How to Profit from Market Manipulation

It has been nearly a week since the FOMC announced they would buy US treasury long bonds in the open market on Wednesday March 18th, a stunning development that some had predicted, and many others predicted would never happen.

click to enlarge

As the above chart shows, the increase in gold prices (as represented by GLD, the gold ETF) and the increase in US treasury long bond prices (as represented by TLT, the iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF) have leveled off at exactly the level of the decline in the dollar (as represented by the Deutsche Bank Short US Dollar Futures index). At first, the price of gold increased by more than the decrease in the dollar, as investors reacted to the perceived inflation that the direct monetization of government debt will inevitably cause. But by Tuesday, March 24, gold investors/speculators and treasury bond investors/speculators had apparently calmed down, having realized that the inflation wouldn’t be immediate, since the bond purchases will occur over the next six months.

Here is another chart of the exact same thing using UDN, the PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bearish ETF, which is designed to track the Deutche Bank index in the previous chart. The result is the same. It shows the increase in gold prices and treasury bond prices converging with the decrease in the dollar index, essentially unchanged in real terms from a week earlier. The reality was that gold and treasuries didn’t increase 2%, the dollar lost 2% of its value.

But now I want to focus in more closely on just Monday and Tuesday’s trading. On Monday the S&P 500 index increased by 7.1%, its fourth largest single day gain in history. It was driven by huge gains in the financial and real estate sectors, most of which happened during the last hour of trading. IYR, the iShares Dow Jones US Real Estate ETF which tracks the real estate sector closed up 15.0% on Monday, and XLF, the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF closed up 16.5%. But more than half of the gain occurred in the last hour of trading.

Monday morning the existing home sales figures were announced, and they were much better than expectations. As you can see in the above chart, real estate stocks were largely unchanged for the first half of the trading day, while the overall market (SPY) was up 2% or 3%, and the financial sector opened up 5% and slowly climbed during the morning.

Then, Monday afternoon, the real estate sector and the finance sector soared. What caused this late afternoon wave of buying? The positive announcement of existing home sales was already hours old, and should have been done exerting its effect on the market by then. But then Tim Geithner went on television, CSpan and all the financial channels, and announced the details of his plan to enlist private hedge funds to buy the so called “toxic” assets from the balance sheets of our troubled banks. If you were the PPT, or the big banks, it would certainly be in your interest to make it look like Geithner’s announcement was well received by investors and the general public. So buying massive amounts of financial and real estate sector stocks could accomplish this objective.

On Tuesday morning at 10am, in a rare simultaneous appearance, both the chairman of the Federal Reserve and the secretary of the Treasury were set to be grilled on the AIG bonus mess among other things in front of the House Financial Services Committee. It would certainly not look good for the stock market to sell off during this piece of theater for the masses conducted by chairman Barney Frank, so the PPT and the big money interests would want to buy financials and real estate equities in support of their standard bearers while making their high profile televised appearance, and the following chart of Tuesday, March 24th trading shows that this is exactly what happened.

Banking and real estate stocks opened down about 4% on profit taking from the previous day’s runup, but in the first half hour of trading, a large volume of buying came in and had driven the two sectors back to nearly unchanged by 10am when the hearing began. SPY, the proxy for the S&P 500, opened down about 1% and stayed down about 1%. The hearing broke up around 1:15pm, and then the two sectors came crashing down on a large volume of selling. There is a certain logic to this. The large buyers did not want to be holding stocks in these two troubled sectors any longer than necessary, especially after a ten day runup in price since March 13th. So just one hour after Bernanke and Geithner were no longer in the public eye, they began dumping bigtime.

Here is one more chart showing what some big banking stocks did on Tuesday compared to the S&P:

Citicorp (C), B of A (BAC), JP Morgan (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) opened sharply down on Tuesday morning, but half an hour later were back to nearly unchanged, just in time for the meeting of the House Financial Services Committee to convene. They closed down from 5% to 10% on Tuesday, and the decline began exactly one hour after Bernanke and Geithner left the television screen. It seems fairly obvious that their stock prices were supported all day long, starting before the hearing began, and ending one hour after adjournment, just leaving enough time for the big buyers (manipulators) to unload.

