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-- Do you think there's direct manipulation in the stock market? (http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=241919)
Do you think there's direct manipulation in the stock market?
Quote from ammo:
game is so controlled now that the fed,banks, gs,jpm, can team up and just move the market against the whales..they know everyone's exact position..playing poker where the biggest guy can see your cards......whats the word ..they broke up att for it
Uh...Is this a trick question?
Quote from BSAM:
Uh...Is this a trick question?
Absolutely, the big guys scaring the little guys, happens all the time.
No,
there is no manipulation. Big Boys don't even have to manipulate anything. Average Hedge Fund loses money. Customer's money, but each time they are in plus for the year they would chop off profits. Plus the management fee.
The way big institutions are structured, they don't even have to make money to make money.
__________________
If you can manage risk, it is not risk you are managing.
SEC stamped out that sort of thing years ago. Happened in the '20's they say (before the SEC).
Of course conspiracists claim it still goes on every time someone buys index options before a Fed rate cut or a briefing for GS clients by Hank Paulson - that's the tin foil hat brigade for you.
__________________
Regret is useless.
Quote from flipside21:
Direct manipulation would be direct purchases of stocks or futures by the Fed or related entities.
Yep, of course. FED is the ultimate player.
Quote from FringeAlgo:
I will write this once, if you catch it you catch it
if you don't, well tough luck
QE 1 QE2, and hidden QE3
Federal Reserve, creates billions with computer keyboard, that is converted into BONDS, those bonds are converted into smaller bank computer net assets
those bank assets are converted into stocks/contracts and other bonds
The market goes UP
Dollar goes down. (less so now because other countries are fighting back by devaluing their money too)
Oil goes up
Food goes up
manufacturers make food packaging smaller
Standard of living goes down.
and US debt increases perpetually because FED's money is added as a tax burden.
I bow
and you clap
I exit the stage
Quote from FringeAlgo:
Why does the FED keep printing money?
Because FED right now is de facto entire economy. Economy no longer exists, it has been killed by debt.
So in order to avoid collapse of the country, FED is literally creating money to pay the interest on all the loans (foreign and FED loans) and printing enough to move the market up, keep pensions going etc.
If you are a little confused at this point, that's because you are beginning to realize just how fucked we are.
The FED is literally creating money to pay its own debt loans to the government through the government.
The FED has been caught a year ago creating curtain companies to to buy own Fed Bonds while looking like foreign company.
This game can only last until one day it collapses, The fate of United States of America was sealed in 1913 with creation of the FED, and it took 100 years and maybe more. But USA is finished.
As for is this the only way to devalue dollar, NO, but it is most effective way.
Quote from FringeAlgo:
To add before I log out,
In fact it is too late, it is too late for everything, not even revolution to take down FED would prevent US collapse
Not even Ron Paul would be able to save the country.
Weather by FED alone or by forcing FED's hand by attempting to outlaw them.
USA will collapse as sure as the sun will set.
Quote from FringeAlgo:
look man, I am not going to baby sit you
you are either
A - an honest but clueless citizen
B - A shill for the FED
C - A troll out to waste time for the sake of wasting time
Here
if you really want the truth
here you go
http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...319560256183936
true.
Fed is the biggest among others.
they can let market up and down just at their will.
look at those banks, they were at the brink of being washed out, but now they used "tax payer's money :bailout money', they are still here, bac is doubled, aig is 50~60% up....
all those are FED's manipulation, otherwise bac/aig.... is just garnbage
The simple changing of the rate of interest is the purest form of makret manipulation. Beyond that, if you don't think the market is manipulated on a short term basis you're trading with your eyes closed. That shouldn't be an excuse for losing money, however. What's stopping you from recognizing periods of manipulation and trading on that side of the market?
If you can't beat them, join them.
Quote from ReaM:
No,
there is no manipulation. Big Boys don't even have to manipulate anything. Average Hedge Fund loses money. Customer's money, but each time they are in plus for the year they would chop off profits. Plus the management fee.
The way big institutions are structured, they don't even have to make money to make money.
There probably is even though it is illegal.
Quote from FringeAlgo:
look man, I am not going to baby sit you
you are either
A - an honest but clueless citizen
B - A shill for the FED
C - A troll out to waste time for the sake of wasting time
Here
if you really want the truth
here you go
http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...319560256183936
Quote from mokwit:
SEC stamped out that sort of thing years ago. Happened in the '20's they say (before the SEC).
Of course conspiracists claim it still goes on every time someone buys index options before a Fed rate cut or a briefing for GS clients by Hank Paulson - that's the tin foil hat brigade for you.
