In reality, naked short or no naked short, no single hedge fund player has enough money to "push" the market in any direction for more than a few seconds and that few seconds wont be enough to recoup profits on a big directional position.
This is the kind of thing that high school kids believe drive markets... the back rooms... the secret deals... but none of it exists in reality. It's the fodder of conspiracy theories, but it's all bunk. Oswald acted alone, and none of this bull has an impact on market prices.
True, but conspiracy theories are more fun!
I strongly disagree with your contention about SOME, not all, hedge funds. It is not just money that they wield, it is info warfare, rumor spreading in chat rooms, and access to various press outlets, some of them very high end. Also, hedge funds often act in collusion. They may not be able to crush IBM or any large cap stock, but they can obliterate weaker stocks. Now you could say that small companies, especially those developing products with nothing to sell yet, do not have cashflow or strong balance sheets or even profits to speak of. And you could say that those companies deserve to be crushed if they aren’t making money, and there’s something to that argument. No, predatory hedge funds can’t destroy a JNJ or PG but they can mash much smaller companies.
You’re right that a hedge fund player cannot move “the market” if you mean the whole market, but smallish segments of the market can, and have been ravaged by some of these folks and their tactics, yielding masive profits for da boyz who can pull it off.