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U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 12:32 AM   #1
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U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?


Peter Brimelow writing for CBSMarketWatch has pinpointed a very strong report out of Canada alleging that the U.S. Government is rigging the equity markets.

Whatever else you do today, you better stop and read this report. It is a blockbuster bombshell which must be acknowledged and responded to by the Fed, the Treasury, and others who are implicated. It must and it will provoke a tremendous uproar. The report entitled “Move Over, Adam Smith: The Visible Hand of Uncle Sam” was prepared by analysts at a firm called Sprott Asset Management in Toronto.

www.sprott.com


The report alleges that it has been common knowledge on the Street for quite some time that a shadowy, informal “coordinating group” known as the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) has been working secretly inside the U.S. Government. This group apparently arranges more or less continuous interventions by the Treasury and the Fed to stabilize U.S. equity markets. Allegedly, these interventions have been going on periodically since the 1987 crash and the report concludes that what began as expedient stop-gap emergency measures to deal with dire financial crises through secret direct TreasuryFed intervention has become ongoing, pervasive and endemic to the market. The report details how private investment bankers and large brokerage firms are employed as de facto agents of the U.S. Government to manipulate the markets.

If these allegations are true this has huge negative implications for the markets which the report outlines. in some detail.

Apparently quite a few players are in on this market fixing scheme by the U.S. Government in co-ordination with the Fed which at its core involves the dissemination of insider information by strategically placed individuals at the NY Fed to prime the market to accomplish government policy objectives. This may or may not entail the necessity of direct Treasury or Fed intervention on a daily basis. But at the very least certain select , privileged members of the “investment community” are provided with early information on U.S. Government market intentions and forthcoming Treasury/Fed interventions into the equity markets. This is the very thing for which poor Martha Stewart was required to spend six months in the Federal penitentiary. The details of this market fixing scheme are stunning in breadth and scope.

Market fixing or “stabilization activities” as the Treasury might call them enriches the privileged insiders acquiescing with the Government’s policy while socializing the risk to the U.S. taxpayers through secret transactions of the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) a Treasury account managed by the NY Fed. This report explodes the myth of free capital markets in the U.S. The inescapable conclusion is that the financial markets are managed to a large extent by means of central control of government planners in Washington. The report infers that national security concerns has prompted this surreptitious nationalization of the capital markets. I am not making this up.

Why is this coming out now? My guess is that this cozy deal between the Government and a select coterie of Street allies is beginning to really rankle the players left out of the loop who are not included in the early morning conference calls originating from the Fed’s NY offices giving direction on the day’s trading objectives. These players are left to interpret and infer what’s going on after the juiciest profits are raked up by the “serious” street players in on the fix. Green eyed jealousy, pure and simple is leading to disgruntled whistle blowing on this giant bucket shop operation being coordinated by the Treasury, the Fed and other policy making agencies with the aid of its private Wall Street “partners”. It gives the term “public/private partnership” a whole new meaning.

This report helps to shed light on a lot that is going on in the markets today.

Have you not wondered how in the world the markets can be experiencing a pleasantly euphoric ride up in the last couple of weeks in the face of losing an entire region of the U.S. to Hurricane Katrina, rising oil prices, a political firestorm of nearly unprecedented proportions threatening to derail Bush’s second term? How can a team of 10 welll placed “serious” market players get their smiley pictures in last week’s Barron’s blithely assuring the public that the market is going to be 10% higher by year end? How? Because they know that Uncle is in there now intervening, either directly or through indirection through the use of insider information to elicit the proper market response of its private partners, and they know that the Government is going to continue to be in there supporting the markets no matter what, that’s how. What is the source of all those knowing Mona Lisa smiles? Apparently, if you believe these Canadians, it's those early morning 5 AM conference calls with the Fed and the Treasury.

I have been bedeviling the ER Board with my ruminations on the unexplainable and potentially ruinous condition of pitifully low risk premiums in the equity markets for some time now. Unsustainable! I have roared at a somewhat fevered, ranting pitch.
Silly me, I really didn’t know until today that these unfathomable low risk premiums are quite fathomable after all—if these allegations are proven out.

