The World financial markets are awash with cheap and easy money, for as long as this lasts, financial instruments will continue to rise in price. There is a definite attempt by central bankers to avoid a severe slowdown. Hedge funds and the like are fully aware of this and will not be drawn into shorting bonds or stocks. Government printing presses are working overtime.
The PPT are not as active as you believe, you only need to look at non US stockmarket performances to see that it is a general trend and only those that wish to commit financial suicide will try and buck the markets.
Ultimately, the central bankers will fail but WHEN and at what levels are the two big questions that have to be asked. Having said that, I am amazed that so many members who are trying to call the top are technical traders which begs the question that where are the charts that show it is time to open bearish positions?
The PPT are not as active as you believe, you only need to look at non US stockmarket performances to see that it is a general trend and only those that wish to commit financial suicide will try and buck the markets.
Ultimately, the central bankers will fail but WHEN and at what levels are the two big questions that have to be asked. Having said that, I am amazed that so many members who are trying to call the top are technical traders which begs the question that where are the charts that show it is time to open bearish positions?
mark twain uk
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the dow stayed within a 25 point band for the last 4 hours of trading, it would be boring if it was not a sign of the market getting tired of going up, I see tomorrow as a down day.
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LION63 said:
I have a feeling that other bears on this BB are, like myself, not pure technical traders, following a tried and tested system, otherwise we would all be long.
Having said that I would like to hear from pure technical traders what their systems tell them at the end of today, to me it looks like a top is being formed. The more it stays in this narrow range the better the chances of a nice drop.
President Clinton senior advisor George Stephanopoulos made a bombshell statement on September 17, 2001, the day the stock market reopened after the 9/11 attacks. He quotes it verbatim: "And perhaps the most important, there’s been – 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 there- they have been meeting informally so far, and they have 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, at the guidance of the Fed, all of the banks got together when that started to collapse and propped up the currency markets. And they have plans in place to consider that if the stock markets start to fall.”FetteredChinos said:
Robert Heller, a Federal Reserve governor, proposed in 1989 that the central bank prop up the stock market in times of crisis by purchasing stock index futures contracts. He then states that the PPT, “seems to have been born on March 18, 1988, when President Reagan signed Executive Order 12631 establishing a Working Group on Financial Markets that included the chairman of the various stock exchanges, the chairman and governors of the Federal Reserve, and the secretary of the U.S. Treasury, who was also the chairman.”
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke admits there’s a PPT in Congressional testimony!
http://www.kitco.com/ind/grandich/sep122006.html
The Daily Telegraph
Paulson re-activates secretive support team to prevent markets meltdown
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 30/10/2006
Judging by their body language, the US authorities believe the roaring bull market this autumn is just a suckers' rally before the inevitable storm hits. Hank Paulson, the market-wise Treasury Secretary who built a $700m fortune at Goldman Sachs, is re-activating the 'plunge protection team' (PPT), a shadowy body with powers to support stock index, currency, and credit futures in a crash. Otherwise known as the working group on financial markets, it was created by Ronald Reagan to prevent a repeat of the Wall Street meltdown in October 1987.
Mr Paulson says the group had been allowed to languish over the boom years. Henceforth, it will have 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. Mr Paulson has asked the team to examine "systemic risk posed by hedge funds and derivatives, and the government's ability to respond to a financial crisis". "We need to be vigilant and make sure we are thinking through all of the various risks and that we are being very careful here. Do we have enough liquidity in the system?" he said, fretting about the secrecy of the world's 8,000 unregulated hedge funds with $1.3trillion at their disposal.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10262006/business/treasurys_paulson_plays_with_the_plunge_protectors_business_john_crudele.htm
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Atilla
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2468steve said:
Dells profits just announced beat expectations. Hence NASDAQ up a trifle. :arrowu:
Will it be enough to shift mind sets about the market highs. Don't think so. If Boeing hasn't done it little ol Dell not likely to... Markets saturated with highs.
mark twain uk
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kriesau said:
The Nasdaq performance was almost certainly due to GOOG, without it it would have also ended lower
How GM has been propped up by the PPT !
