On the night of August 5 a large German mutual fund "reallocated" out of bonds into equities. They bought an enormous amount of S&P futures through Morgan Stanley exactly when the trading was at its thinnest.
August 5 was a horrible day in the markets. Horrible news in the economy, all the indices dropped 2-3%, etc. When I went to sleep the futures were caving in and Japan was down 4%. When I woke up in the morning S&P futures were up 15 pts.
The German mutual fund story was told to me by two different sources on August 6:
a. a market maker at Morgan Stanley
b. a guy at Alger Funds who mentioned specifically that the S&P trade went through Morgan Stanley.
The market has not looked back since.
The question is: was this mutual fund following the bidding of the "Plunge Protection Team"? Were they acting independently? Is it even true? Who knows.
I do feel, by every method of measuring the market, the market was undervalued and grossly oversold in July and the first three days of August. Is it "better" now? Are we in a bull market or just a bull cycle in a bear market? Unclear. The momentum is upwards now but we know that could turn on a dime. My idea is to just buy solid companies with lots of cash, no debt, good yields, and growth, and all should be ok in the long run. Even if its a bit stressful along the way.