USA - An “exhaustive” investigation of the silver market by the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission managed to miss serial acts of price manipulation in the gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures contracts markets. John Edmonds, 36, of Brooklyn, a former JPMorgan precious-metals major bullion trader, admitted he engaged in a six-year ‘spoofing’ scheme from 2009 to 2015 that involved placing orders for precious metals futures contracts with the intent to cancel those orders before execution in order to manipulate prices. He recently pleaded guilty to commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, commodity price manipulation and spoofing and faces up to 30 years in prison, but is expected to get a lighter sentence. He said that he learned this practice from more senior traders and that his supervisors at the firm knew of his actions.