Shorts on GM have been a bit tripped up lately, and it’s a no-brainer that the government is not going to let GM go down without major intervention. They will be looking at intervention tactics that are more doable or affordable – as opposed to a straight financial bailout. It is our assertion that the heavy hand of the Working Group has been exposed with respect to manipulating the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Early in May of 2006, Bill Gross – of PIMCO, and considered to be one of the world’s finest bond fund managers – wrote a seminal essay comparing General Motors’ problems to that of the United States’. In his piece, As GM Goes, So Goes the Nation, Bill Gross conveys three basic problems shared by both GM and Uncle Sam:
Eroding competitiveness compared to global competitors.
Uncompetitive labor costs compared to global competition.
Burdensome future liabilities – healthcare, pensions.
To be sure, the Plunge Protection Team took this essay as a slap in the face. After all, everyone knows that America has the world’s most flexible, dynamic, and productive economy – Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke have said so many times, hence, it must be true. Mr. Gross, additionally, didn’t exactly endear himself to the Federal Reserve when he accused the Bureau of Labor Statistics of being the Federal Reserve’s lap dog willing to hedonically adjust away any signs of inflation as reflected in the Bureau’s Consumer Price Index. So it was time to show the Plunge Protection Team’s hand, take Mr. Gross to the woodshed, and do something good for GM and, therefore, the United States itself.
On May 24, 2006, at the behest of the Working Group (in our opinion), Merrill Lynch came out with a "buy" recommendation pertaining to General Motors’ stock. Keep in mind that this recommendation was made fully one month before Tracinda recommended that GM explore the idea of forming an alliance with Nissan and Renault. Shamefully enough, Merrill’s rationale hinged upon the premise "…that the automaker's restructuring plans, specifically the number of workers taking buyout packages, are coming along ahead of schedule." This is nothing short of harebrained reasoning serving the demented ends of the Working Group. It is highly unusual for a restructuring plan that is so far away from accomplishing anything substantial to get such a standing ovation, even from the fraudulent Wall Street analysts. This move by Merrill Lynch is a hoodwink designed to keep the confidence level high among investors speculators, thus keeping under wraps any unwanted drama or uprising from the unsuspecting masses. In fact, if Johnny Beer Drinker could read a balance sheet, he'd bail out of GM's stock immediately. But Johnny Beer Drinker can't read a balance sheet; he may watch CNBC and Jim Cramer, and if he does, he is a blind fool following a bullish fool who is serving up bad advice to serve his own interests.
Since Merrill Lynch’s pronouncement, GM’s stock has shown market leadership like a four-star general – it was up by 40.1% during the second quarter of 2006, making it the best performing Dow stock for the three-month period ending June 30th. Even on days where the Dow Jones Industrial Average had declined by over 100 points, the "General’s" stock held steady. One day, it was even up by over 4% when the market swooned terribly – and this in spite of the fact that gasoline prices are at $3.00 per gallon. We have little doubt that GM stock is being accumulated by Caribbean-based hedge funds owned and operated by the Federal Reserve – the very same folks who mysteriously emerged as buyers of U.S. Treasury debt (thus, keeping interest rates down) when other buyers began to shy away from that debtaholic Uncle Sam. For now, the General looks unbeatable – as long as "investors" believe the stock is the company.
When examining General Motors’ March 31, 2006 balance sheet, what comes to mind is not a proud general, but a bloated inmate of a debtor’s prison. It is boggling that any financial analyst would recommend purchasing the common stock of a company with the following financial profile:
General Motors’ automotive operations have a combined working capital position of deficit $15.4 billion.
GM has total debt and liabilities approaching half-a-trillion dollars.
GM’s total liabilities to equity ratio is 29 to 1. There once was a day when financial analysts sounded the alarm bells when this ratio exceeded 4 to 1.
Arguably, GM has a deficit net worth of $18.2 billion. Such a sobering conclusion can be deduced simply by disallowing intangible assets such as goodwill and deferred tax assets.
