1/
People think “the market is fine because regulators see everything.”
But the SEC’s Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) keeps telling a very different story.
CAT was created under SEC Rule 613 to be a single, accurate record of all equity and options activity in the US – the ultimate surveillance tool.
People think “the market is fine because regulators see everything.”
But the SEC’s Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) keeps telling a very different story.
CAT was created under SEC Rule 613 to be a single, accurate record of all equity and options activity in the US – the ultimate surveillance tool.
2/
The scale is insane: industry members alone are estimated to send tens of billions of records per trading day into CAT. That’s hundreds of billions of rows every single day.
You can’t run a system like that with sloppy data… and yet that’s exactly what is happening.
The scale is insane: industry members alone are estimated to send tens of billions of records per trading day into CAT. That’s hundreds of billions of rows every single day.
You can’t run a system like that with sloppy data… and yet that’s exactly what is happening.
3/
Recent CAT “Equities – Industry Aggregate Trade Date Statistics” tables circulating online show a column called “Overall Errors Count” for each trade date.
If you sum those daily errors for roughly one month, you end up with about 1.9 billion erroneous records in equities alone.
Even if that specific export is off by some margin, the order of magnitude matters.
Recent CAT “Equities – Industry Aggregate Trade Date Statistics” tables circulating online show a column called “Overall Errors Count” for each trade date.
If you sum those daily errors for roughly one month, you end up with about 1.9 billion erroneous records in equities alone.
Even if that specific export is off by some margin, the order of magnitude matters.
4/
Why?
Because official CAT/SEC documents already acknowledge trade dates with hundreds of millions – and in some cases billions – of reportable errors in equities reporting.
That’s not a conspiracy forum, that’s straight from rulemaking petitions and CAT updates submitted to the SEC.
Why?
Because official CAT/SEC documents already acknowledge trade dates with hundreds of millions – and in some cases billions – of reportable errors in equities reporting.
That’s not a conspiracy forum, that’s straight from rulemaking petitions and CAT updates submitted to the SEC.
5/
These “errors” are not typos on a spreadsheet. They include things like:
wrong or missing timestamps
parent/child orders that don’t link
out-of-sequence events
orders that appear executed but don’t match a real fill
routing/ID mismatches
In other words: the basic plumbing of what actually traded, where, and when.
These “errors” are not typos on a spreadsheet. They include things like:
wrong or missing timestamps
parent/child orders that don’t link
out-of-sequence events
orders that appear executed but don’t match a real fill
routing/ID mismatches
In other words: the basic plumbing of what actually traded, where, and when.
6/
When you have billions of such errors in a surveillance system whose entire purpose is “accurate, complete trade data,” you no longer have clean markets.
You have statistical fog.
And fog is where manipulation thrives.
When you have billions of such errors in a surveillance system whose entire purpose is “accurate, complete trade data,” you no longer have clean markets.
You have statistical fog.
And fog is where manipulation thrives.
7/
Now connect this to silver and other precious metals.
We don’t have a public CAT-style table for COMEX silver futures. But we do have something even more telling: a track record of proven manipulation.
In 2020, JPMorgan agreed to pay about $920 million to resolve criminal and civil cases over years of spoofing in precious metals and Treasuries. They admitted to running an unlawful trading scheme.
Other individual traders in gold and silver have been charged and banned for similar behavior.
Now connect this to silver and other precious metals.
We don’t have a public CAT-style table for COMEX silver futures. But we do have something even more telling: a track record of proven manipulation.
In 2020, JPMorgan agreed to pay about $920 million to resolve criminal and civil cases over years of spoofing in precious metals and Treasuries. They admitted to running an unlawful trading scheme.
Other individual traders in gold and silver have been charged and banned for similar behavior.
8/
So we know two things at the same time:
The official surveillance database for US markets is flooded with errors on some days.
Some of the biggest players in precious metals have already been caught manipulating those very markets.
Yet we are told that “price discovery is efficient” and that anyone questioning paper silver prices is just emotional.
So we know two things at the same time:
The official surveillance database for US markets is flooded with errors on some days.
Some of the biggest players in precious metals have already been caught manipulating those very markets.
Yet we are told that “price discovery is efficient” and that anyone questioning paper silver prices is just emotional.
9/
Ask yourself:
How reliable is reported short interest if the underlying order data is riddled with errors?
How transparent are dark pools and internalizers when even on-exchange reporting struggles with basic data quality?
How confident can you be that futures positioning reflects real risk – and not layers of synthetic exposure hidden in the noise?
Ask yourself:
How reliable is reported short interest if the underlying order data is riddled with errors?
How transparent are dark pools and internalizers when even on-exchange reporting struggles with basic data quality?
How confident can you be that futures positioning reflects real risk – and not layers of synthetic exposure hidden in the noise?
10/
For silver stackers, this isn’t about calling for doom.
It’s about recognizing that paper markets are structurally fragile, and that regulators are permanently playing catch-up with complexity, latency games, and sheer data volume.
Physical silver doesn’t solve every problem in finance.
But it does remove one huge variable: you aren’t trusting a data feed.
For silver stackers, this isn’t about calling for doom.
It’s about recognizing that paper markets are structurally fragile, and that regulators are permanently playing catch-up with complexity, latency games, and sheer data volume.
Physical silver doesn’t solve every problem in finance.
But it does remove one huge variable: you aren’t trusting a data feed.
11/
So when you see a COMEX slam or a violent intraday move in silver and someone says, “Relax, that’s just supply and demand,” remember:
a surveillance system drowning in errors, and
a history of confirmed spoofing and manipulation in metals.
Maybe the price on your screen isn’t the final word.
Maybe it’s just the current output of a very noisy machine.
So when you see a COMEX slam or a violent intraday move in silver and someone says, “Relax, that’s just supply and demand,” remember:
a surveillance system drowning in errors, and
a history of confirmed spoofing and manipulation in metals.
Maybe the price on your screen isn’t the final word.
Maybe it’s just the current output of a very noisy machine.
12/
That’s why many of us keep stacking physical.
Not because we think the system will vanish tomorrow – but because the structure is clearly sick today.
#CAT #markets #equities #silver
That’s why many of us keep stacking physical.
Not because we think the system will vanish tomorrow – but because the structure is clearly sick today.
#CAT #markets #equities #silver
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