The Return of the Benton

So, Wynter Benton is back for what we're calling 'Round 3'. Last month when they resurfaced, I resisted writing about it but now they're stepping up the juice by advertising a demonstration of their 'power'. Their latest price call for silver trading above $50/oz by 1st 31st December 2012 didn't generate the spark and interest they wanted (duh), so I guess this is all about trying to restore lost credibility - after all the 'Benton Guarantee' turned out to be as much value as trying to redeem a medical insurance claim. I'm not even being mean-spirited! In their own words: "if the paper price of silver is ever below $36 again, we will bust the Comex link" and ''Our group GUARANTEES that silver will trade above $45 by November 30, 2011. No caveats, no excuses link''. They are planning a demo starting next Tuesday, going on for about a week link.


Strong Sell? Yep. Come to the Premier Release of the final installment of the Trilogy - Wynter Benton III. Popcorn and dogs will be on sale.
The group claim that the MFG bankruptcy was done specifically to thwart their efforts, and was the excuse for not defending the $36/oz mark which is pivotal to their derivatives bomb plan. The only reason I am still giving the story any coverage is that there does seem to be a curious tie-up with the price of silver, interest rates and the US dollar (noticed by our resident chart-master Grundlemaster Jenkins). While the details has never been fully understood or proven, the general appeal of the WB story has always been that they may have discovered the Achilles Heel of the banking system that we know and hate.

In our self-appointed blogosphere role as devil's advocate, I just wanted to highlight a different perspective on Wynter Benton. If the Benton Group do actually pull off their 'price movements demo' convincingly then actually all they prove is that they are manipulators of the silver price - that's right, the antithesis of the stacking philosophy. So while the only way they will gain back some credibility is to do some amazing price calling (in real time), the only end situation is that they may create a following of investors who watch their words carefully whilst fully retaining the ability to move the silver price at their discretion. Ringing some alarm bells? I hope the SEC watches the demonstration too.


The motivations of the Benton Group were never adequately explained, but we believe we captured the essence in our fictional story: The mundane machinations of a mania: the story of Wynter Benton. After all, our blog followed the Benton story from the very start - in fact we've been doing a slow write-up of the history in this permanent Wynter Benton Page, which we've just updated due to the number of hits coming in from people researching the Wynter Benton Story:

http://screwtapefiles.blogspot.com/p/wynter-benton-myth.html

We have already been called 'paid shills' because of this page (ironically counter-labeling someone a 'paid shill' is right out of the shill handbook as well), it all makes me mildly amused. We've been following this story the longest and in the most detail than anyone on the internet. We invite Amber (or anyone) to add to the record or refute, debate and discuss the topic.

[Updated 1st January 2013]

Corrected the date of their price call - can't believe I wrote the 1st December when it was 31st December 2012, and I waited all this time to see what the outcome was. Silver closed the year around the $30 mark. There is no way that $50/oz by year end really even qualifies as a close or good guess, and having been very very wrong for the final time perhaps we can put this bastard to rest. Should those idiots resurface for a fourth time, please do us the favor of linking back here, so that the world can see that the brand is dead. Perhaps we will see a resurfacing under a different name - but unfortunately for the shysters their memetic pattern is now all too obvious and rest assured we will also track them down to the end. No indeed, Wynter Benton, you're a big fat fraud and you were the entire time. Chow.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Benton.

Benton.

Oh, Jesus Christ... Benton!

Warren James said...

I tried overnight to identify a good outcome for the Benton Demo - can't find one.

If they succeed then that's a bad outcome for silver investors - if they fail then they should never come back. If they succeed marginally then the picture only becomes muddier. If they really can move the silver price then all they need to do is jam it above a $36/oz floor for 60 days to prove their point about the derivatives bomb, and at that point they no longer require the public's participation except to say 'look at me', but if one can control the silver price then one does not eveb need that. On top of all of that, they seem to keep forgetting that JP Morgan has an unlimited line of credit from the FED, so the whole thing was not thought through very well and it all stinks.

JdA, you won't believe this I had never seen that video clip, but it explains the kid's obsession with renaming the dog (lasted about a week)!

Anonymous said...

I honestly don't think this needs too much deep analysis. WB does not control the price of silver, because he's either a sad fantasist or an online hoaxer. Warren, and others, have successfully demonstrated that many times. And the whole 'derivatives bomb' is utter nonsense (I think KD and others have addressed the unlikelihood of such an 'exotic' derivatives contract, but I can't find the link, sadly).

