Shortly after 1amET this morning, someone with no apparent fiduciary duty to their client's for best execution or any apparent trade allocation expertise decided it was time to dump 1500 contracts into an entirely illiquid gold futures market. The 150,000 ounce notional sell order ($184.5 million), captured graphically by Nanex, sent the price down $10 instaneously, tripped the exchange's circuit breakers and halted the market's trading for 20 seconds (once again). This is now the 4th market halt in the past 3 months (and this time on no news whatsoever), as the manipulative monkey-hammerings from who knows whom (BIS?) is becoming increasingly obvious.

Via Nanex,

This sort of thing is happening far too often: see also the drops on April 12, 2013, September 12, 2013, October 11, 2013 and November 20, 2013 which also resulted in trading halts.

1. December 2013 Gold (GC) Futures Trades.

2. December 2013 Gold (GC) Futures Trades - Zoom 1.

3. December 2013 Gold (GC) Futures Trades - Zoom 2.
The 20 second halt shows up clearly.

4. December 2013 Gold (GC) Futures Depth of Book (how to read).