While I never felt gold was manipulated to the extreme some do within the GATA (www.gata.org) community, I do believe their principle argument was correct. No one makes that argument better than Chris Powell of GATA. Chris is a true gentleman who I always look forward to being in his company.
Chris penned this letter yesterday. I couldn’t agree with it more. Mr. Gartman is one of two horrific performing gold forecasters who the financial media has made into false prophets. We all make wrong predictions but when one is constantly wrong but is never taken to task for such poor performance, it leads many people over the cliff with them.
This is not jealousy or envy on my part but just another factor I’ve learned in over 25 years in this business and believe understanding it for what it is will help readers avoid or lessen losses.
I agree with Chris that Mr. Gartman was not showing any real humbleness. I believe he spoke because his poor performance was impacting his business and not just limited to gold. Because he seems to thrive on attention (IMHO from the times I shared a stage with him or heard him I found him to be a man with a big ego), I believe this so-called “confession” would not receive absolution in my church. To think his opinion was so popular that his own advice was sabotaging his performance is really just another part of his inflated ego.
Thanks Chris for your keen observation and the work you and GATA does for a market that is clearly manipulated and maybe more than I had up until now felt.
Peter, glad to see you feel their is significant manipulation … I respect your opinion and wondered what it was you were seeing or not seeing differently …. I realize it is a terrible thought and the implications are enormous … the great deceiver already has control and as I said in another post “I’m as mad as hell and there isn;t a thing I can do about it”.
the prophet
A great letter by Chris. As any mature trader knows, if and when you start blaming the market, rather than yourself, you are toast. There are three stages in a trader’s life: methodology, money management and psychology. It seems that Mr. Gartman is struggling with the third stage.