According to the World Gold Council, the first gold coin was struck around 500 BC. Twenty-five hundred years later, at ~$2.4T, gold is larger than all European sovereign debt markets.
So I guess the obvious question is, can a market of this size be manipulated? I’m not sure, but gold manipulation is a tale as old as time and where there’s smoke there’s fire. Below check out the fire which comes from Benn Steil’s “The Battle of Bretton Woods.”
“From his bed each morning, Roosevelt would, after briefly conferring with his advisers, set a daily target for bumping up the gold price, not always through scientific methods. One day, November 3, the president suggested that gold should go up twenty-one cents. “It’s a lucky number,” he explained, chuckling, “because it’s three times seven.”
“If anybody ever knew how we really set the gold price through a combination of luck numbers, etc.,” observed Morgenthau, I think they would be frightened.”
Obviously a lot has changed since the 1930’s but there are still people who insist that gold is manipulated (usually when it’s down). Just Google “gold manipulation” and you’ll see 11.2 million results. I’m not qualified to have an opinion on the matter but the quotes above certainly make the case that gold once was heavily manipulated.
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