augieboo's PPT Archive

[augieboo]

PPT Overview from Lone Ranger on SI http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=17666809
To:Zeev Hed who wrote (87729)
From: Lone Ranger Thursday, Jun 27, 2002 9:46 PM
View Replies (3) / Respond to of 87775

Zeev,
OT...but the best info I have found on the plunge protection team(PPT). Its not a joke nor a conspiracy. From Roger Arnold's email today, June 27, 2002.
Yesterday was a very bad day. The run in the market through the closing rally to bring the equity markets back to even for the day was the result of market manipulation; in my opinion. As a rational human being, understanding the guidelines within which markets interact I can draw no other conclusion; although I can not prove it.

There was a coordinated effort on the part of several investors to prop the equity markets in the US up at the open of yesterdays market by buying into the futures markets. This lets the equity traders know that there is willing money on the sidelines ready to buy in should the market fall. That signal in itself is usually all it takes to keep the short sellers out and calm the nerves of the traders considering selling. In other words it caps what could be a capitulation event. It removes the question of whether or not there are buyers by creating buyers. The futures buyers are in essence saying don't worry be happy we are here if you need us.

The question has to be asked however, who would do this?

The WCOM news broke after the equity exchanges in the US had closed for the day on Tuesday. Asian and European markets were down dramatically over the course of the next 16 hours. There was the largest single day flight into 2 year treasury notes by the opening in New York on Wednesday that I can ever recall experiencing, down 1/4% in yield. Gold had spiked up $5 in Hong Kong. The dollar was plunging against gold, euro and yen.

But, the buying interest in the equity futures in the US was inordinately large prior to the open, stayed relatively high all day and then spiked up again right at 2:15 eastern time. That is when the FED made its announcement of no move on rates. Apparently some of the traders had been speculating that the FED would lower rates. For whatever reason, the sell off began to accelerate dramatically at 2:15 and so did the futures buying. This isn't trying to catch a falling knife this standing in front of a freight train; you can't win.

This makes no sense at all. There is no legitimate trading model anywhere I am aware of that would have made this call. I can not create a model that would validate that as a strategy. There is an old saying in the equity markets; don't try to catch a falling knife. In this case they weren't just trying to catch the falling knife, gamble on a market bottom and turn around, they were literally containing the negative momentum by promising to buy stock that was plunging in price before it started plunging but after it became apparent that it would. This is the anti-investment model. This is the kind of model you build when determining the most efficient way of disposing of your wealth in the fastest way possible if your only choice was to do so through the equity markets. Am I making sense?

So, the question has to be asked who would do this?

The most logical scenario would require some sort of government intervention or government induced intervention. In 1988, following the October 1987 Dow plunge, an organization called the Working Group on Financial Markets was created by the President of the US. Since then it has become known as the Plunge Protection Team. There are links below for more information so I won't go into detail about how it works here.

The communications platform that creates the formal relationship the between the public sector, US Treasury, and private sector, US Federal Reserve, as well as equity, bond and commodities exchanges is the "Working Group".

It is important to understand the nuance here. A predetermined way of disseminating the Executive Administrations interests in the financial markets to those markets was created. In other words this group was not simply created to allow for an orderly collection of information for delivery to the administration. This is a working group, with workers on both sides. The group is designed to collect information from the private sector as well as deliver requests to the private sector. The group required an executive order to be created in order to provide everyone working within its framework an appearance of legitimacy while manipulating the markets.

This is generally how it would work: WCOM announces fraud and the world wide markets begin to sell off. The members of the "Working Group" don't have to wait for somebody to call them to tell them what to do. The creation of the group itself has already created the expectation of action to contain the crisis and the intended cooperation between public and private authorities to ensure its success. The exchange of phone calls I will now list need not happen as everyone involved would know what was expected of them.

Treasury Secretary O'Neill calls Fed Chairman Greenspan and says you better get your banks to start buying stock or anything else to support this market if you expect the tax payer to come in with a bail out package later. The implication is clear. The private sector banks had better put some of their capital at risk and even guarantee its loss in order to try to hold back the collapse if these banks are going to come to the Treasury if it doesn't work and ask for a tax payer bail out.

So Dr. Greenspan calls the member banks of the FED and other private institutions, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, etc.; and says you guys better do what ever is necessary to support the markets. The cheapest and easiest way to support the markets without putting a lot of money at risk is to buy futures. In essence, make a promise to buy the stock should it begin to fall. The idea being that the stock won't fall because the sellers know there are buyers and won't panic trying to get out because of it. Ideally the crisis is then averted and no real money had to be exchanged.