It is interesting to note that GM’s market capitalization was recently at $12.4 billion, which is smaller than that of Harley-Davidson, about equivalent to the market cap of Hershey Co., and in comparison, Toyota’s stands at $194.7 billion. With such a weak balance sheet, GM will not survive a recession. Hence, bankruptcy is a possibility – even if the aforementioned alliance with Nissan and Renault is consummated. GM’s banks understand this and have required that General Motors provide additional collateral in order to keep open a $5.6 billion operating line of credit. On the heels of this move by the banks, Standard & Poor's and Moody's cut GM's senior unsecured debt rating even deeper into junk territory. For the banks’ collateral-call and the debt downgradings to occur shortly after such a high-profile recommendation to buy GM stock, Merrill Lynch’s top executives should be embarrassed.
Ah, but the top dogs at Merrill Lynch have no shame and will sleep well. They know that most Americans don’t pay attention to the corporate bond market nor the backroom dealings of bankers. It is the Dow Jones Industrial Average that grabs the attention of Americans. By keeping the Dow up, the Plunge Protection Team – as assisted by Merrill Lynch – understands that it is making a key contribution to the insanely expensive game of "bread and circuses" Uncle Sam is playing with its citizens. Consequently, the Federal Reserve will conjure up as much fiat money as possible in order to intervene in, and prop up, the stock market so as to keep our collective confidence elevated – and, in the mind of these Keynesians, the economy will be peachy. Ultimately, and Bill Gross not withstanding, why is GM stock a selected target of the Plunge Protection Team? As GM’s CEO Charles E. Wilson famously stated in 1953: "…because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa."
In the end, the market manipulation scenario is a win-win situation for the crisis control mentality of Washington D.C., and, it’s a huge moneymaker for the Wall Street Corporatocracy that seeks to separate you from your money while filling their own pockets. Thus with the current environment of asset bubbles popping, oncoming inflation, and Federal Reserve money supply manipulations, the Plunge Protection Team will be called upon to work lots of overtime.
July 5, 2006
Karen De Coster, CPA, has an MA in Economics, and is an accounting and finance professional in Detroit.
Shorts on GM have been a bit tripped up lately, and it’s a no-brainer that the government is not going to let GM go down without major intervention. They will be looking at intervention tactics that are more doable or affordable – as opposed to a straight financial bailout. It is our assertion that the heavy hand of the Working Group has been exposed with respect to manipulating the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Early in May of 2006, Bill Gross – of PIMCO, and considered to be one of the world’s finest bond fund managers – wrote a seminal essay comparing General Motors’ problems to that of the United States’. In his piece, As GM Goes, So Goes the Nation, Bill Gross conveys three basic problems shared by both GM and Uncle Sam:
Eroding competitiveness compared to global competitors.
Uncompetitive labor costs compared to global competition.
Burdensome future liabilities – healthcare, pensions.
To be sure, the Plunge Protection Team took this essay as a slap in the face. After all, everyone knows that America has the world’s most flexible, dynamic, and productive economy – Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke have said so many times, hence, it must be true. Mr. Gross, additionally, didn’t exactly endear himself to the Federal Reserve when he accused the Bureau of Labor Statistics of being the Federal Reserve’s lap dog willing to hedonically adjust away any signs of inflation as reflected in the Bureau’s Consumer Price Index. So it was time to show the Plunge Protection Team’s hand, take Mr. Gross to the woodshed, and do something good for GM and, therefore, the United States itself.
On May 24, 2006, at the behest of the Working Group (in our opinion), Merrill Lynch came out with a "buy" recommendation pertaining to General Motors’ stock. Keep in mind that this recommendation was made fully one month before Tracinda recommended that GM explore the idea of forming an alliance with Nissan and Renault. Shamefully enough, Merrill’s rationale hinged upon the premise "…that the automaker's restructuring plans, specifically the number of workers taking buyout packages, are coming along ahead of schedule." This is nothing short of harebrained reasoning serving the demented ends of the Working Group. It is highly unusual for a restructuring plan that is so far away from accomplishing anything substantial to get such a standing ovation, even from the fraudulent Wall Street analysts. This move by Merrill Lynch is a hoodwink designed to keep the confidence level high among investors speculators, thus keeping under wraps any unwanted drama or uprising from the unsuspecting masses. In fact, if Johnny Beer Drinker could read a balance sheet, he'd bail out of GM's stock immediately. But Johnny Beer Drinker can't read a balance sheet; he may watch CNBC and Jim Cramer, and if he does, he is a blind fool following a bullish fool who is serving up bad advice to serve his own interests.
