[phelanw]

1. I posted a link to an article I thought put forth an interesting thesis. It's only a thesis, but IMO one worth investigating.

2. FinancialSense.com is not the mainstream media. It publishes articles from investment pros that are usually contrarian, which I also tend to be.

3. Nothing illegal was alleged by the article. Manipulation by the Working Group, yes. Crime, no.

4. The fed itself was created to manage the money supply to prevent boom and busts, which implies a macro manipulation of the economy. Therefore it is not crazy to talk about fed/treasury actions to influence the market one way or another.

[expat_panama]

the article? Long term repos, called term repos, would allow a market manipulator to buy securities today and sell them back at a specified date in the future

There may be some confusion here over the word securities.  In the stock market, we're talking about company shares.  With the repo component of M3, were talking about federal government notes.  I take it that you're saying the Fed wants to use the M3 to change stock prices.  In my experience, the only two entities that really know what people want are our creator and my wife.  The rest of have to deal with what is.  Namely, M3 does not affect stock prices, whether it wants to or not.

Nov '02, M3 up and DJ up.  Nov '03 M3 level and DJ turns down.  Mar '04 M3 up and DJ goes down.  Aug '04 M3 level and DJ goes up.  Mar '05 M3 goes up DJ goes down -I mean up --I mean down -up.   Well, there really are some pretty good indicators of future stock price trends, but maybe the M3 ain't one of them.