Don't know about their daily activity, but all governments including the Fed have the capability (and use it) to support markets. These are often referred to as 'them' or 'the Turks'. This was a point I made earlier in the thread. The Dow can go down a long way but it aint gonna melt down. It is only 30 stocks and 'they' can spend days buying them up to provide a base that will likely trigger a reflex of short covering. They are watching and they are waiting.
I think you are talking about the FOMC ( Federal Open Market Committee ) that operates completely in secret and deals with the big money center banks. I know that they deal in currencies, debt instruments, and the gold market, but I don't know about stocks. I can't prove it, but I think they are responsible for the recent dip in gold ( which is temporary , IMHO ). I heard that they were selling gold reserves to JPM to alleviate the big short squeeze and immediately the price of gold took a dump.
from recent Economist =============== A sucker's rally? GOLD bugs rejoice. The patience of those who stand by gold through thick and thin has been rewarded recently with a rising price. Gold has now risen to near its most recent peak of $330 in 1999, when central banks announced a moratorium on new sales of their bullion stocks, though the price then fell back to earth again. The current rally is especially surprising, since gold barely moved after September 11th, when it might have been expected to rise. Trot out some new suspects: a weak dollar, tension in Israel, India and Pakistan, and the desire of Japanese savers for a safe haven. Gold's new strength has even made bulls of some ex-bears. One of these, Andrew Smith of Mitsui Global Precious Metals, who expects the price to hit $355 an ounce by December, has turned bullish for none of the usual reasons. He ascribes gold's present good fortune to a broad shift out of American shares and bondsâbecause of an Enron-induced malaiseârather than to any revival in gold's role as the ultimate store of value. Gold's rise merely follows that of other commodities, keeping pace with platinum and silver, but with none of nickel's panache. Gold has, in effect, become just another form of alternative investment, like property, hedge funds or art. Some bulls, though, take heart from a decline of hedging by gold companies. Such companies chose to protect the price of their future gold production by forward sales or by fancy financial options. These tactics were weighing prices down, it is argued. Nowadays, low lending rates have made the forward price less attractive. Companies that do not hedge have taken over some that did: for example, Newmont's buyout of Normandy. And a new push for accounting transparency has made many wary of the complex derivatives used by some hedgers. Yet declining amounts of hedging may not be enough to keep the gold price up. The world's central banks hold some 30,000 tonnes of gold in their vaults. Mr Smith notes that AngloGold is trimming its hedging only at the same pace that the Swiss National Bank, owners of a massive hoard, is selling. Who will prevail in such a contest? âPlace your bets,â he says. Indeed, the long-term outlook for gold might mirror the fate of silver. A century ago, central banks hoarded silver as they do gold today, and it had a similar status befitting its role as a monetary metal. But now that central banks no longer keep silver reserves, the metal's purchasing power is back where it was at the beginning of the 19th century. By this measure, if central banks were to abandon gold, it would be worth around $68, says Mr Smith. Enjoy the run while it lasts.
I think the powers that be are all over the markets. A long time ago I was pitching a software program to USDA SCS (soil conservation service). I was talking with a guy who knew his way around there. He told me about the 'war room,' a bunker closed off from the world that was lined with monitors observing large agricultural operations worldwide. Under certain circumstances, transactions would be made in the commodities markets to influence prices in order to compensate for abundant or scarce harvests. I suppose they mean well.
yes, I think it said they deal in securities in the secondary market. And I just read on another thread, that today for instance, the Fed is expected to be selling securities worth $16.5 Bil. Securities they had bought 3 days ago and again yesterday. NO WONDER the market pushed up yesterday, and today it's pressured downward !
that refers to treasury's, if I'm not mistaken, and that is something they do to take cash out of the system temporarily.
LOL GOVERNMENT securities. Debt instruments. Bonds, notes, bills, cash reserves, that kind of thing. You really think Greenspan was in there with guns blazing, buying ten million shares at a clip? 'Federal Reserve reported new majority shareholder for every tech stock in existence. All current CEO's to be fired and replaced w/ government employees.'