If you believe that our stock markets are sometimes manipulated, then the last hour of trading is the logical time for several reasons. First, it allows the manipulators to affect the closing price, which is the price that everyone remembers, and is the price most of the working folks check when they get home from work. Second, the closing price is used to calculate margin calls, and if you are trying to force weak hands to sell their holdings, those who use margin are vulnerable to forced sales if you can get the closing price down low enough. Also, if you are short a stock, by driving down the closing price, you can prevent a margin call on your own holdings.

In retrospect, it is easy to see that the banking sector stocks were propped up all day Tuesday, March 24th, and in the last hours of March 23rd, while our Treasury Secretary was being nationally televised. But if you had some big losers in your portfolio such as B of A, or Citicorp, this would have been an excellent time to dump them, while the insiders were buying for the public effect.

The Working Group on Financial Markets, generally known as the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) was created by Executive Order 12631, signed into law on March 18, 1988 by then President Ronald Reagan. The Chairman of the Working Group is the Secretary of the Treasury, and other members include the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The Group was established in response to Black Monday, October 19, 1987 for "enhancing the integrity, efficiency, orderliness, and competitiveness of financial markets and maintaining investor confidence".

There are many that claim it is an orchestrated mechanism that manipulates U.S. stock markets in an attempt to avoid a market crash by using government funds, or complicit banks to buy stocks, or other instruments such as stock index futures—acts which are forbidden by law. It is said they intervene to put a floor under stocks whenever they are at risk of penetrating certain technical support levels, such as when the 50-day moving average slips under the 200-day moving average, known as the Death Cross, which can trigger programmed selling, leading to even more panic selling.

Congressman Ron Paul has charged the Working Group with going beyond their legal mandate. On October 6, 2008, the Working Group issued a statement indicating that it was taking multiple actions available to it in order to attempt to stabilize the financial system, although purchase of stock shares was not part of that statement.

Another major source of manipulation is hedge funds, which are largely unregulated, and off shore hedge funds which are completely unregulated. Some of the tactics that these funds use to manipulate stocks are to gang up on a particular stock and short it en masse, naked shorting (shorting shares that don’t exist, counterfeiting shares of stock), and they also sell US stocks on foreign stock exchanges where they are not even listed. I have personal knowledge of one US stock listed only on the NYSE being sold on the Munich stock exchange to drive down the price, and also on the Pacific stock exchange. If these were legitimate sales and they wanted to get the best price, the clear choice would be to sell on the NYSE, but they didn’t want the best price, they were short in their offshore accounts and wanted to drive down the price.

Knowledge is power. Use this knowledge to protect your assets by getting them out of the stock markets, and to time your buying and selling when the big money is doing the opposite.

Disclosure: I am long SRS and SKF

Comments

[PNG:]

Very good article. Finally someone writing to educate the average investor instead of doing a pump and dump as so many others do.

Mar 25 08:45 AM

[Momintn:]

Harold, if you haven't filed a complaint, I hope you do so.
www.sec.gov/complaint....
sanfrancisco.fbi.gov/s...
The FBI and the SEC are working jointly on securities fraud. Investors realize that something is seriously wrong with our stock markets because of the losses that are greater than 50% in our investments. Someone has profited greatly from destroying our system and turning it into a roller coaster ride. People have gotten the wind knocked out of them and many have decided just to get off. The idea of long-term investing formally known as buy-and-hold is in peril, and this affects our nation as a whole because we need people to save for their own retirement and not depend on the government. Until we have safe investments with good returns, there is little incentive to do so.

Mar 25 08:55 AM

[benandfils:]

thanks for being so brave telling the truth. I link you in www.benandfils.com (France)

Mar 25 08:58 AM

[abcde_98:]

Very informative, and very conceivable... perhaps US gov't interests let some offshore hedge funds in on things to seek their assistance as a vehicle.

So, should we look for strong support the next time the 50day MA nears the 200day MA ?
What other nearer-term events (say in the next month) do you think would lead to "manipulation" forces to make an appearance?

