“In the 40 years that I have been involved in finance,” writes Marc Faber, sussing out an explanation for this mystery, “I have never experienced such a complete lack of trust in markets, regulators and financial institutions.”

“Irrespective of whether individual investors are positive or negative about equities,” he writes in his latest Gloom Boom & Doom Report, “they all think that the Federal Reserve, large institutional investors and algorithmic traders are rigging the U.S. stock market.”

“At the same time, they feel that U.S. government bond yields are at an artificially low level because of the Fed’s monetization (another form of manipulation).”

What’s more, “The gold and silver bulls believe that someone manipulates the precious metal markets in order to bring prices down.”