Hello Steve,
Please share this with your fans.
I have been a broker for 20 years. Recently the major broker dealer I work for asked me and my clients to leave due to too high of a concentration in physical metals. After 4 months of trying to find a new home for my business, and being denied by every major broker dealer in the US, I had not choice but to become and RIA.
After three months of complete BS getting my RIA approved I am now in the process of moving my clients and metals to the new custodian. Here is where things get interesting. Every transfer is being rejected multiple times for the any reason the old major broker dealer can come up with.
More interesting is all of the metals which have variable weights like 1,000 Silver, 100 oz gold and 50oz platinum, when the old broker dealer finally does transfer the metals to the new custodian, NONE of the bars are the same in weight or serial number as my clients statements. The old broker dealer is having to come to me and my clients with bars of different serial numbers and weight than the one listed on the statements or from
old trade confirms.
This mis-match on transfers proves to me that the old broker deal NEVER had the metals and are now having to go acquire them to make good on client transfers. Coincidentally, I was also a broker at Morgan Stanley in 2006
when MS got busted for excessive storage fees and it turned out MS never owned the metals that were printed on client statements either.