Mar 25 09:10 AM

[Conan the B...:]

All of the henchmen orchestrating the current activities are the same as those which were around when the DOW, S&P and Financials were doing a Tango to the upside from 2003 to 2007.

Having made their money, they are now manipulating the Markets and Financials, in your opinion, based on some hourly charts.

Ok, no problem, its just your opinion.

I consulted with a Real Estate Broker friend of mine about his feelings. He feels that the worst is over in Calfornia. That's His opinion.

My opinion is that the Financials will Continue to scurry upward, but then I'm using daily and weekly charts. What you consider "manipulation" in the last few hours of the day, I consider normal profit taking by Day Traders.

Oh, those short sellers hidden on evil shores, If you can spot them so can everyone else.

Mar 25 09:11 AM

[reporter101:]

Bravo Mr. Goodman,
It is good to see the masses being awaken by the true journalist out there as there are many captured journalist (friends of hedge funds) who try to discredit anyone who says naked short selling is a real problem. I invite you and others to view this site.

www.deepcapture.com/

Mar 25 09:23 AM

[Conan the B...:]

momintn: Harold isn't going to file anything with anyone. These are his opinions.

I "believe" and "evidence" are distinct.

But Harold has just made us an offer with his last paragraph. "Knowledge is power", implying he has that knowledge.

So, Harold, how are we supposed to know when the Big Boys are buying and selling, so that We can do the opposite?

Mar 25 09:25 AM

[Franklin Bird:]

Great! This is the first time I have seen someone point out how short sellers used the German exchanges, especially Bremen, to enable naked short-selling. After the tech bubble, companies woke up to find that unknown persons had petitioned that exchange to list their shares there, without the firm's knowlege. Mmmm... I wonder who did that?
Oh that's right, short sellers provide "valuable liquidity."

Mar 25 10:21 AM

[yukonmike1:]

Look no farther than the people in power to figure out the chain of connection. There's an awful lot of Goldman guys in high positions of office and media and there's an awful lot of money that's been flowing to Goldman Sachs.

Additionally, here's an enlightening publication from the Columbia school of journalism on the sale of phantom stock. Great read especially given the recent skewering of Cramer by Jon Stewart on exactly the same subject.

www.deepcapture.com/

Mar 25 10:40 AM

[joethebull:]

In times of economic downturn, conspiracy theories run as volatile as the market.

Read the charts, watch the technicals, and stick with the trends. It's much easier to trade successfully based on a strong fundamental strategy than theorizing about the motives of scary men hiding behind curtains pulling levers.

Mar 25 12:36 PM

[Brain Damage:]

the european culture shows how socialising is an important part of the culture and well integrated within people's lives.

Mar 25 01:38 PM

[Conan the B...:]

Harold: Your response is what I would have expected from a Real Estate Broker.

You do not get off that easy. News conferences are pre-announced. Pick one that you "Know" will lead to either a Buying Or Selling opportunity. Post what you "Know" will happen before it happens.

I knew you would not file a complaint. What a lame excuse. IMO

Mar 25 02:58 PM

[abcde_98:]

Harold,

1. Any thoughts on what just happened in the final 30 minutes, particularly the final 10 minutes of today?
Was the PPT in full force trying to paint the tape to show a positive (+ve) day and/or demonstrate support? Last time we were above 7,800 it was a channel trading range between approx 7800 and 8200. Are they trying to pump fake us to be in that zone?


2. Any comments to my questions posted above:
(a) So, should we look for strong support the next time the 50day MA nears the 200day MA ?
(b) What other nearer-term events (say in the next month) do you think would lead to "manipulation" forces to make an appearance?

Appreciate your viewpoint/input.


3. My market quote system data feed tends to "freeze" (for a minute or so) at rather significant point moves whether +/- moves and of course it happened in the last part of today. In the mid-late 1990's, our trading team conceived that the retail investor was "frozen out" of trading by automated trading and/or software in the electronic order placement systems. Any thoughts on this?

