Did the Fed Buy the Market to Stop the Collapse?

25-Aug-2011

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An eternal optimist, Liu-Yue built two social enterprises to help make the world a better place. Liu-Yue co-founded Oxstones Investment Club a searchable content platform and business tools for knowledge sharing and financial education. Oxstones.com also provides investors with direct access to U.S. commercial real estate opportunities and other alternative investments. In addition, Liu-Yue also co-founded Cute Brands a cause-oriented character brand management and brand licensing company that creates social awareness on global issues and societal challenges through character creations. Prior to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Liu-Yue worked as an Executive Associate at M&T Bank in the Structured Real Estate Finance Group where he worked with senior management on multiple bank-wide risk management projects. He also had a dual role as a commercial banker advising UHNWIs and family offices on investments, credit, and banking needs while focused on residential CRE, infrastructure development, and affordable housing projects. Prior to M&T, he held a number of positions in Latin American equities and bonds investment groups at SBC Warburg Dillon Read (Swiss Bank), OFFITBANK (the wealth management division of Wachovia Bank), and in small cap equities at Steinberg Priest Capital Management (family office). Liu-Yue has an MBA specializing in investment management and strategy from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Marketing from Stern School of Business at NYU. He also completed graduate studies in international management at the University of Oxford, Trinity College.







By Phoenix Capital Research, Zero Hedge,

 

Now that the market has rolled over and erased most of the gains from last week, I can’t help but wonder just why the market rallied at all. True, it was oversold… but the FOMC announcement wasn’t exactly bullish (Seriously… ZIRP for another year was reason for an 8% rally in four days?).

 

I found it interesting that the New York Post published a story containing the following quote just 3 hours before the post-FOMC market ramp job started.

 

Back in October 1989, a guy named Robert Heller, who had just quit his post as a Fed governor, suggested that the government should purchase stock index futures contracts to calm the markets in times of distress.

 

“The Fed could support the stock market directly by buying market averages in the futures market, thus stabilizing the market as a whole,” Heller wrote in an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal after saying the same thing in a little-noticed speech. “The stock market is certainly not too big for the Fed to handle.”…

 

This is a rather odd turn of events… a former Fed official urges the Fed to step in and buy the stock market… just three hours before the markets mysteriously reverses and rallies hard on no real news of note.

 

This begs the question… did the Fed buy the market to put a floor under the collapse? There’s no telling for sure. But it’s rather odd that this article came out just three hours before the market magically reversed and exploded higher

 

If the Fed did actively buy the stock market to try and put a floor under it, we can assume three things:

 

1)   The Fed is becoming truly desperate

2)   The Fed realizes QE isn’t helping

3)   QE 3, if it arrives, will be coming later down the line

 

If the Fed did in fact buy the market two weeks ago, then the Fed is getting extremely desperate. We know the Fed has been supplying juice to key Wall Steet firms who then bought the market, but never before has it been so obvious that the Fed itself may have been buying the market.

 

Remember since March 2009, QE has been the primary tool the Fed used to deal with the Financial Crisis. QE 1 was something of a success in that in restored investor confidence in the system. However, as I’ve noted in previous articles, by the time we got to QE 2, the negative consequences of QE (inflation) far outweighed the positive consequences (stocks rising).

 

So the fact the Fed did not announce QE 3 two weeks ago but chose to buy the market (at least it looks that way), indicates then we’re are DEFCON 1 RED ALERT for the entire financial system as it indicates that the Fed is abandoning its more traditional monetary tools and simply trying to buy the market it means the Fed is losing control of the system in a big way.

 

It also indicates that the Fed realizes that the benefits of QE come at too high of a cost for it to engage in more of this for now. Instead, the Fed will save QE 3 for a little further down the road as a final Hail Mary pass.

 

Which brings me to the most important point from yesterday’s Fed FOMC: there were three dissenting votes (an 18 year high). This tells us that Bernanke’s “inflate or bust” mentality is coming up against serious friction at the Fed. And it also tells us that there will be fierce resistance to QE 3 if the Fed chooses to unveil it down the road.

 

The take home point here is that the Fed is not as market friendly as before. There is growing dissent amongst Fed officials. And we’re beginning to see signs of desperation.

 

In plain terms, the situation in the markets right now is very VERY dangerous. It is easily the most dangerous market I’ve ever seen. We are going to see greater losses and sharp rallies. But the overall trend is now down.

 

I warned to get defensive several weeks ago. That warning is even more important now. Many people will lose everything in this mess. Yes, everything. However, you don’t have to be one of them. Indeed, my Surviving a Crisis Four Times Worse Than 2008 report can show you how to turn the unfolding disaster into a time of gains and profits for any investor.

 

Within its nine pages I explain precisely how the Second Round of the Crisis will unfold, where it will hit hardest, and the best means of profiting from it (the very investments my clients used to make triple digit returns in 2008).

 

Best of all, this report is 100% FREE. To pick up your copy today simply go to: http://www.gainspainscapital.com and click on the OUR FREE REPORTS tab.

 

Good Investing!

 

Graham Summers


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