So regardless of what happens to the silver price next week, there are no further conclusions to be drawn about WB.

Remember "Trinity Blue"? She did quite a cool thing around the time of the end of WB in which she successfully convinced a lot of people at TF Metals Report and Screwtape that she was able to predict silver price moves. There were people offering to take her out to posh restaurants and all sorts, just to hear more of her 'wisdom'. Inevitably, it was all a hoax, and Trinity had just been getting lucky with predictions made off charts.

The only difference is that Trinity Blue apparently had the good sense to out herself as a hoax after a few successful predictions (presumably knowing that the laws of probability would soon go against her and make her look stupid) and never came back. WB apparently has no such common sense.

@Warren: You've never seen that before? Honestly, Warren, you're so out of touch you could be a High Court Judge... ;-)

Some further explanation of the video is here.

GM Jenkins said...

I don't believe any of this WB stuff. Let's talk serious trading. I've decided to load up on $50 silver calls that expire October 20. That's what my charts are telling me.

Warren James said...

@Jeanne, fully agree. I guess one of the reasons I'm writing all this up is so that it gets found in the Google search results. But Trin B also had style and pizazz, you gotta admit!. Amber also had the same kind of 'zip' but their story sort of derailed soon into Round 1.

Anyway, I'll watch the WB 'price predictions' with interest, but I'm more curious about the excuses they will pony up and the correlations they will try to paint.

@GM, I am doing the same, using my JP Morgan credit card.

Warren James said...

.. here in my Geography it's the 16th October so I'm the first one seated in the Benton Cineplex. Local markets are open - let's guess where these goobers are located, based on their first message (we had always wondered whether it was Europe or Americas).

Arepmi said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Arepmi said...

I have this odd feeling after following the stories of wynter Benton, the name Jonathan Lebed comes to mind. Jonathan lebed was the youngest person charged by the sec for pump and dumping. At a very young age, he posted in forums with multiple screen names promoting different companies. He started the NIA (national inflation association) and is being accused by some that he is up to his old tricks. He advocates owning silver and gold. I have no proof of anything, it's just a thought.

Anonymous said...

Arepmi: I can't prove it either, but I've long suspected (and put in print) that the NIA were behind the bears videos that SGS claimed to have produced.

More recently, it has become obvious that Omid Malekan was behind the bears videos. The similarity between his work and that of the NIA is compelling.

Arepmi said...

For their price movement starting October 16th, they never stated if they will move he price up or down. No matter what direction it moves they win just by reading charts.

Arepmi said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Warren James said...

@Arepmi, true regarding directional ambiguity. They did however indicate that the 'effect' would be magnitudes greater than their 2011 efforts. Since they are manipulators they will require to tap trader momentum, which I guess is partially the point of the exercise.

Any trader worth his salt will be able to see straight through a set of clever guesses, so if they don't want to be branded a laughing stock (again) then they need to pull something impressive out of the proverbial, Having sold the drama.

Expecting yawnville however. I'm actually expecting an UPWARD MOVE OF SILVER, of more than $1.50 in the next 30 hours (this is my own personal demo, to illustrate that I too, control the price of silver) ;p

Anonymous said...

Ah, that's not my interpretation. WB posts on the JPM message board, and gave a 'strong sell' (or some such) recommendation. I took that to meant that JPM's stock will fall due to a sharp spike in the price of silver.

But as it's all bollocks, I don't think we need to dwell to much on that... ;-)

Arepmi said...

That strong sell is regarding JPM stock

Warren James said...

re: Strong Sell sentiment being JPM Stock - yep, I do understand that. One of the suggested 'motivations' for their posts was to 'strike fear and terror into the hearts of JP Morgan'. But I get the distinct impression that result has not been achieved through this exercise.

Btw, I'm going to 'throw a Benton' over my pricing prediction just above ... After much thought I've decided not to move the market at this time - conditions weren't right, Benny disappoints, blah blah.

The whole point of the WB drama is that silver over $36/oz for 60 days destroys JPM completely and utterly. Which is the silly part - it's very close to that level now and if they really have the power they claim then all they have to do is nudge it, hold it and achieve their goal - not parade their abilities to move the price - assuming they even show up for that which they haven't currently, 24 hours since the advertised start of their real time calling.