Mar 25 05:02 PM

[PROXIMO:]

Tim Metz, a former WSJ reporter, wrote Black Monday after the 1987 debacle. The book provides a behind the scenes look at key players in the market during the 87 sell-off. Traders, Feds, bankers, etc. It is a fascinating book and makes a very compelling case that market manipulation from the highest levels was in fact the ONLY thing that prevented a catastrophic meltdown of the entire system at that time.

Mar 25 05:16 PM

[limaur24:]

The last time the SPX 50-day MA crossed the 200-day MA was at the end of 2007. No evidence then of PPT intervention.

Mar 25 10:27 PM

[nova:]

US financial markets are gambling casinos.

Remember movie "Casablanca": " Gambling? I am appalled..."

The only good news is that, regardless of how hard Obama and the Congress try to save the Wall-Street thieves and gangster, they are doomed.

Mar 25 10:44 PM

[Willy Walnuts:]

Say it ain't so, Joe...

Reading this article reminds me of the uneasy feeling I get watching the Super Bowl. There is too much money at stake for it not to be fixed.

I had a bad day today, it was like the market knew exactly where my stops were, to the penny, and shed me like a fly. Then to rub my face in it, bounced back up leaving me in the dust. I guess us small guys are destined to be abused by the big money.

Mar 26 02:21 AM

[Harold Goodman:]

# abcde_98 -

The surge of buying at the close today sure felt like PPT was painting the tape, although I have not really analyzed it. If you look at the first chart in the article that I submitted for tomorrow, entitled "The Future of US Markets", it shows that the S&P 500 is above its 50 day EMA for only the second time since the panic in Oct/Nov, and it seems logical that the manipulators want to bring buyers into the market by attempting to hold at these levels.
My guess is that their use of stock index futures and such can only fight the market forces for short periods of time before it becomes too expensive to maintain. Every technical indicator is screaming overbought, and I am short the financial and real estate sector for the next few weeks, expecting some nice gains.


On Mar 25 05:02 PM abcde_98 wrote:

> Harold,
>
> 1. Any thoughts on what just happened in the final 30 minutes, particularly
> the final 10 minutes of today?
> Was the PPT in full force trying to paint the tape to show a positive
> (+ve) day and/or demonstrate support? Last time we were above 7,800
> it was a channel trading range between approx 7800 and 8200. Are
> they trying to pump fake us to be in that zone?
>
>
> 2. Any comments to my questions posted above:
> (a) So, should we look for strong support the next time the 50day
> MA nears the 200day MA ?
> (b) What other nearer-term events (say in the next month) do you
> think would lead to "manipulation" forces to make an appearance?
>
>
> Appreciate your viewpoint/input.
>
>
> 3. My market quote system data feed tends to "freeze" (for a minute
> or so) at rather significant point moves whether +/- moves and of
> course it happened in the last part of today. In the mid-late 1990's,
> our trading team conceived that the retail investor was "frozen
> out" of trading by automated trading and/or software in the electronic
> order placement systems. Any thoughts on this?

Mar 26 03:46 AM

[Mark Anthony:]

This is a MUST READ regarding a breaking science break through, an imminent danger, and why ALL BANKS will FAIL in a hyper-inflation environment. Enjoy:

tinyurl.com/ddfdvy

I plan to short some banking stocks. But right now is a bit too pre-mature.

Mar 26 04:08 AM

[DTCapital:]

Harold is right. However, I expect that the present sentiment is likely to carry us for a week or two before anxiety over Q1 results sets in. Enjoy the rally, folks coz more pain is just around the corner.

Mar 26 04:43 AM

[dcb:]

Hoe dare you imply the market is being manipulated. After all isn't it the most effective mechanism of true price discovery ever created in the history of the world. :-)

Mar 26 07:54 AM

[dcb:]

GUY, the manipulation is happening with the full consent of the government, so nothing is goin to happen. In fact i would say the govenrment is the biggest manipulator of the market. The problem is that they usually are only working on the long side and that is why this unstable house of cards was built up in the first place. The goverment changed accounting rules, leverage rations, allowed derivates to be called swaps not insurance, VAR models, etc. Now they are doing it again. The result will be an unstable patch job. What what happens to regulatory reform (I am happy to put lost of money on almost nothing.

