At Long Last – A Truly Great PhD Thesis! by James Reed

I never thought that I would see the day, but a PhD thesis has exposed a global gold price collusion scam. (The Australian, October 14, 2016, p. 1) Not only that, but four of the world’s major banks are being sued for up to $1 billion over fixing of the price of gold.

Dr Andrew Caminschi conducted a computer analysis of tens of millions of gold transactions and discovered manipulations during the meetings, held twice a day to determine the benchmark price of gold. It was found that during the meetings, but before the benchmark price of gold was supposed to be known, there was a substantial rise in the trading volumes of gold derivatives. This indicated that the banks were engaged in insider-trading, making use of information not available to the rest of the market.

Congratulations Dr Caminschi! One wonders what else could be uncovered if PhD theses, and academic research in general sought to pursue such lines of research.