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The „CRASH JP MORGAN, BUY SILVER“ campaign that Max Keiser started recently goes viral in the internet. Nevertheless, I was wondering if there might be a certain problem related to it and so I have asked for some clearifications. Achtung : Deutsche Version folgt morgen.

By Lars Schall, Chaostheorien.de

RE: CRASH JP MORGAN, BUY SILVER

Dear Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert,
I was wondering if your campaign to persuade civic-minded people to buy at least 1 ounce of physical silver could have legal consequences for you because one might think you are giving financial advice here. In addition one might accuse you of frontrunning in the future in case you are invested big time in silver without disclosing it to your audience. Therefore I wrote an email to a bunch of financial/precious metal experts.

One of those emails went to the Chair of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, Bill Murphy. I asked him this question:

Does Max Keiser asking people to buy 1 silver coin for political reasons or does his call constitute „investment advice“ that would need some disclosure? In my opinion the answer is ß?noß? – because he isn’t offering investment advice, instead he’s offering political activism advice tied to the nominal purchase of 1 silver coin. How do you think about it?

Bill Murphy send me an email back that said:

Lars, I look at it this way: If I asked people to buy dollar bills, would that constitute investment advice? I think not. Silver is money, so what’s the difference?

All the best,
Bill Murphy.

Another email with the same question was send to the publisher of the ß?International Forecasterß?, Bob Chapman.

Mr. Chapman replied this way:

Hi, the request is not political nor is it investment advice. It is a considered opinion of a commentator and a person who has years of experience professionally in the markets. It is a reflection of his desire to see criminals brought to justice. One of the ways of doing that is to inform people that JPMorgan Chase and HSBC have substantial naked short positions in silver, and that if everyone buys physical silver that will force these two entities to cover their short position which will entail losses to these manipulators. This is called sweet justice. It is within the venue of everyone of us in a free society to express themselves in any way that they wish. Thus, the opinion is to ask people to buy silver to force losses upon JPM and HSBC, because they have been stealing from the public for years.

Kind regards,
Bob Chapman.

I wrote also to Peter Boehringer, head of the German Precious Metal Society, and the stock-market commentator Frank Meyer. Peter Boehringer wrote back:

Lars, I am not very familiar with Max Keiser and certainly I can not read his innermost thoughts. Presumably, he is man of conviction – and I am convinced that in this case he’s doing primarily „political activism.“

A problem might be that there is no disclosure of a position in silver from Keiser. I would advise to him to make such a disclosure IF he has silver. OR making a disclosure if he has none. Then he is on the safe side. Who would even insinuate that his unprecedented action would move the silver market? Although it may be that it will be indeed successfull, no court in the world would assume that he could foresee such a success.

However, I do not really see a risk that you can make an insider trading accusation here: neither if he holds silver nor if he holds none.

Greetings,
Peter.

As an answer to this email, Frank Meyer wrote:

but …
…if you want to, you can construct something out of it. I bet on it that this would caught the attention of every lawyer. Max himself said that only 100 million ounces per annum are available. If this would happen, however, then that would be a completely new dimension, because this isn’t a question of a limited number of unit certificates in the form of shares. One could then also have the idea in the disclaimer to write: he/she has oil, gas, rapeseed oil, and four pieces of butter. I wouldn’t exclude anything for the future anymore. But we are still in 2010 – not in 2013. How nasty I am today …

With friendly greetings,
Frank.

In case you want my humble opinion, too: I agree completely with the sharp knife answer given by Bill Murphy – anyone who thinks otherwise shows their ignorance about silver and gold, period.

Best regards and good luck with your political activism advice,
Lars Schall.

RE: YOUR EMAIL

Dear Lars Schall,

I really like the answer by Bill Murphy. This is exactly the answer I have in mind. In fact it’s a trick question you have asked. If you answer anything other than what Bill Murphy has said, you should quit your job – if its involved with money in some way.

Best,
Max Keiser.