I will also point out the person whose judgement I trust most in this stuff (Volker) has been sidelined by the administration and from the statement I have managed to hear it sounds like he does not agree with current policy. He is getting old and doesn't make for good public shows, but his economics is still right on.


On Mar 25 08:55 AM Momintn wrote:

> Harold, if you haven't filed a complaint, I hope you do so.
> www.sec.gov/complaint....
> sanfrancisco.fbi.gov/s...
> The FBI and the SEC are working jointly on securities fraud. Investors
> realize that something is seriously wrong with our stock markets
> because of the losses that are greater than 50% in our investments.
> Someone has profited greatly from destroying our system and turning
> it into a roller coaster ride. People have gotten the wind knocked
> out of them and many have decided just to get off. The idea of long-term
> investing formally known as buy-and-hold is in peril, and this affects
> our nation as a whole because we need people to save for their own
> retirement and not depend on the government. Until we have safe
> investments with good returns, there is little incentive to do so.

Mar 26 08:09 AM

[dcb:]

I would add to a factor in market movements is the QUANT TRADING

Mar 26 08:21 AM

[dcb:]

On Mar 26 08:21 AM dcb wrote:

> I would add to a factor in market movements is the QUANT TRADING. If you got to yahoo finance and look at the volume spikes on the S&P 500 the way it trades is due to quant trading. there is a clear pattern, and you will find that you can make fairly easy profits by day trading if you figure this out. generally, they increase buying and the market sells. when everyone is done selling the market moves up and draws in buyers. A typical example of this can be seen in yesterdays action. I am not saying this happened yesterday, but it is the type of pattern you see.

Mar 26 08:25 AM

[pacman1947:]

Mr. Goodman,
Your article raises questions that should be addressed as part of the solution set being negotiated in the capitals of the world.

Your comment, "Another major source of manipulation is hedge funds, which are largely unregulated, and off shore hedge funds which are completely unregulated. Some of the tactics that these funds use to manipulate stocks are to gang up on a particular stock and short it en masse, naked shorting (shorting shares that don’t exist, counterfeiting shares of stock), and they also sell US stocks on foreign stock exchanges where they are not even listed." should be the focus of direct control mechanisms which do not now exist.

Geithner speaks today on this very issue. Let's see if he has a multinational regulatory remedy that makes sense.

Mar 26 08:32 AM

[prudentinve...:]

In the long-term, fundametals win.

If the hedge funds are cooperating with the PPT to buy stocks, do you expect them to end up in a year owning vast amounts of shares priced at 40x earnings and yielding 0.5%? I doubt it.

In the short term, they can act as a damper to slow down a plunge, or as a rocket to power up a spike, but eventually, fundamentals will rule. So private investors just have to consider probable PPT actions as one more facet adding complexity to short-term price movements.

Mar 26 08:37 AM

[Allan Frain:]

Excellent piece.

I would add that there are to very different ways to profit when manipulation is at play.

In the short term (trading) one can anticipate the moves of the manipulators, which certainly has its risks.

In the long term (investing) one can bet that the market will correct for manipulation. Brown Bottom Gold seems to glitter all the more these days, volatility notwithstanding.

Mar 26 12:02 PM

[User 368248:]

There is one thing of which I am certain: we amateur investors cannot accomplish anything without information, and the mass of it is unobtainable. Despite all our efforts, we can never know what is going on behind the doors of corporate board rooms or in the offices of off-shore hedge funds.
Until we can shoot the cockroaches who prey on us, nothing will change, and all the posturing by regulatory agencies, such as the SEC, is just so much chin music.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than this world dreams of.

Mar 26 12:12 PM

[Conan the B...:]

Harold: your article is a fabrication built from your own opinions. You have no proof therefore you will not file a complaint. You will not provide a single trade because you do not have the experience necessary to even guess at a direction.

"Knowledge is Power".

