Did anyone else look at the Nikkei last night and smell manipulation? Central banks have just one playbook these days: market manipulation. I bring this up because last night, I looked at the Nikkei price action and it smelled of government support. Every small dip was bought and the market was slowly taken higher, with the support taken away once the cash market closed. After the futures market reopened, the Nikkei futures dumped 300 points on nothing while the ES was rising. There is no real demand for Japanese equities at this price level. The BOJ is setting the market price. When they aren't operating, the Nikkei goes down. When they are, it goes up. At least they admit as much. The PPT will never admit to anything. http://marketowl.blogspot.com/2011/03/manipulation-nation.html
Bernanke himself cited market performance as evidence of the success of QE: http://contraryinvesting.com/federal-reserve/bernanke-admits-qe2-is-about-juicing-the-stock-market/