-- Posted 23 March, 2011 | | Discuss This Article - Comments:

In the coming weeks, it is expected that the world’s financial centers will be intertwined further, with the stock markets becoming united under one massive banner.  The Nasdaq’s OMX group is expected to launch an offer to buy NYSE Euronext, though it may be already too late. 

The NYSE Euronext, a company which owns several different stock exchanges around the world, has reached a tentative agreement to sell some of its stake in the American Stock Exchange, which it purchased in 2008.  The buyers of the majority stake couldn’t be more intertwined with government.  Bank of America, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs step up to the plate in buying pieces of the majority stake, each having been bailed out years earlier.  Citadel, TD Ameritrade, UBS AG, and Barclay’s Plc, one of the companies suspected of being part of a suppression scheme in silver, will also add positions worth 3-14.95% of the total company.

With so much power concentrated in so few hands, investors should be concerned about the growing conglomerates in the financial space.  As we all know the devastating effects of being too big to fail, it is certain that any company with a stake not in the stock market, but in the ownership of the stock market, will see political favor in the next financial crisis.

When One Owns it All

Investors are already all too familiar with the banking presence on Wall Street.  Goldman Sachs shows no remorse for having the ability to front-run every trade on the financial markets, and companies like Barclay’s are involved in tricky business that has the price of hard assets depressed. 

However, worse than this, they all now have the ability to tell the world that they are too big to fail.  If Goldman and Citadel were to see another financial crisis, taxpayers will be told that these two groups own a combined 29.90% of one of America’s stock exchanges.  How is that for a hard sell to the American public?

In times like these, it couldn’t make more sense to avoid the “good ol’ boy” network of DC and NYC, as the banking system that the American people afforded a longer life is further infiltrating the ownership not of financial products, but the markets where these products are sold.

One investment continues to stand out, an investment in which ownership is guaranteed and one that is not tied to Wall Street’s big bonuses or executive compensation.  It isn’t tied to the errors of a well-paid board of directors, and it is only buoyed by the errors of the largest bank in the world: the Federal Reserve System.

Silver is the independent investors best asset class, having a market that has financialization (futures) and also tangibility (online and offline coin dealers).  And despite the general sense of “too big to fail” on Wall Street, silver’s prices, though higher than in years previous, leave investors with the opportunity to buy into a historical asset class with valuations that are “too small to be unprofitable.” 

It is only time that will separate the winners and the losers, and silver stands out as an investment choice for the independent investor.  Of course, where you buy your silver matters—Barclay’s funds certainly aren’t your best choice.

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis

www.silver-coin-investor.com