"Name one? OK. George Soros, who has already said publicly that he would spend his whole fortune if he could be certain of the defeat of Mr. Bush.
And, just btw, Mr. Soros does indeed know how to manipulate mkts, although manipulating both NYSE and NASDAQ would probably be a bit too much for even HIS pocketbook."
I'd sure be enlightened to learn how this one rich investor, opposed to President Bush, could impact the market, or the elections.
What would he do? Sell a stock too cheap? Would anything like that harm anybody but himself? Be reminded it takes a willing buyer for every sale; it takes a willing buyer for every sale, too.
I wouldn't worry much, over threats buy one rich person.
The usual way that one would go about this, were one so inclined, would be to take a period of mkt vulnerability (a series of down days), and sell the devil out of the SP500 futures that trade on CME, and perhaps other index contracts (QQQ, say) as well. Why? Because thousands of funds worldwide are hedged with these contracts, or trade them outright. They must adjust their portfolios in the event of a heavy move (or series of moves), which adjustment will of itself help tank the mkt. Think Black Monday (because the effect I'm describing is the same, exactly) occurring in ''slow'' motion, over a couple of weeks or a month.
The reverse of this procedure is the essence of the strategy putatively used by the (mythical, in my view) so-called 'Plunge Protection Team', of Bent Willy's days.
Either strategy is doable, to the buy side or the sell side, provided only two things: 1) that the timing is reasonable -- doesn't have to be spot on, merely reasonable, and 2) that our villain (presumably Soros here, but any big player MIGHT be the villain) teams up with other big players to keep the ball rolling for a few days or couple of weeks. The idea is to spook the funds -- the little player simply doesn't matter.
The only wild card, from the villain's standpoint, is: ''What action(s) might the U.S. gov't take to wreck my plan?'', and this is indeed the wildest of wild cards. Gov't hasn't played by the ''rules'', whatever they may be, in such panic situations since at least the coffee market of 1919.