As of this summer China now has its own Comex, called the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange. The exchange opened for trade on May 18th (the CME's incredible margin hikes in silver began only weeks before, which suggests to me that they were trying to preempt the positive effects the HKMEX would have on metals). The HKMEX moved into action only five months after the Chinese Pan American Gold Exchange was instituted. The exchange issues its own ETF's in gold and silver. These securities, though, are not based on leverage or derivatives like most Comex based ETFs. The bottom line; the Comex global monopoly on commodities trade is over:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011-01/13/content_11846539.htm
http://af.reuters.com/article/metalsNews/idAFL3E7II0W920110718
This would explain gold's unstoppable expansion into the $1800 range, and how silver was able to climb back after the CME's brutal margin manipulation into the $40 range. Only last week, the CME issued a margin hike on gold of 22%. Despite this the fall in gold was minimal, showing that their influence, though vast, is beginning to wane. With competition, manipulation becomes more difficult, and room for growth is created.
The new Hong Kong Exchange coupled with the now explosive buying of physical PM's by Chinese consumers is slowly but surely overriding the long prevailing manipulations of corporate robber barons intent on ensuring gold and silver are never treated as a currency alternative to the dollar. Silver markets in the East were set into motion a bit more slowly than gold markets were, but given a little more time, I suspect that the resultant spike in silver prices will be the same.