Is bluffing conisidered manipulation? How bout an engineered short-squeeze?
"Is there direct manipulation in the stock market?"
Technically we don't usually call it like that. We say collaborative or collective actions, as JH often promotes it on ET.
__________________
"The Pursuit of Happyness" --- Chris Gardner
I'm looking at some intraday charts, plotting transactions that go off at the ask and at the bid separately... either I'm seeing the effect of just what traders were thinking for the day, their trend bias, or I'm seeing some very clever algos using their abilities with the fake bids and all to manipulate price to the long side.. certainly the news is massaged to promote the long bias, look at how the last jobs data was reported on.
Re: Do you think there's direct manipulation in the stock market?
Quote from flipside21:
What does everyone think? Is there direct manipulation in the stock market?
Quote from Tsing Tao:
LOL! SEC. hahahah!
Quote from the1:
The simple changing of the rate of interest is the purest form of makret manipulation. Beyond that, if you don't think the market is manipulated on a short term basis you're trading with your eyes closed. That shouldn't be an excuse for losing money, however. What's stopping you from recognizing periods of manipulation and trading on that side of the market?
If you can't beat them, join them.
If I am trading an instrument , say silver for example, ( a relatively thin market) and take out a few levels of DOM with my market order and move the market a few ticks, is that manipulation? If I'm a big player , my actions are going to move it more than a couple stupid ticks, especially if I really need to get out . Happens all the time.
In fact gold and silver are some of the most manipulated instruments out there, see (JPM & Silver) .
It is my belief that manipulation can only be temporary and must resolve through natural market forces eventually. When Silver started cracking above 20 dollars JPM's big shorts were getting toasted.
Big players know where retail put their stops , they need that liquidity to get filled so it is in their best interest to get to that liquidity.
The market exists to fill orders, just as cub foods supermarket is trying to fill the most orders between seller and buyer . The more volume they do the more profit.
Some of my ET brethren just don't understand that when our good government meddles in free markets, they only have your best interests at heart.
There's been other governments that were trying to look out for the people who also have been misunderstood/under appreciated.
Some of those good leaders have included King George, Idi Amin, Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Putin, George W. Bush, Fidel Castro, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Richard Nixon, Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, etc.
Remember they only want what's good for you.
LOL!
The perception that there is manipulation can become self-fulfilling. If you think they will run stops, you buy before they do, then others buy, and then funds buy a ton just to sell even more and produce what you think is a stop run.
After every trade, you might wonder "will Ben or Obama speak, and do only the big funds know this in advance." Will something be leaked or reported, and I don't know this ahead of time like the big money.
Without perfect information, and knowing you are not the "big stack", of course you are going to wonder what is going on behind the curtain.
Have 2 massive hedge fund managers ever had a drink and said something that resulted in price "manipulation"? Ever?
Have two black boxes ever been programmed to do something that would make the retail clown to think it's manipulation? ever?
magic eight ball says "likely"
Stock Market Manipulation - The secret maneuverings of the Plunge Protection Team (PPT)
Stock-Markets / Analysis & Strategy Mar 05, 2007 - 06:15 PM
By: Mike_Whitney
Stock-Markets The Working Group on Financial Markets, also know as the Plunge Protection Team, was created by Ronald Reagan to prevent a repeat of the Wall Street meltdown of October 1987. Its members include the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Chairman of the SEC and the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Recently, the team has been on high-alert given the increased volatility of the markets and, what Hank Paulson calls, "the systemic risk posed by hedge funds and derivatives.”
Last Tuesday's 416 point drop in the stock market has sent tremors through global system. An 8% freefall on the Chinese stock exchange triggered a massive equities sell-off which continued sporadically throughout the week. The sudden shift in sentiment, from Bull to Bear, has drawn more attention to deeply rooted “systemic” problems in the US economy. US manufacturing is already in recession, the dollar continues to weaken, consumer spending is flat, and the sub-prime market in real estate has begun to nosedive. These have all contributed to the markets' erratic behavior and created the likelihood that the Plunge Protection Team may be stealthily intervening behind the scenes.
According to John Crudele of the New York Post, the Plunge Protection Team's (PPT) modus operandi was revealed by a former member of the Federal Reserve Board, Robert Heller. Heller said that disasters could be mitigated by “buying market averages in the futures market, thus stabilizing the market as a whole.” This appears to be the strategy that has been used.