You may have heard the term “The Greenspan Put”. This is a kind of tongue in cheek, inside joke. What it means is: don’t worry, you carry no market risk, you can put your position to Greenspan if the market looks a bit unstable, if things get a little out of control – your profits are locked in – the U.S. Government and its unknowing and unwilling taxpayers will bail out your position with Greenspan and the Fed acting as go-between facilitator secretly intervening in the market for the Treasury. There’s a nasty word for that if a lady does it for pay.

If this Canadian report is accurate, then there is no market risk. If there is no market risk then why should anyone be paid a premium to assume a risk that isn’t there?. What is the difference between a risk free Treasury bond and a share of common stock? None, if both instruments are guaranteed by the U. S. Government. And both instruments should yield exactly the same return. Low risk premiums and sustainable, in my view nutty, high market valuations courtesy of secret market price fixing by the U.S. Government.

Not only that, low risk premiums on equity investments are sustainable for a very long time as long as the U.S. taxpayer is going to provide the liquidity to keep them low if Volker’s “event or combination of events” were to suddenly transpire. According to the Canadians you and I are going to be the buyers of last resort after all courtesy of your speculator friendly U.S. Treasury and its willing accomplice at the the Fed. A lot easier to be aggressively, bullishly speculative when Uncle Sam puts a floor under the market. Might be a big bill for you and me, though. A question in my mind has to be: How much of the market has been nationalized to date? What is the market position of the U.S.taxpayer anyway? Is this the secret solution to the Social Security problem? Public/Private accounts that nobody knows about?

And, son of a gun, all those smiling Mona Lisa insider collaborators, the “serious players”on the Street, have apparently been in on the fix for quite some time. Not hard to be a market genius when the fix is in and you know when the fix is on. Whaddaya think of that Maria Bartimoreo? What’s that number to dial in on the Fed/Treasury 5AM conference call? Eliot Spitzer, please call your office!

I know you think I have gone completely bonkers and I am blowing the staggering implications of this report completely out of proportion. Read it for yourself and you tell me what it means if it is all true. Of course, if you can convince me it’s all a bunch of hokum then I will shut my mouth. But these allegations sure have an authentic ring to them.

Stay tuned. You haven’t heard the last of this. The Fed and the Treasury are going to have to denounce and disavow this Canadian report in no uncertain terms, and I mean pronto. Or it’s going to be big trouble for the Administration and big trouble for the markets. If we see a bunch of “no comment” or other attempts to pooh- pooh, or brush off or make light of or dismiss this report off-handedly as lunatic stuff then know that we are in big trouble. They have to squash this and squash this hard.

These are serious, serious allegations these Canadians are making. If this stuff is all true then it represents a dagger at the throat of the American free enterprise free market capitalist system, make no mistake about that. All in the name of national security? We have to subvert the system in order to save it and protect its participants from themselves? Give me a break! This is mind boggling stuff.

Either this story is too big to cover or some financial reporter is going to get a Pulitzer Prize for this. I am a little curious about where the press has been on this if, as the Canadians allege is the case, ongoing endemic U.S. Government intervention into the equity markets, that is to say Government price fixing, has been common knowledge in parts of the Street for some time. There ought to be a real feeding frenzy by the press on this but there isn’t. Strange. It is a huge, unthinkable story, if true. How come the silence? This one could make Teapot Dome seem like a Sunday School picnic. Plunge Protection Team? – who’d have thought it was really possible?

Donner

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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 12:54 AM   #2
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

Uh huh.* *And where was the Plunge Protection Team between Mar 2000 and Mar 2003?



And could somebody please remind them that my MSFT shares are still down about 50% from the peak?

Donner, you have officially gone over the edge. Is that what a cash position does to you when the market is up 15%+ for the last year?
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 04:26 AM   #3
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Donner
Peter Brimelow* writing for CBSMarketWatch has pinpointed a very strong report out of Canada alleging that the U.S. Government is rigging the equity markets.