Since Merrill Lynch’s pronouncement, GM’s stock has shown market leadership like a four-star general – it was up by 40.1% during the second quarter of 2006, making it the best performing Dow stock for the three-month period ending June 30th. Even on days where the Dow Jones Industrial Average had declined by over 100 points, the "General’s" stock held steady. One day, it was even up by over 4% when the market swooned terribly – and this in spite of the fact that gasoline prices are at $3.00 per gallon. We have little doubt that GM stock is being accumulated by Caribbean-based hedge funds owned and operated by the Federal Reserve – the very same folks who mysteriously emerged as buyers of U.S. Treasury debt (thus, keeping interest rates down) when other buyers began to shy away from that debtaholic Uncle Sam. For now, the General looks unbeatable – as long as "investors" believe the stock is the company.
When examining General Motors’ March 31, 2006 balance sheet, what comes to mind is not a proud general, but a bloated inmate of a debtor’s prison. It is boggling that any financial analyst would recommend purchasing the common stock of a company with the following financial profile:
General Motors’ automotive operations have a combined working capital position of deficit $15.4 billion.
GM has total debt and liabilities approaching half-a-trillion dollars.
GM’s total liabilities to equity ratio is 29 to 1. There once was a day when financial analysts sounded the alarm bells when this ratio exceeded 4 to 1.
Arguably, GM has a deficit net worth of $18.2 billion. Such a sobering conclusion can be deduced simply by disallowing intangible assets such as goodwill and deferred tax assets.
It is interesting to note that GM’s market capitalization was recently at $12.4 billion, which is smaller than that of Harley-Davidson, about equivalent to the market cap of Hershey Co., and in comparison, Toyota’s stands at $194.7 billion. With such a weak balance sheet, GM will not survive a recession. Hence, bankruptcy is a possibility – even if the aforementioned alliance with Nissan and Renault is consummated. GM’s banks understand this and have required that General Motors provide additional collateral in order to keep open a $5.6 billion operating line of credit. On the heels of this move by the banks, Standard & Poor's and Moody's cut GM's senior unsecured debt rating even deeper into junk territory. For the banks’ collateral-call and the debt downgradings to occur shortly after such a high-profile recommendation to buy GM stock, Merrill Lynch’s top executives should be embarrassed.
Ah, but the top dogs at Merrill Lynch have no shame and will sleep well. They know that most Americans don’t pay attention to the corporate bond market nor the backroom dealings of bankers. It is the Dow Jones Industrial Average that grabs the attention of Americans. By keeping the Dow up, the Plunge Protection Team – as assisted by Merrill Lynch – understands that it is making a key contribution to the insanely expensive game of "bread and circuses" Uncle Sam is playing with its citizens. Consequently, the Federal Reserve will conjure up as much fiat money as possible in order to intervene in, and prop up, the stock market so as to keep our collective confidence elevated – and, in the mind of these Keynesians, the economy will be peachy. Ultimately, and Bill Gross not withstanding, why is GM stock a selected target of the Plunge Protection Team? As GM’s CEO Charles E. Wilson famously stated in 1953: "…because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa."
In the end, the market manipulation scenario is a win-win situation for the crisis control mentality of Washington D.C., and, it’s a huge moneymaker for the Wall Street Corporatocracy that seeks to separate you from your money while filling their own pockets. Thus with the current environment of asset bubbles popping, oncoming inflation, and Federal Reserve money supply manipulations, the Plunge Protection Team will be called upon to work lots of overtime.
July 5, 2006
Karen De Coster, CPA, has an MA in Economics, and is an accounting and finance professional in Detroit.
Atilla
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Judging by their body language, the US authorities believe the roaring bull market this autumn is just a suckers' rally before the inevitable storm hits. Hank Paulson, the market-wise Treasury Secretary who built a $700m fortune at Goldman Sachs, is re-activating the 'plunge protection team' (PPT), a shadowy body with powers to support stock index, currency, and credit futures in a crash. Otherwise known as the working group on financial markets, it was created by Ronald Reagan to prevent a repeat of the Wall Street meltdown in October 1987.
