Posted on 07/08/2010 8:51:43 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
CNBC Guest Says Absent Plunge Protection Team Stepping In, Market Would Fall; Wien, Kernan Disgusted
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/08/2010 08:44 -0500
A highly amusing exchange occurred earlier on CNBC when guest Damon Vickers of Nine Points Capital had an unexpected moment of truthiness and turned some heads when he said that "unless the plunge protection team comes in over the next couple of days, the markets are looking very dicey here." When a disgusted Joe Kernan asks if Vickers was making a joke about the PPT, the response is "absolutely not - it's common knowledge that the government steps in and does things to step on the gas and buy stock here and there." To which Byron Wien has a strong retort: "I don't believe it." All that and much more in the clip below. In the meantime, the market is sure having a field day with stocks as once again bad news are discarded and the smallest glimmer of positivity serves as a springboard for yet another ramping short covering spree.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
That EO in no way authorizes the actions that you are implying.
There is no question that the PPT exists.
The open question is, how active is it?
It used to be semi-abundantly clear when it came into the market. Now that computer trading is at least 70% of NYSE volume and high frequency trading dominates, the PPT actually has less of a job to do.
The impact of stock market performance; both longer term and “whether the DJIA closed green on the 6 o’clock news” is not to be pooh-poohed. The US economy is widely recognized as being 2/3rd consumer driven. There was a time when maybe only 15% of the population was invested in the market. With 401Ks, probably 70% are invested in the market, and they DO cut back spending when the market drops and they DO cut back spending when they perceive their home values decline. This has been very well studied by the Fed.
Additionally, the Fed & Tsy know that banks are currently deriving most of their income from trading. All of GS, JPM, and BAC have so stated in their quarterly reports for at least 3 quarters. Yesterday’s rally, in my estimation, was primarily based upon anticipation of “at least decent” bank earnings after State Street announced. Bank earnings have actually weakened a tad, because more and more of them are obtaining HFT hardware, operations, and quant departments. In effect, all sides of the war are or have already acquired higher and higher tech weaponry and the edge this provided mostly to GS when it was first introduced has been eroding. If it sounds like I’m implying these banks are scamming lizard-breath thieves who understand and cheerfully operate where there is NO enforcement of existing SEC regs against front-running and synthetic “flash” orders, you would be correct.
Of course there is a question about whether or not it exists.
Namely the complete lack of any documented evidence that it exists. That raises some questions.
There may be plenty of anecdotal claims by market participants - who have a clear motivation to propose an imaginary solution as to why they were on the wrong side of the market - but no actual facts.
That’s what they (the PPT) are using as their authority. I’m not an expert in it but I have had numerous discussions with my banker and trading brokers over the year, they all agree on the same thing, there is a PPT and they use an EO as authority.
“TLR, Zerohedge is just a blog, and not a very good one at that. Take everything from Zerohedge with a huge grain of salt. It’s much like a low-rent, financial world Debka.”
Wrong. Zero Hedge is the canary in the coal mine of financial blogs. Much like Drudge is for mainstream news. They are often days, weeks and months ahead of the mainstream financial news.
Case in point is the Greece and European Debt Crisis. They were trumpeting the downside risk of this months before it broke in the mainstream news. When it finally broke it actually caused our market to drop “unexpectedly”. Had investors been following Zero Hedge, they would have seen it coming and could have protected themselves.
Zero Hedge provides a wealth of links to detailed market information and analysis. Their commentary is based on interpretation of that data. As with any blog, there is a wide variety of opinions. This just gives the investor one more piece of economic data to help sort out the world we live in. They are not always right (no financial blog is), but to ignore it out of hand is financially foolish.
It would constitute a huge and undoubtedly unConstitutional waste of tax money. No amount of shoring pu of prices can improve the course of the economy. It would, however, contribute to misallocation of resources which, of course, makes things economically worse. The only reasons for using such tactics would be political in order to maintain and increase political power and individual wealth for the manipulators and their bosses.
This statement assumes a number of things that are not in evidence:
(1) Documented evidence of market intervention.
(2) Documented evidence that such a market intervention can be linked to this EO's working group.
(3) Any statement by any member of the working group that they are using this EO as legal grounds for an otherwise illegal market intervention.
April, someplace here on the FREEP a few days ago, someone posted a video showing overnight manipulation of the futures markets with big volume limit orders being floated and then quickly withdrawn in an apparent effort to manipulate prices in one direction or another. This was happening in after-hours but assuming the same techniques can be used during the trading day, this kind of manipulation looks very plausible. And the question arises: where is the SEC in what should be a slam-dunk case of market manipulation (it’s illegal to float orders not intended to be executed).
Which is why Obama and Co. don't care if they aren't reelected, they're laughing all the way to the bank.
*
“unless the plunge protection team comes in over the next couple of days”
Geez, why dontcha just shine the Batsignal over the Manhattan skyline??
Since we know that one cannot prove a negative, then state what would (for you) constitute
a: believable evidence that the PPT exists.
b: irrefutable evidence that the PPT exists.
If you are looking for a trade confirmation from the CME with a buyer named “T. Geithner on behalf FRBNY” for 1000 SPX contracts at market, I doubt I would be able to transcend or penetrate the same rules that would apply to your or my or anyone else’s stock brokerage account. Other than something nobody is going to be able to obtain, please state what would constitute sufficient evidence for you.
There was a bond crash?
I don't see it on the chart. Could you point it out to me?
You dont have a recall of $550 BILLION in U.S. Treasuries, over a 2 hour period
How do you "recall" US Treasuries?
You think the Fed loans say $1,000,000 to Goldman and Goldman leverages that $1,000,000 to buy $30,000,000 worth of securities? Where does Goldman get the other $29,000,000?
Exactly - it's Ayn Rand's "aristocracy of pull" come to life. We've descended back into tribalism - get on the chief's good side and maybe he'll do you a favor.
LOL! That's funny. I haven't heard lately from the Jefferies VP who used to talk about the NAU. I wonder if he's in treatment?
Yeah, it seems odd.
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