August 30, 2012
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Attention Mr. Lee R. Raymond
Office of the Secretary
270 Park Avenue, 38th Floor
NY, NY 10017
Dear Mr. Raymond;
I am writing to you and other board members to alert you to my allegations of a continuing manipulation of the silver market by JPMorgan. Since the takeover of Bear Stearns in 2008, JPM has maintained an unusually large concentrated net short position in silver futures contracts on the COMEX, owned by the CME Group. JPMorgan’s concentrated position is so large that it dominates the market and is manipulative to the price of silver, in and of itself. So controlling is the company’s position, that in recent weeks it has been the sole reporting commercial silver short seller. It is impossible for that activity not to be manipulative.
I am a silver analyst who has written extensively about JPMorgan’s involvement in the silver manipulation for four years, both in public and private articles. I have sent your CEO, Mr. Jamie Dimon, more than 300 articles in which I mention the role of JPM in the silver manipulation. I have never had a response from Mr. Dimon or the company. As a result of the revelation of a US Bank-held concentrated short silver position in August 2008, the federal commodities regulator, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, initiated a formal silver market investigation which may reach a conclusion soon. Additionally, you may be aware that JPMorgan has been named in a civil class-action suit alleging a silver market manipulation by the company. So widespread is the public consensus that JPMorgan is manipulating the price of silver that a Google search of “JPMorgan silver manipulation” shows 800,000 results.
It has never been and is not now my intent to harm JPMorgan. My objective is to end a long-running silver price manipulation that began long before JPM’s assumption of Bear Stearns’ concentrated silver short position. It doesn’t seem right for me to continue to make allegations about JPMorgan’s involvement in a silver market manipulation, possibly including manipulative short sales in the leading silver ETF, SLV, if the company is not involved. I’m sure you would agree that it’s also not right if JPMorgan is involved in a silver price manipulation.
I am reaching out to you and your fellow board members to investigate and help resolve a matter that must be resolved. I stand open to providing you with anything I’ve written about JPMorgan and I am including an article from Aug 22, 2012, in which I mention JPM extensively.
Sincerely yours,
Ted Butler
