To the Disciplined Trader,

Hi and welcome to the latest edition of The Educated Analyst. It always amuses me how we often have a recurring theme in the articles without any scripting from us. This time we have two articles that highlight some of the market manipulation that seems to be going on. Besides those given in the articles, another example in recent times is the manipulation of the silver market, where large players were allegedly manipulating the price by the sheer volume of contracts that they held. Many people will cry foul over this - and rightly so, where this is found to be happening it should be prosecuted.

In reality though, I take a very pragmatic view on this, while I do not doubt that manipulation happens, I think it is something that has been happening for as long as we have had "Free" markets. From a purist Gann point of view, it could be said that the manipulation was necessary to have the market reach the required Gann levels........ but that is where my mind struggles too much with the paradox of "Does the market define the levels, or do the levels define the market". I think that that is a philosophical discussion to be had over a nice bottle of wine.

Nevertheless, I do not think manipulation is a reason to stay away from a market. The more you study a market and get to know it, you will be able to successfully trade it no matter if the moves are "natural" or manipulated. In over fifteen years of being involved in the trading industry, the very best traders that I have met are always those that choose, study and test a market thoroughly.

In some other news related a bit more closely to The Educated Analyst, this will be the last time that we present The Educated Analyst as a large PDF file like this. You see, many of the articles in this issue were actually received weeks ago, and some of them were quite pertinent to what was happening in the market at that time. Rather than make you wait for us to collate all the articles and build them into this PDF, we are going to release them as we receive them in a blog format. If you are subscribed to The Educated Analyst, we'll let you know as soon as we have changed the website so that you can subscribe to that service via email or RSS.

Well that's it from me, I trust that you enjoy the articles and that they give you some insights into the market that assist you with your trading. Stay safe with your trading and remember to protect your capital.

Mathew Verdouw
Editor & Author
The Educated Analyst
P.S. When you sign up for The Educated Analyst, that's all you will get from us, we will never share your details with anyone and we will not bother you with any other spam.

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