!! Plunge protection and rallying shares!! Oder wie man Märkte manipuliert ?? - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[ThaiGuru]

Dieser Bericht vom 18. März 2003, in der englischen Zeitung Evening Standard online Ausgabe, besagt, und vermutet als einzige logische Erklärung, dass die Märkte vom USA "Plunge Protection Team" *PPT* manipuliert wurden.

Sollte man eigentlich unbedingt lesen, respektive sich auf der Zunge vergehen lassen, was diese englische Zeitung da so schreibt, bevor man weiter in Aktien, Dollar, Oel, oder Gold investiert.

Gruss

ThaiGuru



http://www.thisislondon.com/news/business/articles/timid6060…



Plunge protection and rallying shares

Anthony Hilton, Evening Standard

18 March 2003

STOCK markets rallied last week because it looked as if war with Iraq was going to be postponed. Yesterday the markets rallied because it looked like the war was about to begin. The two reasons contradict each other. The explanations do not make sense unless the markets are being rigged.

And who might want to do that? Well the US government would. The last thing President George W Bush needs is for his invasion of Iraq to set off a stock market crash, a collapse in the price of the dollar, a rush into gold or a spike in the price of oil. It is the kind of distraction that could be very unsettling.

The American public`s support for Bush`s Middle East adventure is not so cast-iron strong that he wants to tempt fate. So, according to the conspiracy theorists, the US authorities have been intervening anonymously in the markets to move them in the direction they want and to burn out any short-term speculators positioned the other way.

So do we believe the conspiracy story? Well, it is known that America has a secret standing committee known unofficially as the `plunge protection team` which consists of the President, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, various other senior administration officials and the leading movers and shakers of Wall Street. The official purpose of this committee, as detailed a few years ago in the Washington Post, is to stabilise unruly markets for the greater good of the US as a whole. Seeking to prevent a military operation being undermined by panic in the financial markets would appear to be well within its brief.

The conspiracy theory also seems to fit the facts. The more astute watchers of markets say that the only explanation for what began last week and continued yesterday was a US government-inspired support action to get markets where they wanted before the outbreak of hostilities.

The trick about buying and selling in markets is to complete the trade without moving the price. The massive and sudden surge of activity last week and yesterday only made sense if it was intended to shift the price. Last week and again precisely at 3.30pm yesterday, massive selling undermined the euro on the currency markets and made the dollar correspondingly stronger. To the minute, there was similar sudden heavy selling in the gold market. Last week this bashed the metal`s price from $350 to nearer $330 and yesterday it killed off the recovery.

So much for gold as a safe haven in times of war.

Last week again, heavy selling and officially-inspired rumours of a fleet of loaded Saudi tankers heading this way brought the price of crude back from its peak. Yesterday the price was undermined by helpful rumours that the US government would release some of its vast strategic oil stockpile.

All very convenient, as was the rally in equities led by the New York`s Dow Jones Industrial Average. The Dow, surprisingly, is one of the world`s least sophisticated indices. It is composed of 30 shares but these are not weighted for market capitalisation, so the Dow`s value is much easier to manipulate than Wall Street`s size and importance would suggest.

Because its shares sell for more than $130, one company, 3M, accounts for more than 10% of the Dow`s value. IBM is another such heavyweight. Aggressive buying of these two companies has a remarkable effect on the index - certainly enough to create a bandwagon on to which others will jump. Needless to say, 3M has seen huge volume in recent days.

Convinced? We may not know what really happened for months, or even years. But there has been some astonishingly ham-fisted dealing in recent days if it was not deliberate market manipulation. And given that truth is the first casualty in war, why should we expect markets to be a no-go area for the architects of spin and the conditioners of expectations?

These markets are no place for innocents or innocence.

KKR`s record

IN a recent article on the Safeway bid, I wrote that on the basis of its 2001 report to investors, private equity house Kohlberg Kravis Roberts had `only two seriously profitable investments out of more than 60` in its 26 years of operation.

This is misleading because, while the two investments to which I referred were among the most successful in the history of private equity and contributed a significant proportion of the aggregate $30bn-plus of gains the firm has generated to date for its investors, the majority of the remainder have also been profitable.

[Gringo1]

Das ist dann die sogenannte "freie" Marktwirtschaft !

Sogar in den russischen Kolchosen war der Markt freier als im Land der unbegrenzten Lügen.

Gringo

[bearmarketrally]

Meinetwegen sollen die mit ihrem Plansch Proaction Team ruhig noch ein paar Tage so weiter machen, wenn das stimmt.

Ich sitze derweil brav auf einem Rudel seit Donnerstag mehr als verdoppelter WaveCalls und ziehe ein oder zweimalmal am Tag brav meine SLs nach.

Nie war Geld verdienen so einfach wie in dieser bearmarketrally.