Former-Clinton advisor, George Stephanopoulos, verified the existence of The Plunge Protection Team (as well as its methods) in an appearance on Good Morning America on Sept 17, 2000. Stephanopoulos said:
“Well, what I wanted to talk about for a few minutes is the various efforts that are going on in public and behind the scenes by the Fed and other government officials to guard against a free-fall in the markets….perhaps the most important the Fed in 1989 created what is called the Plunge Protection Team, which is the Federal Reserve, big major banks, representatives of the New York Stock Exchange and the other exchanges and they have been meeting informally so far, and they have a kind of an informal agreement among major banks to come in and start to buy stock if there appears to be a problem. They have in the past acted more formally… I don't know if you remember but in 1998, there was a crisis called the Long term Capital Crisis. It was a major currency trader and there was a global currency crisis. And they, with the guidance of the Fed, all of the banks got together when it started to collapse and propped up the currency markets. And, they have plans in place to consider that if the markets start to fall.”
Stephanopoulos' comments have never been officially denied. In fact, as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the U.K. Telegraph notes, Secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson has called for the PPT to meet with greater frequency and set up “a command centre at the US Treasury that will track global markets and serve as an operations base in the next crisis. The top brass will meet every six weeks, combining the heads of Treasury, Federal Reserve, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and key exchanges”.
This suggests that the PPT may have been deeply involved in last Wednesday's “miraculous” stock market rebound from Tuesday's losses. There was no apparent reason for the market to suddenly “go positive” following a ruinous day that shook investor confidence around the world. The editors of the New York Times summarized the feelings of many market-watchers who were baffled by this odd recovery:
“The torrent of bad news on housing is only worsening, with a report yesterday that new home sales for January had their steepest slide in 13 years...Manufacturing has already slipped into a recession, with activity contracting in two of the last three months. How is it then that investors took Mr. Bernanke's words as a “buy” signal?”
How indeed; unless other forces were operating secretly behind the scenes?
Market Rigging
“Gaming” the system may be easier than many people believe. Robert McHugh, Ph.D. has provided a description of how it works which seems consistent with the comments of Robert Heller. McHugh lays it out like this:
“The PPT decides markets need intervention, a decline needs to be stopped, or the risks associated with political events that could be perceived by markets as highly negative and cause a decline; need to be prevented by a rally already in flight. To get that rally, the PPT's key component — the Fed — lends money to surrogates who will take that fresh electronically printed cash and buy markets through some large unknown buyer's account. That buying comes out of the blue at a time when short interest is high. The unexpected rally strikes blood, and fear overcomes those who were betting the market would drop. These shorts need to cover, need to buy the very stocks they had agreed to sell (without owning them) at today's prices in anticipation they could buy them in the future at much lower prices and pocket the difference. Seeing those stocks rally above their committed selling price, the shorts are forced to buy — and buy they do. Thus, those most pessimistic about the equity market end up buying equities like mad, fueling the rally that the PPT started. Bingo, a huge turnaround rally is well underway, and sidelines money from Hedge Funds, Mutual funds and individuals' rushes in to join in the buying madness for several days and weeks as the rally gathers a life of its own.” (Robert McHugh, Ph.D., “The Plunge Protection Team Indicator”)
If a secret team is interfering in the stock market, it presents serious practical and moral issues. For one thing, it disrupts natural “corrections” which are a normal part of the business cycle and which help to maintain a healthy and competitive slate of equities.
More importantly, outside intervention punishes the people who see the weaknesses in the stock market and have invested accordingly. Clearly, these people are being ripped off by the PPT's back-channel manipulations. They deserve to be fairly compensated for the risks they have taken.
Moreover, artificially propping up the market only encourages over-leveraged speculators and smiley-face Pollyanna's who continue to believe that the grossly-inflated market will continue to rise. Rewarding foolishness only stimulates greater speculation.
The tinkering of the PPT is sure to erode confidence in the unimpeded activity of capital markets. It's astonishing to think that, after years of singing the praises of the “free market” as the ultimate expression of God's divine plan; these same conservative ideologues and “market purists” favor a strategy for direct intrusion. The actions of the Plunge Protection Team prove that it's all baloney. The “free market” is merely a public relations myth with no basis in reality. Saving the system will always take precedent over ideology; just as the “invisible hand” will always be overpowered by the manicured and mettlesome fingers of banking elites and Wall Street big wigs. It's their system and they're not going to let it get wiped out by some silly commitment to principle.
The free market system is supposed to be “self cleansing” through cyclical purges of over-inflated equities and over-extended speculators. Do we really want “central planning” from an unelected, Market-Nanny that re-jiggers the system according to its own economic interests?
The Plunge Protection Team may wrap itself in pompous rhetoric, but it operates like a Fiscal Politburo inserting itself into the market in way that promotes the narrow interests of its own constituents. It's an outrage....
Thanks for posting, zdreg.
Very interesting read. 
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