The problem is that it was still manipulation. The treasury secretary just sold a tax payer bail out to the FED should it be necessary. The FED just bought a tax payer bail out in the future by putting capital at risk today. The point being that the futures buying was manipulated and not driven by market fundamentals.

Put another way :

Imagine you get together with 3 of your buddies to play poker and the four of you are sitting around playing 5 card stud. One player is called the Treasury. one the FED, one a professional card player (trader) and one just a plain old once a week with the boys card player (typical "long term" investor) As the night wears on the FED is beginning to lose more than the others. So, the dealer (treasury) tells the player (FED) that he'll give him 6 cards if agrees to split the pot with him should the player getting the 6 cards win and that if he continues to lose anyway the treasury will step in and give him money to keep playing. But stepping in to give the FED money to keep playing is a last resort. The rationale is that the FED is the richest guy at the table and as long as he can be kept in the game the game can continue.

Now there is no guarantee the player (FED) getting 6 cards will win every hand but the probability he will win an inordinate number of hands has increased dramatically versus the players only getting 5 cards.

If the players getting 5 cards know this is happening they would be fools to keep playing a game that is clearly manipulated. So, the key is to do this without the other players knowing this happening.

But, as the players keep playing the game it becomes apparent that something is wrong as one player (FED) begins winning consistently. So, the treasury only gives the FED 6 cards at those times during the evening that it looks like the FED may be losing too much.

The goal being to keep the game going but not let the other players know this is happening.

But of course the other players figure it out and begin to leave the game. The first player to figure it out of course is the professional. As soon as he sees the game is rigged his choice is to call the treasury out for a gun battle but the professional knows there is no upside in this and so he simply takes his money and leaves to find another game somewhere else in the world that isn't rigged.

This leaves behind 3 players now. Two of them have rigged the game and the third one can't figure out why he keeps losing. As the third guy wants to leave the FED and Treasury conveniently let him win a couple of hands to keep him in the game and keep the game going.

But the bottom line is that the there is no way the third player is ever going to win against the FED and Treasury and the question is how long does it take him to figure it out. The goal is to take the third players money without the third player knowing he was just had. When he is broke room is made at the table for the next sucker and the game continues.

But, the professionals are now nowhere to be seen. You see it was the professionals that were the real counterbalance to the Treasury and FED manipulation and when the losses the professional was incurring to the them became greater than what he could gain from the novice player he walks.

That is where we are today in the markets. I hope that made sense.

The real private sector job creating professional wealth is leaving the game. That is the real reason the dollar is falling. The US game is rigged and the professionals are cashing in their chips to play in a game denominated in another currency, gold or euro. They won't play in the Yen denominated game because it is even more corrupt than the dollar denominated game. Many of them will take a break from the game completely by taking their cash and parking it in gold or by buying waterfront property and lying on the beach waiting for the Treasury and FED to realize they over manipulated the markets.

Others Thoughts:

http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm
Here is a quote from Jim Puplava's article he wrote reagrding yesterdays market:

Today’s Market
In today’s market it appears obvious that the PPT was hard at work. I was literally having a conversation with someone when I looked up on my screen and watched the markets move from new benchmark lows into positive territory. The daily chart of the Dow Industrials looked like a NASA space launch and it was occurring in real time as I watched the numbers climb from the negative to the positive in a matter of a few minutes. It reminded me of a trip I took last year on a nuclear submarine when the ship’s captain took us from depths of 750 feet to 100 feet in a few minutes. I recall watching the depth meter on the con as the numbers quickly rolled up. I had that exact experience today. The gentleman I was talking to was a credit analyst and his screen was tuned into the same chart. It was a heroic effort that took the markets from the depths of the abyss. At the end of the day, however, it failed. The Dow and the S&P 500 both finished in negative territory while the Nasdaq managed a tiny gain.

It now appears necessary to intervene in the financial markets, the currency markets, the commodity markets, and into our credit system to keep things functioning. History teaches us that all intervention fails and that the markets eventually win out in the end. Intervention simply postpones the inevitable and creates new distortions."

Fed to prop up Wall St
Shadowy committee ready to pour billions into stock markets to avert shares meltdown

Richard Wachman and Jamie Doward Observer Sunday September 16, 2001

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4258005,00.html

The US Federal Reserve and Wall Street's powerful investment banks are preparing to spend billions of dollars to support the US stock market, which opens this week for the first time since last Tuesday's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

A secretive committee - the Working Group on Financial Markets, dubbed 'the plunge protection team' - includes bankers as well as representatives of the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and the US Treasury. It is ready to co-ordinate intervention by the Federal Reserve on an unprecedented scale.

The Fed, supported by the banks, will buy equities from mutual funds and other institutional sellers if there is evidence of panic selling in the wake of last week's carnage.