Whatever else you do today, you better stop and read this report.* It is a blockbuster bombshell which must be acknowledged and responded to by the Fed, the Treasury, and others who are* implicated.* It* must* and it will provoke a tremendous uproar.* The report entitled “Move Over, Adam Smith: The Visible Hand of Uncle Sam” was prepared by analysts at* a firm called Sprott Asset Management in Toronto.*

www.sprott.com


The report alleges that it has been common knowledge on the Street for quite some time that a shadowy,* informal “coordinating group” known as the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) has been working secretly inside the U.S. Government. This group apparently arranges more or less continuous interventions by the Treasury and the Fed to stabilize U.S. equity markets.* Allegedly, these interventions have been going on periodically since the 1987 crash and the report concludes that what began as expedient stop-gap emergency measures to deal with dire financial crises through secret direct TreasuryFed intervention has become ongoing, pervasive and endemic to the market. The report details how private investment bankers and large brokerage firms are employed as de facto agents of the U.S. Government to manipulate the markets.

If these allegations are true this has huge negative implications for the markets which the report outlines. in some detail.

Apparently quite a few players are in on this market fixing scheme by the U.S. Government in co-ordination with the Fed which at its core involves the dissemination of insider information by strategically placed individuals at the NY Fed to prime the market to accomplish government policy objectives. This may or may not entail the necessity of direct Treasury or Fed intervention on a daily basis.* But at the very least certain select , privileged members of the “investment community” are provided with early information on U.S. Government market intentions and forthcoming Treasury/Fed interventions into the equity markets. This is the very thing for which poor Martha Stewart was required to spend six months in the Federal penitentiary.* * The details of this market fixing scheme are stunning in breadth and scope.

Market fixing or “stabilization activities” as the Treasury might call them enriches the privileged insiders acquiescing with the Government’s policy while socializing the risk to the U.S. taxpayers through secret transactions of the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) a Treasury account managed by the NY Fed.* *This report explodes the myth of free capital markets in the U.S.* The inescapable conclusion is that the financial markets are managed to a large extent by means of* central control of government planners in Washington.* The report infers that national security concerns has prompted this surreptitious nationalization of the capital markets.* I am not making this up.

Why is this coming out now?* My guess is that this cozy deal between the Government and a select coterie of Street allies is beginning to really rankle the players left out of the loop who are not included in the early morning conference calls originating from the Fed’s NY offices giving direction on the day’s trading objectives.* These players are left to interpret and infer what’s going on after the juiciest profits are raked up by the “serious” street players in on the fix.* Green eyed jealousy, pure and simple is leading to disgruntled whistle blowing* on this* giant bucket shop operation being coordinated by the Treasury, the Fed and other policy making agencies with the aid of its private Wall Street “partners”. It gives the term “public/private partnership” a whole new meaning.

This report helps to shed light on a lot that is going on in the markets today.

Have you not wondered how in the world the markets can be experiencing a pleasantly euphoric ride up in the last couple of weeks in the face of losing an entire region of the U.S. to Hurricane Katrina, rising oil prices, a political firestorm of* nearly unprecedented proportions threatening to derail Bush’s second term?* How can a team of 10 welll placed “serious” market players get their smiley pictures in last week’s Barron’s blithely assuring the public that the market is going to be 10% higher by year end?* How?* Because they know that Uncle is in there now intervening, either directly or through indirection through the use of insider information to elicit the proper market response of its private partners, and they know that the Government is going to continue to be in there supporting the markets no matter what, that’s how.* What is the source of all those knowing Mona Lisa smiles?* Apparently, if you believe these Canadians, it's those early morning 5 AM conference calls with the Fed and the Treasury.*

I have been bedeviling the ER Board with my ruminations on the unexplainable and potentially ruinous condition of* pitifully low risk premiums in the equity markets for some time now.* Unsustainable! I have roared at a somewhat fevered, ranting pitch.*
Silly me, I really didn’t know until today that these unfathomable low risk premiums are quite fathomable after all—if these allegations are proven out.*

You may have heard the term “The Greenspan Put”.* This is a kind of tongue in cheek, inside joke.* What it means is: don’t worry, you carry no market risk, you can put your position to Greenspan if the market looks a bit unstable, if things get a little out of control – your profits are locked in – the U.S. Government and its unknowing and* unwilling taxpayers will bail out your position with Greenspan and the Fed acting as go-between facilitator secretly intervening in the market for the Treasury.* There’s a nasty word for that if a lady does it for pay.* *

If this Canadian report is accurate, then there is no market risk.* If there is no market risk then why should anyone be paid a premium to assume a* risk that isn’t there?.* What is the difference between a risk free Treasury bond and a share of common stock?* None, if both instruments are guaranteed by the U. S. Government.* And both instruments should yield exactly the same return.* Low risk premiums and sustainable,* in my view nutty,* high market valuations courtesy of secret market price fixing by the U.S. Government.