Well this is Financial Terrorism or Warfare if you ask me. Economic theory and the financial markets are based on the assumption that players have perfect information. Take that away and all econmic theory has to be re-written in new gobbledegook.
We'll revert back to the good old GOLD STANDARD and the US $ will be worth junk. Inflation will dissappear and we'll trade in sheep and eggs.
Time to start buying GOLD... The real stuff that is...
I can't seem to post a chart in here despite clicking on the insert image. Is there anything else I need to do to past a chart analysis here?
Well this is Financial Terrorism or Warfare if you ask me. Economic theory and the financial markets are based on the assumption that players have perfect information. Take that away and all econmic theory has to be re-written in new gobbledegook.
We'll revert back to the good old GOLD STANDARD and the US $ will be worth junk. Inflation will dissappear and we'll trade in sheep and eggs.
Time to start buying GOLD... The real stuff that is...
I can't seem to post a chart in here despite clicking on the insert image. Is there anything else I need to do to past a chart analysis here?
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2468steve said:
Cycle analysis of the Dow indicates that this market could hold up thru Jan 07, Mar 07, or June 07 depending on which cycle is dominate....the Dow has not showed it hand yet...warm regards....Jim, Knoxville, TN
mark twain uk
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kriesau said:
Very interesting article, thank you Kriesau.
Well Mark, this market has been manipulated and the greatest example of this is GM ,which under any other conditions would be regarded as the short of the year ! However at some time soon it still has got to turn !mark twain uk said:
Charlie sez:
I used to speak often of "natural market forces." Everybody contributed to them, be they big money, small money, short-termers, long-termers, etc. What was good was that the market gyrations could be understood by old timers and the astute, and there always was somewhere one could make a profit. It worked because those profits tended to be a very small part of the total amount in the game.
More recently the situation has changed. A few players have amassed the power to manipulate the game by their actions. The computer has empowered the cyborgs, minor and particularly the major. And the government, with it's typical mission creep, has grown "The lender of last resort" into "The great inflation fighter," and given it nearly ultimate power-the ability to print the money they play with. So, it's a different market today. In the market, it's the Fed, and they seem, under Ben, to be playing both the long term (through interest rate manipulation and other big, laggy tools), and the short term, through the PPT. So we try to match the analysis tools to the players and to the time scales, as SEEMS appropriate.
The conventional, simplest concept of lack of aggressive action, as indicated by drooping volumes, being responsible for very low volatility, seems to explain today. The %R's are near the top of their overbought ranges. What little I've heard and seen from others says that there is nothing in the charts to guide traders. I guess that I'm a little contrarian here, still believing that the market is set up for a sucker punch. Not unexpected by many now. After all, a boxer doesn't get into the ring expecting to never get hit. And, a 4 month linear rise is accepted as being beyond reason
We have undergone a ridiculous succession of cyclic flips, which have allowed us to continue rising, with only wiggles at the times when we should be seeing pivots. We had one more than I expected, and now are in correct phase. Consider that this is the kind of week when the Big Boyz tend to stay home, leaving the still open market to trusted children. Actually, we tend to see some nice moves, usually to the upside, on these occasions.......a major down turn would be a high risk situation, requiring them to come back into the office from vacation. That's all just a repetition of conventional wisdom, and, we'll just have to see. I've put a red, down arrow on the chart for next week."
Atilla
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I've been dabling in shares for some time and relatively a beginner to spread betting and technical charting.
These PPT comments have really alarmed me if they are true. At first I thought it's a joke but if this is true then the repurcussions are likely to be severe.
I thought there was too much money in the system but put it down to the war and billions going astray and into the pockets of big institutions and war mongers.
I feel dreadfuly dissillusioned by trying to fathom the technical charts and economic affairs only to find PPT creaping in the background.
I'm in shock. Now I have PPT to blame my losses on.
These PPT comments have really alarmed me if they are true. At first I thought it's a joke but if this is true then the repurcussions are likely to be severe.
I thought there was too much money in the system but put it down to the war and billions going astray and into the pockets of big institutions and war mongers.
