So what? You point to an executive order, yet you have no idea what that order truly does or its efficacy, because no one does - unless you have worked high up in the Fed, Treasury, SEC, or CFTC.
"In our chatroom on Wednesday a participant asked us whether we thought there was a so-called secret Plunge Protection Team, and, if so, whether it was active that day. We answered that we had seen an article describing the existence of a Federal group set up to take emergency measures in case of a stock market meltdown, but didnât remember where the article appeared. We did a little more research and hereâs what we found. The article we referred to was âPlunge Protection Teamâ, which appeared in the Washington Post on February 23, 1997 under the byline of Brett D. Fromson. From this article and other sources, here is what we know as fact. Following the October 1987 market crash, the Federal Government became concerned about the potential disastrous effects of another market unraveling and began to seek ways of averting a financial collapse resulting from a stock market meltdown. As a result President Reagan issued Executive Order 12631, dated March 18, 1988, establishing a Working Group on Financial Markets (Working Group). The group was to consist of the Secretary of the Treasury and the chairmen of the Federal Reserve Board, the Securities & Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The purpose of the group was to prepare options to deal with a serious stock market collapse that could seriously impact major financial institutions and the economy. Since that time the group has met regularly, and each agency has prepared a plan to deal with a potential crisis. Significantly, the Executive Order specifically stated that the group should consult with ârepresentatives of the various exchanges, clearinghouses, self-regulatory bodies, and with major market participants to determine private sector solutions wherever possible." We also know that Chairman Greenspan has previously stated that the financial authorities would intervene under certain circumstances to prevent a meltdown. In a speech given on January 14, 1997, he said, âWe have the responsibility to prevent major financial market disruptions through development and enforcement of prudent regulatory standards and, if necessary, in rare circumstances, through direct intervention in market events.â The above is what we know; the rest is conjecture. A number of market observers, aware of some violent upside market moves coming out of nowhere, believe that either the Fed or some major private firms have intervened on numerous occasions to prevent the market from falling. This would be easy enough to do at reasonable cost through timely purchases of index futures. However, we have no specific knowledge of these interventions, and Comstock is generally dubious of conspiracy theories. We tend to think that the market has not gone down more than it has to date because the long secular upturn from 1982 to 2000 and the boom of 1995 to 2000 convinced investors that the market always comes back. In our view artificial interventions can slow the rate of decline, but cannot, in the end, prevent the market from going where it wants to go. <b>None of the major institutions in Japan were able to stop the collapse of the Japanese market after 1989, and we all know how hard they tried. The great trader, Jesse Livermore, an expert market manipulator himself, once said that no amount of manipulation can stop the overwhelming force of a major trend.</b> In our view that trend remains down."