Not only that, low risk premiums on equity investments are sustainable for a very long time as long as the U.S. taxpayer is going to provide the liquidity to keep them low if Volker’s “event or combination of events” were to suddenly transpire.* According to the Canadians you and I are going to be the buyers of last resort after all courtesy of* your speculator friendly U.S. Treasury and its willing accomplice at the the Fed.* A lot easier to be aggressively, bullishly speculative when Uncle Sam puts a floor under the market.* *Might be a big bill for you and me, though.* A question in my mind has to be: How much of the market has been nationalized to date?* What is the market position of the U.S.taxpayer anyway?* Is this the secret solution to the Social Security problem?* Public/Private accounts that nobody knows about?

And, son of a gun, all those smiling Mona Lisa insider collaborators, the “serious players”on the Street, have apparently been in on the fix for quite some time.* Not hard to be a market genius when the fix is in and you know when the fix is on.* Whaddaya think of that Maria Bartimoreo? What’s that number to dial in on the Fed/Treasury 5AM conference call? Eliot Spitzer, please call your office!

I know you think I have gone completely bonkers and I am blowing the staggering implications of this report completely out of proportion.* Read it for yourself and you tell me what it means if it is all true.* Of course, if you can convince me it’s all a bunch of hokum then I will shut my mouth.* But these allegations sure have an authentic ring to them.

Stay tuned.* You haven’t heard the last of this.* The Fed and the Treasury are going to have to denounce and disavow this Canadian report in no uncertain terms, and I mean pronto.* Or it’s going to be big trouble for the Administration and big trouble for the markets. If we see a bunch of “no comment” or other attempts to pooh- pooh, or brush off or* make light of or dismiss this report off-handedly as lunatic stuff then know that we are in big trouble. They have to squash this and squash this hard.

These are serious, serious allegations these Canadians are making. If this stuff is all true then it represents a dagger at the throat of the American free enterprise free market capitalist system, make no mistake about that.* All in the name of national security?* We have to subvert the system in order to save it and protect its participants from themselves?* Give me a break!* This is mind boggling stuff.

Either this story is too big to cover or some financial reporter is going to get a Pulitzer Prize for this.* I am a little curious about where the press has been on this if, as the Canadians allege is the case, ongoing endemic U.S. Government intervention into the equity markets, that is to say Government price fixing, has been common knowledge in parts of the Street for some time.* *There ought to be a real feeding frenzy by the press on this* but there isn’t.* Strange.* It is a huge, unthinkable story, if true.* How come the silence? This one could make Teapot Dome seem like a Sunday School picnic.* Plunge Protection Team? – who’d have thought it was really possible?

Donner

I don't buy these wacko conspiracy theories. That said, I
do believe free enterprise/capitalism (as I define it)
is pretty much over. I also think if any of the above post is true
the results are due to bumbling and ignorance, not
some plot. Anyway, I don't care even if it is true.
Being the cynic I am, I expect those in power to do
dangerous and damaging things to our economic system.
Hence, nothing much surprises me.

JG
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 04:52 AM   #4
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

Quote:
Originally Posted by wabmester
Uh huh.* *And where was the Plunge Protection Team between Mar 2000 and Mar 2003?



And could somebody please remind them that my MSFT shares are still down about 50% from the peak?

Donner, you have officially gone over the edge.* *Is that what a cash position does to you when the market is up 15%+ for the last year?
The "Plunge Protection Team"........pretty good name
for a plumbing company.

