Gold fix fines hasten exchanges’ day

On May 22, Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority fined Barclays Capital £26 million ($44 million) after finding a Barclays trader had manipulated the 'London fix' for gold prices, a benchmark used for pricing billions of dollars’ worth of derivative contracts. Such actions are now commonplace wherever prices are determined by consortiums of bilateral market makers, rather than by public price discovery. Governments around the world have levied nearly $6 billion in fines over manip…