Asian Gold Traders Suspicious Of Recent “Turbo Steroid Moves”

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that gold (and silver) have suffered from ‘odd’ violent down-slams in the last few months but, as Bloomberg reports, those ‘sneak-attacks’ have become increasingly more prevalent during the thin illiquid hours of the Asia trading session. “It is unusual for Asia to be seeing these busy trading sessions,” notes on trader, adding that “consensus seems to be that there is a big increase in algorithmic and high-frequency trading in this time zone.” The trend began on Oct. 31, with gold futures falling $11 in a minute on nearly 9,000 lots (20x the norm) – all happening when the Chinese market is at lunch. As one Hong Kong precious metals trader remarked, “someone is utilising these thin trading volumes to get a turbo steroid move.”

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 11/21/2014.