JG
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 05:29 AM   #5
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

Quote:
Have you not wondered how in the world the markets can be experiencing a pleasantly euphoric ride up in the last couple of weeks...
Probably because corporate profits are still going up, and the other stuff hasn't been enough to stop the rise in profits.
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 06:12 AM   #6
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Donner
... a shadowy, informal “coordinating group” known as the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) has been working secretly...
We've got a PPT at our house, too. Only it's not shadowy nor does it work in secret. It has only one member, namely yours truly. And the primary weapon our PPT uses is to yell, "Do not put that in the toilet!!!"
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 06:53 AM   #7
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

Quote:
Originally Posted by wabmester
Donner, you have officially gone over the edge.* *Is that what a cash position does to you when the market is up 15%+ for the last year?
My financial immune system is sharp after years of credit card offers and the like, but I will have to leave the board, never to return, if I find out that "hocomania" is contagious.
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 09:40 AM   #8
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

"it has been common knowledge on the Street for quite some time"

As a research analyst for a major Wall Street firm I can assure you that this conspiracy theory is not "common knowledge".

Maybe the Free Mason's are responsible.
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 10:08 AM   #9
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

I have a hard time believing this ludicrous story. I mean how are the outer space aliens in congress not going to know about this. Not to mention when they replaced the president with a robot imposter, and they didnt keep him in the loop? It just doesnt add up.
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 10:25 AM   #10
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

Seems to me that both Donnor and Apocolypse now enjoy sitting around the campfire and telling stories to "scare the kiddies".

There does seem to be a scent of "stag-flation" in the air, but like any radical change (transfer of wealth) in the economy there are ways to lesson the pain.

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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 10:51 AM   #11
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

Just wrote a fairly lenghty reply that failed to post. Let me give the short version and try again.

First, I did not invent this tale. A couple of apparently "serious" guys in Canada did. I urge you to read the report. 40 pages. Kinda long. But chilling in its implications if true.

The 1987 intervention makes emminent sense to me. The mechanism of the fix is quite well spelled out by the Canadians. It can be done if the Fed and the Treasury act to do it. And why wouldn't they?
The national security argument is legitimate. Intervening today in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and spiking oil prices makes sense. If they could do, and they can if they want to, then why not?

You have to take it one step further. As the Canadians maintain, it gets easier and easier to execute
the more you do it and the more it seems to work well. And if you start doing it for political purposes then you got a whole different dimension of a problem.

And let's not forget, the whole mechanism, worthy intentions or not, national security or not, depends upon subtrefuge and deceit. The market can't know that its happening or it won't work for long. This is the problem with currency interventions by central banks, everybody knows that the banks don't have the reserves to sustain supporting actions and these moves are largely symbolic. It's a form of con and the secret to any good con is that the target never knows its happening.

I am not trying to scare any kiddies.

Let's see if this one posts

Donner
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 11:19 AM   #12
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Donner
Whatever else you do today, you better stop and read this report.* It is a blockbuster bombshell which must be acknowledged and responded to by the Fed, the Treasury, and others who are* implicated.* It* must* and it will provoke a tremendous uproar.* The report entitled “Move Over, Adam Smith: The Visible Hand of Uncle Sam” was prepared by analysts at* a firm called Sprott Asset Management in Toronto.*

www.sprott.com


The report alleges that it has been common knowledge on the Street for quite some time that a shadowy,* informal “coordinating group” known as the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) has been working secretly inside the U.S. Government.
I've seen these PPT guys. They fly black helicopters and they sell aluminum foil futures.

Whatsa matter with these guys, Donner, slow day in the Canadian equity markets? You'd think the PPT would work on the Canadians for a while to test their pilot program before going primetime on Wall Street.

There's a poster over on FundAlarm named Jughead. A couple years ago he sold his house to lock in cap gains from the overheated RE market, and his portfolio includes 25% gold plus 25% commodities. You guys should get together with *****...
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 11:21 AM   #13
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

Quote:
Originally Posted by . . . Yrs to Go
"it has been common knowledge on the Street for quite some time"

As a research analyst for a major Wall Street firm I can assure you that this conspiracy theory is not "common knowledge".

Maybe the Free Mason's are responsible.
I thought it was the Trilateral Commission. What about the unbelievable treasure hidden under the church at Wall Street and Broad? We could be using that as collateral.

Donner, I think if you stopped to think logically about this report, there would be some extremely obvious things that don't make sense about it. Proof is left as an exercise to the reader...

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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 11:26 AM   #14
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

From the report. "In response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Federal Reserve and large Wall Street firms prepared to support the main stock markets by buying shares if panic selling ensued. Multiple news reports indicate that investment banks and brokerage houses took concerted actions in the aftermath of the tragedy."