But when you answer questions by people who expect the truth with more obfuscation then you enter my particular bailiwick.

I love finding people like you who write Articles without informing whoever reads them that they are just opinions. I especially like it when I find them early.

Keep on writing, I look forward to future Factual articles or Articles which plainly state that they are opinions. But before you do so again, I suggest you read the Terms Of Use for Seeking Alpha. The TOU.

Yes, I have comments which are opinions, but then they are opinions. Meanwhile you state that your opinions are Facts. That's a Major Misdemeanor when either writing Articles or answering questions about what is written under the TOU.

Mar 26 12:26 PM

[rennert:]

great article, need more like that, I am still learning and have been fooled many times because I did not know how the market works.
please explain these facts more in detail at your next articles.
Thanks.

Mar 26 02:15 PM

[Chris B:]

1) How sad. People who don't know how to calculate the fundamental value of a company are often awestruck at how the value of a company's equity can change by millions of dollars from day to day or hour to hour. They have no better source of information than past prices to inform themselves about the price they should be willing to pay or sell for. Yet, markets can't be efficient if we have swings of this magnitude! This leads some to technical analysis, and others to conspiracy theories! Only a handful of people learn how to figure out what "low" and "high" are and how to buy and sell at close to those points. Is education manipulation?

2) Rising price volatility is a sign of both bottoms and tops. In both situations, the number of buyers declines and transactional frequency becomes more erratic. In a top situation, fewer and fewer buyers are willing to take increased risk for less and less return which eventually turns the price once the sellers capitulate. In a bottom situation, many potential buyers are sitting outside of the market, waiting for it to go up a ways before they get in. Fast, sharp swings are the result of either situation.

3) I never heard complaints about manipulation when markets were going up. Yet hundreds of thousands of financial Neanderthals are now calling their 401(k) administrators demanding a return of their money, which they feel was taken away from them, obviously by nefarious conspirators. Ha!

4) Trading in and out of stocks is inherently a zero sum game. For party A to make a profit, party B must take a loss - or at least miss out on ownership of profits for a period of time. For manipulation to occur, party A would have to convince party B to pay too much for shares, while not themselves overpaying for shares from party C. I don't follow from this article how exactly such a scheme would be sustainable in a market with millions of well-informed participants. Perhaps the better question is this: How could short-term stock prices ever be predictable and not attract attention from the millions of participants looking for arbritage opportunities?

Mar 26 02:34 PM

[stockstalker32:]

Or you can close your eyes and press the buy button and pray!

Mar 26 03:38 PM

[Lincoln:]

Harold, a very good piece. Well done. It confirms my suspicion that there are a growing number of us working to exploit these campaigns. I suggest when pursuing this line of reasoning in the future that you break out action points at the end. If not action points, then projections of how you see things playing out in the short term.

It's not entirely clear how much of what you say is profitable and can be predicted ahead of time, and how much is valuable only in retrospect and useful in building a larger understanding of current events. As we who trade know, much of these suspicions cannot be used for short term profit because of the spreads, but as they are woven together into a longer term projection the predicted moves become larger, the spreads less significant, and the opportunity to use this kind of information for profit grows.

Mar 26 03:56 PM

[Conan the B...:]

Harold: A few more comments please. I almost have all I need.

Of Course, there are ZERO articles. I have no wish to provide a sitting Target for all and sundry who have had problems with my corrective methods.

But what the hey, I gave a clear and fair outlook on what your future will be if you continue on this path.

Chris B? why don't you write Articles. Though, I admit your Comment would have made a great Article in itself.

Mar 26 04:26 PM

[praha1:]

75% of investors wouldn't be in stocks anyway if a decent return could be earned in secure bonds. We're just forced to be in equities and assume risk we don't want because of a Federal Reserve that has been dropping interest rates continuously since 1983 (we can blame Volcker for that one). The end of that game has now arrived - interest rates cannot go any lower (oops sorry! - I forgot we have quantitative easing to drop interest rates even further at the right end of the curve so all of us will make absolutely nothing anywhere).

