the guys running the show That would be the market. I think you're getting a bit paranoid about market manipulation.
Me...
How refeshingly naive. I've got sad news for you, there is no Easter Bunny. Just why do you suppose that AMD is going balistic right now instead of a week ago, or 2 weeks ago, or a month ago, or 6 months ago? Nothing, other than the suit has really changed in that period and that had little effect on the stock price. The last 6 months has just been a period of steadily increasing wins of one sort or another, no 90 degree turns.
You can call it "market manipulation" if you want but I just consider it part of the game, falling under the title "Learning to Swim with the sharks". Any time you put a pot of gold out there you can bet people will line up 16 deep and work nights trying to figure out a way to get at it. And that's basically the way a lot of people view the stock markets, as luscious tomatoes ripe for picking.
Not that it's necessarily illegal or even immoral. After all both you and I have our own games we're playing. But to deny the existance of people trying to bend the stock market to their will is living in a more remote dimension than the one Elmer lives in. And if you think it's just the penny ante day traders that are trying to corner the market think again. The number of games being played are almost infinite and played by the complete cross section of wealth out there.
Not that the little guy can't make money in the markets, but he has to play a different game. The guys moving the market now have an event horizon measured in weeks at most. Their game is hit and run. If one can recognize what's going on and participate it's possible to mimimic the gains the big boys are making. Not that they are always right, but then that's the stock market for you.
