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Stock index values on opening have bounced up and down recently, changing direction dramatically within an hour but without any news to spark the changes, according to Pam Martens, editor of Wall Street on Parade.
For example, on 30 March, the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened trading at about 35,230. Within 30 minutes, it rose to 35,360, then spent the next half hour sinking back to 35,215 for no apparent reason.
On 4 April, the Dow opened at 34,800, immediately dropped to 34,620, then bounced back up to 34,800, all within the first 30 minutes of trading, all with no obvious cause.
On 5 April, the Dow began the day just above 34,800, rose above 35,100 after about 30 minutes, then fell back below 34,850 25 minutes later. Again, there was no news-based explanation for the rocky ride.
Martens, who has been watching market patterns for more than three decades, thinks she might have the answer.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is the only Fed bank to have its own trading floor. Earlier this year, it opened a second trading floor, this one in Chicago.
The New York Fed’s Chicago trading center is located quite physically close to the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where stock index futures are traded, as are other futures contracts.
It’s known in the securities industry that the closer one’s electronic trading terminals are to the computers that process those S&P 500 trades, the faster one’s trades are booked—even by a tiny fraction of a second—boosting chances that the trade is booked before the market moves.
Martens offers a hypothetical example.
Imagine “there are some large hedge funds that correctly sense that the Fed has created a market bubble that is going to explode now that the Fed has allowed inflation to get out of control,” Martens says, “and the Fed has to slam on the brakes with a rapid series of interest rate hikes.
“Those hedge funds might be looking to pounce on the market at the open by short-selling S&P 500 futures in Chicago,” which means betting that the price will fall.
“To prevent these hedge funds from seeing this maneuver as an easy means of reaping windfall returns while driving the market lower without resistance, the New York Fed, again hypothetically, might want to launch its own counteracting purchases of the S&P 500 futures contracts” to buoy the price, Martens speculates.
“This would produce what is known as a short squeeze, where the hedge funds have to quickly buy S&P 500 futures to cover the shorts they put on, turning the market on a dime and pushing it dramatically higher.”
That could explain the Dow’s opening yo-yo on those days, she says.
“Is it really the job of the central bank of the United States—which is tasked with setting monetary policy—to have an ever-expanding trading floor in two major trading hubs in the U.S. and [Fed] traders duking it out with hedge funds?” she asked.
TREND FORECAST: The government’s Plunge Protection Team has prevented major stock-market corrections by stepping in and purchasing S&P futures, thus preventing the market’s overvaluation from bursting the bubble.
These manipulations are apparent to experienced investors. Sooner or later, attentive Americans will realize that the government’s deceit is not limited to the marketplace, but extends into foreign policy.
Indeed, regardless of the country, the governments will do all they can to artificially pump up failing equities. Moreover, when the market declines intensify, The Plunge Protection Team, China’s National Teams and other world “Teams,” plus the central banksters, will coordinate market manipulation strategies in attempts to reverse and/or minimize the selloffs.