I feel dreadfuly dissillusioned by trying to fathom the technical charts and economic affairs only to find PPT creaping in the background.
I'm in shock. Now I have PPT to blame my losses on.
catracho
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LION63 said:
Non US stockmarket performances....all financial markets are interlinked...as long as the DOW is heading up, most other markets will follow, barring the odd occasion when a local event impacts..this is usually shortlived before the markets get in synch again.
technical traders are usually not using just "pure" technicals - sometimes "gut feeling "is also required..and you need to find a good balance. In markets there are always paticipants who are "looking" for the turns in the market hoping to be first in on the next wave up or down...after a long bull run (1200 points plus - on DOW), it is only natural to test the market looking for signs of weakness...more often than not - when it turns it will be swift, catching most traders off guard, and long and wrong (or short and caught if it is a downtrend).. oh..and some LUCK is always useful!!
=
Well there are a variety of views on what is or isn't driving the markets at the moment. IMHO I see it as follows.Atilla said:I've been dabling in shares for some time and relatively a beginner to spread betting and technical charting. These PPT comments have really alarmed me if they are true. At first I thought it's a joke but if this is true then the repurcussions are likely to be severe. I thought there was too much money in the system but put it down to the war and billions going astray and into the pockets of big institutions and war mongers. I feel dreadfuly dissillusioned by trying to fathom the technical charts and economic affairs only to find PPT creaping in the background. I'm in shock. Now I have PPT to blame my losses on.
The Fed (Greenspan and the PPT) heavily distorted and manipulated the markets after the dotcom crash to avoid the inevitable recession. Their tools were dramatically lower interest rates (down to 1%) and a big surge in liquidity (print more money) to bolster the markets. Result was that the Dow went up by 50% since January 2003.
Main consequence was that the dotcom bubble deflation was offset by a new asset bubble in housing as cheap loans fuelled property speculation, BTL and MEW resulting from lower cost refinancing. Markets were driven back up by these low interest rates which stimulated employment (particularly in construction), consumer spending (higher corporate profits and trade deficits) and greater liquidity (anyone seen any M3 data lately ?).
Over the last 2 years interest rates have climbed back from 1% to 5.25% as the dotcom recession was avoided and it became necessary to both counter inflation and to return to some normality in the marketplace. However the consequences of the return to normal levels of interest rate was a bursting of the subsequent housing bubble as demand for new properties dried up and mortgage costs escalated. There was a brief taste of the fall out from this when the markets 'corrected' in May and the solution to this was a further infusion of liquidity into the stock markets since July to move the markets back up again.
So we now have new highs on the psychologically important Dow but not on the SPX or the Nasdaq ! It is amazing how this mega 4 month Dow rally has been driven by just 7 or 8 stocks, especially GM where the stock has almost doubled this year. Is this a dynamic, go-ahead company with a really bright future ? err.....not really and their credit rating was actually reduced to almost junk bond status during this period.
Just as the dotcom bubble threatened to bring recession, the problem today is the housing bubble (which was created to offset the DC bubble in the first place). The Fed cannot suddenly reverse their position on interest rates so their only other alternative is to both pause rate hikes and to pump liquidity into the market in order to prop it up. The result is an unprecedented 4 month linear rally in the market. At the same time real interest rates are capped by the consequential inverted yield curve.
Of course this cannot go on indefinitely and reality has to reassert itself soon. I think that the PPT is pushing the market up so that the subsequent lows will be much higher then would otherwise have been the case had the market been left to its own devices. They are trying to engineer a soft landing and this will be accompanied and encouraged by some rate cuts next year. Whether they succeed in this endeavour or whether the game that they are playing backfires into a harder landing remains to be seen. Bernanke is clearly a smart guy but he has a tiger by the tail here and he will need to remain very dexterous if he is to achieve his objectives of containing inflation, keeping the lid on rate hikes and engineering a soft landing for both the equity and housing markets at the same time.
So many 'technicians' have been wrong footed by these market manipulations over the past 4 months which is why so many traders also missed this rally. It is now almost as much the case of trying to second guess the manipulators next move as it is to interpret the set of technical indicators that one is most comfortable using.
Strange times !