You have to be blind as a bat to not see the machinations of desperate government everywhere - in the equity market, the bond market and the commodity markets - to think otherwise is just being naive. The post 1971 financial system is simply dying. And the sooner it's gone the better for all of us. I have a right, thank you, to work and save for my retirement without submitting my savings to undue risk. I have a right to save my wealth and not have it confiscated by the govenment via incessant inflation. The system is going to die - If I could kick it and make it pass on sooner, I'd do it. You be a slave to the Fed and the Treasury department. I'll take freedom any day.

On Mar 26 02:34 PM Chris B wrote:

> 1) How sad. People who don't know how to calculate the fundamental
> value of a company are often awestruck at how the value of a company's
> equity can change by millions of dollars from day to day or hour
> to hour. They have no better source of information than past prices
> to inform themselves about the price they should be willing to pay
> or sell for. Yet, markets can't be efficient if we have swings of
> this magnitude! This leads some to technical analysis, and others
> to conspiracy theories! Only a handful of people learn how to figure
> out what "low" and "high" are and how to buy and sell at close to
> those points. Is education manipulation?
>
> 2) Rising price volatility is a sign of both bottoms and tops. In
> both situations, the number of buyers declines and transactional
> frequency becomes more erratic. In a top situation, fewer and fewer
> buyers are willing to take increased risk for less and less return
> which eventually turns the price once the sellers capitulate. In
> a bottom situation, many potential buyers are sitting outside of
> the market, waiting for it to go up a ways before they get in. Fast,
> sharp swings are the result of either situation.
>
> 3) I never heard complaints about manipulation when markets were
> going up. Yet hundreds of thousands of financial Neanderthals are
> now calling their 401(k) administrators demanding a return of their
> money, which they feel was taken away from them, obviously by nefarious
> conspirators. Ha!
>
> 4) Trading in and out of stocks is inherently a zero sum game. For
> party A to make a profit, party B must take a loss - or at least
> miss out on ownership of profits for a period of time. For manipulation
> to occur, party A would have to convince party B to pay too much
> for shares, while not themselves overpaying for shares from party
> C. I don't follow from this article how exactly such a scheme would
> be sustainable in a market with millions of well-informed participants.
> Perhaps the better question is this: How could short-term stock prices
> ever be predictable and not attract attention from the millions of
> participants looking for arbritage opportunities?

Mar 26 06:23 PM

[Conan the B...:]

Goodman? Wait until Monday. My Ratings will change drastically. You will be pleasantly surprised.

I won't because this occurs every weekend.

Meanwhile, have you read the Terms of Use yet?

Mar 27 01:32 AM

[Conan the B...:]

It doesn't really matter if you have read them or not. Being the nice person I am, I have given you the opportunity to do so. But Like with the IRS, ignorance is not an excuse.

So with SeekingAlpha. If you do not comply with its basic fundamentals, included in the ToU, you are subject to dismissal, without prior notice, from the site. That is also included.

This not an opinion, this is a fact.

Mar 27 07:19 AM

[Conan the B...:]

No problem Harold. Read Trace Mayer's last article.

Mar 27 04:07 PM

[Conan the B...:]

Make that a cple of articles back, there's a verbatim ToU in there for you.

Mar 27 05:54 PM

[Stock Tradi...:]

It's quite interesting article and I will see and wait couple more weeks, until I feel that I am not ready to plunge to the market and collect some profit from market manipulation.

Mar 29 01:40 AM

[Conan the B...:]

Stock Trading: the article Is useful as an opinion or proposed idea. Hanging what occurs on some "mysterious group" does not make it more credible.

As a standalone, without embellishment, I can work with it. Have worked with it all of my life. The Last Hour of trading takes in the news of the day and the membership of the NYSE acts on it via Programs.

The Membership of the NYSE has been averaging above 20% of all trades made on a daily basis in the last few months. It used to be much higher.

Program Trades=20% of all Nyse trades, they Wag, we follow. Its quite open, you can track it for a fee on a Daily after the close basis. NYXdata.

Its not a Conspiracy to act on the News of the Day.

Mar 29 10:54 PM