How to Make $10,000 in Six Hours Before FOMC Minutes Are Released

It helps to be an insider on Wall Street if you expect to make big money.

Just as a for instance, take the trade in gold today prior to the Fed releasing the FOMC minutes from July at 2:00 pm ET.

At 8:00 am ET, gold was sitting right around $1270 per troy ounce. Six hours later, prior to the release of the FOMC minutes, it was at $1280 or above.

If one was so inclined, one could have placed a futures bid at 8:00 am and sold it at 2:00 pm, for a profit of $10 per troy ounce. Since futures are dealt with in lots of 100s, one would have had to made the order for 100 futures contracts. It would have cost a fraction of the actual value of the gold involved, but, upon selling, the profits would have netted somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000, less commissions, which, as an insider, would be minimal.

Also, as an insider, one could probably have bought the futures via a margin account, thus putting up even less actual money.

Nice way to make a living, you say?

Well, if the Fed is nothing more than a stealth conduit for the wealthy and well-connected, it would surprise nobody if the contents of the FOMC minutes were leaked or casually mentioned in private conversation.

That's how corrupted markets work, and there's nothing more corrupted than the gold and silver futures markets, except maybe, the US equity markets.

What was discovered - among many views and opinions - in the FOMC minutes was that various members expressed a need to tighten policy, in other words, raise rates and/or roll off some of the excessive assets held by the Federal Reserve.

Roughly the same trade could have been made in various commodities, especially by being on the short side in WTI crude oil futures, or stocks, or by going long bonds. The Dow was up 87 points early in the day before reversing - well before the FOMC minutes release - finally closing just short of 26 points to the upside.

It is a nice way to make a living, especially when one has friends in high places.

At the Close, Wednesday, August 16, 2017:
Dow: 22,024.87, +25.88 (+0.12%)
NASDAQ 6,345.11, +12.10 (+0.19%)
S&P 500 2,468.11, +3.50 (+0.14%)
NYSE Composite: 11,865.33, +21.85 (+0.18%)