group of lawyers he declined to identify. Armstrong's comments reinforced rumors that roiled the market last week, causing prices to fall sharply. Silver for March delivery tumbled an additional 16.3 cents, or 2.9 percent, Monday to $5.475 a troy ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. At the height of its rally, on Dec. 23, silver for March delivery reached a nine-year high of $6.243 an ounce. To be sure, rumors of manipulation have been in the market since late fall. A Merrill Lynch analyst warned in mid-October that a syndicate of U.S.-based investors and traders controlled huge stockpiles of silver in New York and London and was seeking to buy more for storage in warehouses not monitored by the New York exchange to create a shortage and push prices to $9 an ounce. Silver futures prices shot up last year as inventories of the metal in exchange warehouses fell to their lowest level in more than 12 years amid reports of surging world demand for its use in amateur photography and jewelry. But prices began to slide in late December, and tumbled further last week amid speculation that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the industry regulating body for futures and options, has launched an investigation into possible manipulation of the silver market. The commission, as is its practice, declined to comment on whether an investigation is or will be under way. Silver demand since 1990 has far outpaced production amid soaring use of silver nitrate for amateur photography in Russia and China. Silver also has benefited from increased jewelry buying in India and elsewhere and its growing use in electronics. Demand for silver in 1996 jumped 4.4 percent to 814.9 million ounces, while supply from mine output and recycling grew only 2.5 percent to 643.4 million ounces, according to the Washington-based trade group, the Silver Institute. Some analysts also have cited silver's growing use as an investment option, given the gold market's collapse because of a supply glut and increasing sales from central banks. chron.com