The authorities are determined to avert a worldwide slump in share prices like the crashes of 1987 or 1929. Investment banks and their broking subsidiaries are to block short-selling by speculators and hedge funds by making it hard for them to obtain prices on favourable terms.

'Everyone is eager to avoid "contagion", where prices fall rapidly as investors react lemming-like to a falling index,' said one banker.

In addition, US regulators are prepared to ease rules that prevent companies from buying their own stock.

The 'plunge protection team' was established by a special executive order issued by former President Ronald Reagan in 1989. It is known to include senior bankers at leading Wall Street institutions such as Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. It has acted before, in the early Nineties and during the 1998 LTCM hedge fund crisis.

Whether coordinated action by the US authorities and banking institutions will be sufficient to avert a large-scale sell-off on Wall Street this week remains to be seen.

Tony Jackson, director of UK equity strategy at investment bank ING Barings, believes there may be an emotional tide of support for Wall Street this week, but that it will be shortlived. He said: 'Some people are talking about a "patriotic rally" that could lift the Dow by 1,000 points on reopening. I don't think it will be that high, but it will certainly go up, perhaps several hundred points.

'But long term, the trend will still be down, perhaps 10 per cent from where it opens. Many companies will cut earnings forecasts now.'

Khuram Chaudhry, equity strategist at Merrill Lynch, believes that Wall Street could fall by as much as 10 per cent. 'You have to remember that things did not look that good before the attack on the World Trade Centre. There were already signs that American consumer confidence was deteriorating. I don't think people are now going to rush out to take foreign holidays or crowd the shopping malls.'

John Llewellyn, economist at Lehman Brothers, is worried that markets may prove disorderly, despite the best efforts of the authorities.

'There is a degree of synchronisation between the three major economies. The US and Europe are weaken ing in tandem, while Japan is in the doldrums. In the early Nineties Japan was in better shape. The global economy may end up in a worse condition than 10 years ago.'

But there are optimists too. Sonja Gibbs, chief equity strategist at Nomura International, believes 'the economic fundamentals will take a turn for the better in 2002'.

Robin Aspinall, equity analyst at broker Teather and Greenwood said: 'The Americans will want to show that the stars and stripes still fly over Wall Street.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4258005,00.html

DATE: 03-18-88
31 -- Money and Finance
Working Group on Financial Markets
By virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, and in order to establish a Working Group on Financial Markets, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Establishment. (a) There is hereby established a Working Group on Financial Markets (Working Group). The Working Group shall be composed of:
(1) the Secretary of the Treasury, or his designee;
(2) the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, or his designee;
(3) the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or his designee; and
(4) the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or her designee.
(b) The Secretary of the Treasury, or his designee, shall be the Chairman of the Working Group.
Sec. 2. Purposes and Functions. (a) Recognizing the goals of enhancing the integrity, efficiency, orderliness, and competitiveness of our Nation's financial markets and maintaining investor confidence, the Working Group shall identify and consider:
(1) the major issues raised by the numerous studies on the events in the financial markets surrounding October 19, 1987, and any of those recommendations that have the potential to achieve the goals noted above; and
(2) the actions, including governmental actions under existing laws and regulations (such as policy coordination and contingency planning), that are appropriate to carry out these recommendations.
(b) The Working Group shall consult, as appropriate, with representatives of the various exchanges, clearinghouses, self-regulatory bodies, and with major market participants to determine private sector solutions wherever possible.
(c) The Working Group shall report to the President initially within 60 days (and periodically thereafter) on its progress and, if appropriate, its views on any recommended legislative changes.
Sec. 3. Administration. (a) The heads of Executive departments, agencies, and independent instrumentalities shall, to the extent permitted by law, provide the Working Group such information as it may require for the purpose of carrying out this Order.
(b) Members of the Working Group shall serve without additional compensation for their work on the Working Group.
(c) To the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of funds therefor, the Department of the Treasury shall provide the Working Group with such administrative and support services as may be necessary for the performance of its functions.

The provisions of Executive Order 12631 of Mar. 18, 1988, appear at 53 FR 9421, 3 CFR, 1988
Comp., p. 559, unless otherwise noted.

Other Links:

http://envirotext.eh.doe.gov/data/eos/reagan/19880318.html

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/bank/hba63923.000/hba63923_0.htm

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF8&q=Workin...

Fed Statement

Remember it is everything after the but that is the real message:

The information that has become available since the last meeting of the Committee confirms that economic activity is continuing to increase. However, both the upward impetus from the swing in inventory investment and the growth in final demand appear to have moderated. The Committee expects the rate of increase of final demand to pick up over coming quarters, supported in part by robust underlying growth in productivity, but the degree of the strengthening remains uncertain.


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augie