RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Paper, Paper, and more Paper All futures markets in all commodities involve large and small speculators.
Speculators are necessary to take the other side of the each contract.
Futures trading is a "zero sum" game.
Each contract has a party that is long that contract and another party who is short that same contract.
The purpose is to hedge risk for producers and holders of large inventories.
The purpose for the speculators is to (hopefully) make money by taking on risk.
If you have ever traded oil or copper or currencies or agricultural commodities (I have) you will discover a casino atmosphere in all of them.
All of them are sometimes manipulated by deep pocketed parties, including hedge funds.
The futures that I have traded that have shown the most manipulation are currencies and interest rates and they are periodically manipulated by various government entities (US and global).
You can bet that gold and silver are sometimes manipulated, short term, on upside moves.
But, no bulls ever complain if prices are manipulated higher.
goldguy