If I may loosely paraphrase Dr. G over at TFMetalsReport: 'this group does not exist in the way they purport to be'. Correct, and even if were only a fraction of that, it's in no one's benefit to trust what they have to say.

They are definitely the same people - the login signature is the same for Benton round 1, 2 and 3 (one of the first things I checked), and by extension Amber, and by extension all the other claims that they threaded into their hyperbolic narrative.

My derision is complete. Wynter Benton, feel free to S.T.F.U.

Warren James said...

After 48 hours there is no sign of another post from the Benton. I heartily admit that I'm a bit obsessive about this - my internal justification is that I'm just patrolling to make sure the zombie stays dead this time.

One person in a Benton discussion thread actually suggested the $0.30 strength in silver may have something to do with the early work of Benton, and another enthusiastically announcing a purchase of 500 oz based on the story, but it's hard to determine whether these posters are fools or cretins.

Still interesting to watch from a psychological perspective regardless; as there is indeed a lot of fertile ground in this space. The tendency for stories and desires to be easily conflated along with our own tendency to ignore obvious truths (like the hapless folk caught up in the Australian real estate bubble) comes as no real surprise, but it's only the well-guarded who will not be chewed up and spat out by the machinations of others.

Anyway, I'll be the last one out of the theater to make sure all the lights are off. Right, back to work.

Anonymous said...

Looks like WB's doing well this week

I guess this means he'll now try to claim that it was his intention all along to dramatically lower the price of silver...! Twit.

Warren James said...

@Jeanne, quite so.

Still no word from them. We may never know their reasons for pulling out of updating their moves in real time during this period (between October 16 to October 23, 2012) - but I bet it's a good one! (was it something I said??)

Maybe they realized on the Tuesday morning they had to move the silver price down and that it would not have been looked on favorably by their mark (I mean, audience).

I get the overall impression they thought that the wind from QE3 might hit the sails of Silver like it did prior.

To be honest, I wish they would have brought out the details of what they were planning, on a blog or something - but I guess that would require fleshing out the story with evidence, hence not done. I suppose I'm not the first to be disappointed to find that something which appeared fantastic, turned out to be little than a common garden-variety con - it must happen all the time out there. I had (at least) expected more from the writer who appeared as 'Amber'.

The lawn needs mowing ..

Warren James said...

.. and no Bentonesque alerts over the weekend either. Jeanne - you might be right; perhaps they are doing this on Twitter now, and we're all missing the action.

According to our stats, stacks of Google search traffic for 'wynter benton' is landing straight to our permanent record page: Wynter Benton Myth, which in turn has a catalog of all our Wynter articles. Most discussion forums link straight to that page whenever the topic comes up, and dispels the intrigue more or less immediately. I'm getting a lot of satisfaction from that, since the strategy was VERY VERY deliberate. Wynter, we own your namespace, the whole brand is dead on arrival if you ever dare pull this stupid stunt again.

Warren James said...

It's the 23rd of October - last day of their real time calling, (still nothing). I'm here to bury the dead, since there is no recovery from this fail - no matter what they say after this point. Bold claims Amber, require bold support.

Have been waiting all week to get the last word in, but that seems to belong to "A Yahoo! User" on the permalink discussion - "They're doing exactly what they promised : they're showing their ability to move the silverprice -they don't have that ability- and they're letting us know their every move -they're not moving-.

And in the words of the wynter_benton group themselves: "Hold on to you seats because what you are about to see will dwarf what we did in February 2011". Yes - it certainly did.

Anonymous said...

@Warren:

I'm here to bury the dead...

LOL. You've driven a stake through WB's grave so many times now, surely there can be naught left but mush.

But, seriously, congratulations on the considerable achievement of making your WB Myth page the automatic go-to place for Google searches on the subject. You're right: they're totally screw[tap]ed now..!

JdA

Warren James said...

We are about half way through December - there ought to be evidence of $50/oz but it sure doesn't look likely to be trading above that before the end of the month as advertised.

Yes, I'll be here quietly making sure passers-by don't mistake this dead corpse for a living one.

Warren James said...

Dead as a doornail. R.I.P. Wynter.

Warren James said...

Nine months later, the Benton saga reads even sadder, what with the silver price and all. ;p