The notion that the Federal Reserve has been acting to manipulate stock markets has been active for decades, but rarely has that notion been openly discussed in the mainstream media. In this article by Howard Gold the Fed is praised for its “market timing” as Fed official quickly responded to recent volatility in the stock market with promises of more quantitative easing if necessary.
Investors got the message. The S&P 500 Index advanced for three straight days and the VIX fell under 20 again.
Bullard was only the latest Fed official whose words or actions “just happened” to boost the stock market when it was down.
“They are definitely in the market-manipulation business, and nothing has changed,” said James Bianco, president of Bianco Research LLC in Chicago and a longtime student, and critic, of the Fed.
Called the “Greenspan/Bernanke put,” the Fed’s willingness to jump in when stocks fall dates back a quarter-century.
“The put option is back. If the market sells off enough, they will give us QE4,” Bianco told me.
Conspiracy theorists have pinned it on a government “Plunge Protection Team” that wants to keep stocks from crashing at all costs.
But conspiracy or no, consider these actions:
Aug. 31, 2012: In his annual speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke all but announced the third round of QE, extraordinary bond buying of $85 billion a month. The S&P 500, which had languished after a nearly 10% decline, rallied from 1,399 points and hasn’t corrected substantially until now.
Sept. 22, 2011: Following a 19.4% stock sell-off amid a debt crisis in Europe and the U.S., the Fed launched Operation Twist, in which it sold short-term and bought long-term securities to push down long rates. After first slipping, the S&P 500 resumed a multiyear take-off that, with a little help from the Fed, ultimately drove it 80% higher.
