Below I've copied an excerpt from a website I subscribe to - I hope the author, Richard Hahn, does not mind. For reaons of decency and copyright I won't make a habit of it, but on this occasion I feel his interesting, if perhaps slightly obsessive and tending more than a tad toward the conspiracy theory, view of the Fed should be shared. My personal view is that the manipulation isn't as blatant as RH would claim, as surely some of the repo activity is just innocent book keeping, but it is uncanny how many times they step in with fat injections just when the market is teetering on, or just below, critical support.
"A new record was set today for the total amount of outstanding Federal Reserve OMO repos. There's nothing else to know about why the stock market continues to levitate in overbought/overvalued territory. The Federal Reserve is force feeding liquidity into the financial system. That's the reason stocks are sustaining their steep uptrend rally. It's very worrisome to see this kind of market manipulation in a democratic society. It's doomed to fail, if you believe in markets. It's a house of cards, but not many believe in this dire threat to our economic system. Until the gambit fails, the market intervention can continue for a while. I haven't seen this kind of Greenspan panic since the Y2K threat. In the last few weeks of 1999, the Federal Reserve exploded liquidity, which in turn threw “gasoline” on an overheated stock mania “fire”. When the Y2K threat passed without catastrophe, the Fed withdrew liquidity support and the stock market collapsed. The next time you hear a Federal Reserve official talk of their mission of price stability, please laugh out loud! Okay! The Federal Reserve would need to inject about $20 billion on Friday to sustain the rally. That's a ridiculous amount of market intervention support, but it could happen. (Last Friday's liquidity injection following the NE blackout was $20 billion.) At some point, the bond vigilantes will object to the blatant Federal Reserve efforts to prop up the equity market. When long term interest rates scream higher, it will be Greenspan's fault. If you want a reason to expect higher interest rates, just look at the rising energy costs. Crude oil and natural gas price increases are jolting the CRB index higher. An energy shock is in our future, as is a Federal Reserve failed manipulation debacle.
Now what? One has to step aside while the Federal Reserve is throwing their weight around. It is obviously extremely important to someone in a high place to have the stock market hold current levels. Much energy and many tens of billions of dollars are being spent to prop up the stock market at irrational levels. Someone has a plan to pump up stock prices in order to stimulate the economy. I think this is folly, but it can be painful to stand in the way of the elephant stampede. The stock market is in the last throes of a liquidity driven rally. Wait for a drop below the steep uptrending support lines and then sell the market aggressively. But, wait for the sell signal!
The Federal Reserve is pushing mega-amounts of liquidity into the financial system during this time of rising geopolitical risk. On Wednesday, $5 billion of overnight repos were added. On Tuesday, $5.5 billion of 2 day repos were added. The most important thing to know is that at the close of business tomorrow (8/21), a total of $24.5 billion matures. In other words, by Friday morning, there will be a very large liquidity drain (reduced by the amount of liquidity added on Thursday and Friday). In not too many more days, the external shockrisk will exceed the market propping power of the Federal Reserve's liquidity injections. The “tipping point” will be reached. Stocks remain obscenely overvalued and overbought. I would expect the stock market to exhibit a nervous equilibrium again on Thursday. Friday may be the day the underlying trendline support gives way.
Watch the Fed's OMO liquidity injection of Friday. If the Fat Cats on Wall Street are going to be saved, the Fed will need to be very aggressive with fresh liquidity injections on Friday morning."