[PlanschProtectionTeam]

@bearmarket

Protection nicht "Proaction", obwohl das auch eine schöne Bezeichnung wäre. Aber da fehlt für mich die Asoziation von Sommer, Sonne und Schwimmbad.

[ThaiGuru]

Auch in Asien, soweit das Auge reicht Manipulationen!



http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=South%20Asia%20N…

South Asia News

Wed, 19 Mar 2003, 12:43pm HKT

From Japan to Malaysia, Asian Governments Try to Boost Markets

By Kate Linebaugh

Hong Kong, March 19 (Bloomberg) -- From Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur, Asian governments are trying to boost stock indexes sapped by concerns about war and slowing global growth. Investors say their efforts are too little, and almost certainly too late.

Take South Korea, where the government added $1.6 billion to money markets on Friday to limit fallout from the nation`s biggest accounting scandal in four years. The benchmark Kospi index rose for the first time in eight days -- then slumped on Monday to a 17- month low.

It`s much the same in Japan, where the government is trying to limit short-selling to lift the Nikkei 225 Stock average from two-decade lows. Hong Kong`s stock exchange is considering a limit on the minimum spread at which stocks can be bid and offered, aiming to win back investors as the Hang Seng Index fell to its lowest since October 1998 on March 13.

``It is difficult for these type of policies to stem the tide,`` said Will Malcolm, who helps manage $2.5 billion at Standard Life Investments in Hong Kong. ``I don`t think, taken in isolation, that this is going to change the huge amounts of fear and concern that continue to affect equity markets.``

Investors are concerned about war in Iraq, North Korean missile tests and slowing economic growth in the U.S., the biggest market for Asia`s exports. Some say any market incentives adopted now won`t stem the selling.

The MSCI Asia Free Index, comprised of 778 stocks from around the region, closed at a record low on Monday and has fallen 7.7 percent this year.

With 265,000 U.S. and U.K. forces massed on the Iraqi border and U.S. President George W. Bush giving Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave the country or face an invasion, investors are bracing for a war that would boost oil prices, slow economic growth and delay the profit growth needed for a market rebound.

`Psychological`

That hasn`t stopped governments from using regulations to try to prop up their markets.

In January, Malaysia established a 10 billion ringgit ($2.6 billion) fund to buy government-linked stocks. The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index has fallen 7 percent from this year`s high on Jan. 21. The government said last week it would cut the cost of stock trading and ease share-sale rules to lift the market. Shares fell the day that plan was announced.

``I am a bit cynical,`` said Pieter van Putten, chief executive officer of Morley Fund Management (Singapore) Ltd., which manages $3.1 billion in Asia, excluding Japan.

``Government support programs tend to have a short-term effect on markets and are often nothing more than psychological. Then it tends to fade away very quickly.``

Philippines, Japan

In the Philippines, where stock-market trading has fallen by four-fifths and the benchmark index has lost a third of its value in the last two years, the stock exchange last week announced plans to ease rules on public share sales. Yesterday, it delayed reinstating a requirement that companies make a minimum percentage of their shares available for trading.

``There isn`t much demand out there,`` said Ernest Leung, president of the Philippine stock exchange.

To curb the impact of a war in Iraq, Japan`s government may ask stock exchanges to narrow the limit for daily share-price fluctuations, Minister for Financial Services Heizo Takenaka said yesterday.

A looming war isn`t Japan`s only motivation for propping up markets. The government is also trying to avert a crisis at the nation`s banks, which are saddled with about 52 trillion yen ($438.5 billion) in bad debt, and stem a 12-year slide in the world`s No. 2 economy.

The government will ask the central bank to double the amount of shares it plans to buy from lenders to 4 trillion yen, Hideyuki Aizawa, a senior ruling-party official, said yesterday.

March 31 Deadline

Policy makers aim to stem further share-price declines before the March 31 fiscal year-end, when lenders will be required to report their shareholdings` current market value. Slumping share prices would widen losses on the roughly 21 trillion yen banks have invested in shares, threatening to push their capital below required levels.

Japan`s Financial Services Agency also said last week it would seek to limit short-selling of shares and make it easier for companies to buy back their own shares in an effort to shore up markets.

South Korea`s Kospi has fallen about 15 percent this year for its own reasons: mounting tensions with North Korea, concern about rising credit-card defaults and the nation`s worst accounting scandal in four years. The index pared its losses yesterday, gaining 4.3 percent on optimism a war in Iraq will be short.

Tax Breaks

On top of the $1.6 billion it injected into the market last week, Korea`s government said it planned more tax breaks to attract institutional investors to the stock market. President Roh Moo Hyun also proposed measures allowing banks and insurance companies to invest more heavily in stocks.

Some investors say such measures haven`t been enough to draw them back into the region`s stock markets.

``These events are positive, but I don`t think they`re going to cause the international or domestic fund manager to suddenly say, `Oh the world is fine, let`s start buying equities,``` said Standard Life`s Malcolm.