well back to the topic.........
I think it was platypus that said something like "so there was some special event yesterday that I didn't know about?". I think the event was really just the drop itself. Basically I think they are just trying to smooth out the drops on the daily charts and to strike a little fear into the shorts on occasion. They know that they can't prop up the markets on a long term basis, but they definitely can and DID make things look a whole lot better on the daily charts and on the evening news. If you are a politician or if you do retail brokerage business, then appearances are very important.