Wall Street firms buy and sell shares though their trading desks where individual traders are held accountable for the P&L implications of their trades. *Every trader on the street talks to everyone else. *If an edict came from upper management to "BUY" in the wake of 9/11 this news would spread like wildfire. *

Like all conspiracy theories this one falls down under the weight of the implausibility that such a juicy secret could be kept among an astoundingly large number of people.

Do you think, perhaps, that Sprott Asset Management as a Canadian money manager might have a dog in this hunt?
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Old 09-10-2005, 12:37 PM   #15
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

Donner -

Listened to one of the top rated economic forecasters yesterday. You and Greg would have been angry with what he had to say.
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 02:25 PM   #16
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?


I am having trouble with my connection so I will try to keep it short and get it posted.

Interesting responses but not addressing issues raised in the report. Lot of ad hominen yadda yadda as per usual on the Board.

Could be a hoax. But CBSMarketWatch, Peter Brimelow and Richard Russel have also been hooked by it.

Did the Fed/Treasury intervene in equity markets or didn't they? Is there a Financial Working Group composed of high level Government agency, Fed Reserve and private banking interests operating inside the Treasury or isn't there.? Is there an informal, unofficial Plunge Protection Team which executes intervention strategies to stabilize markets or isn't there? Does the Fed use its NY trading floor to execute equity market intervention programs or doesn't it? Is the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) the vehicle through which the Fed/Treasury carries out intervention activities? Was George Stephanopolous telling the truth when he discusssed the Plunge Protection Team's activities on ABC news or wasn't he? Was Mr. Heller, the former Fed board member, discussing the formalizaton of Fed intervention strategy into ongoing Fed Open Market operations or wasn't he? Should we esrtablish a floor under the market below which the Federal Government will actively, openly intervene to stabilize and support the equity markets in the interest of national security or shouldn't we? Or should we just let the invisible hand of Mr. Market have its way with us?

Those are just some of the serious issues raised in this Canadian analysis, hoax or no hoax.

Dinner guests coming. Gotta go now but will get back with you all tomorrow.

Donner

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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 02:44 PM   #17
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

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Originally Posted by Donner
Interesting responses but not addressing issues raised in the report. Lot of ad hominen yadda yadda as per usual on the Board.
I believe the report itself to be an ad hominem attack.
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 03:04 PM   #18
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

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Donner, I think if you stopped to think logically about this report, there would be some extremely obvious things that don't make sense about it. Proof is left as an exercise to the reader...
I think Donner is pretty much a bear on the market (an understatement). Thinks the world is going to sh!t. So whenever Donner comes across an article that tickles his fancy it becomes a possible scenario. Donner is a bright guy with some good points every now and then. But as with all doom and gloom scenarios what can you do as a small investor? Yup...sit on a diversified portfolio, reinvest dividends and DCA. Your odds of timing it are against you.
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 03:05 PM   #19
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

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Originally Posted by moghopper
I believe the report itself to be an ad hominem attack.
If you Google "Plunge Protection Team" you will find a number of links referencing the PPT. The earliest I saw in a quick review was an article in the Washington Post dated February of 1997. The artilce describes a working group comprised of the Fed, the Treasury, the SEC and the Commodities Futures Exchange Commission. According to the article, each of the four federal agencies have contingency plans outlining what they will do in the event of a financial crisis.

Suspect the existence of a working group to address actions the govt. might take in the event of another market "crash" similar to that in October of 1987 has morphed into an urban legend of market rigging, compete with black helicopters.

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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?
Old 09-10-2005, 04:31 PM   #20
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Re: U.S. Government Rigging The Equity Markets?

Some of you guys have an annoying habit of vastly exaggerating what a poster (in this case Donner) says, and then attacking the exaggeration. Black helicopters??

OTOH, the US government has gamed almost every possible geopolitical scenario. How do you think we managed to attack Afghanistan within one month of 9-11?

So it is pretty likely that lots of gaming has taken place regarding something as important as the US stock markets. Is it weird to imagine that some contingency plans exist? And that maybe they have on occasion been used?

An interesting side fact is that S&P volatility has reached 50 year lows, in spite of many obvious economic factors, geopolitical factors, natural disasters, etc. Not proof of anything, but interesting nevertheless.

Ha
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