According to unnamed sources, The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority is scrutinizing how prices are set in the gold market London fix, the benchmark rate used by mining companies, jewelers and central banks to buy, sell and value the metal

  • They are doing so without having announced anything publicly
  • The fix is announced twice daily
  • The fix is set by telephone calls amongst 5 dealers: Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, HSBC, and Societe Generale
  • Sources say the authority is examining if knowledge gleaned on those calls could give some traders an unfair advantage when buying and selling

This comes on the back of news of probes into the FX market