Sunday, February 21, 2010

Is the Fed Manipulating Markets?

This past Thursday, after the close of trading in New York, the Fed announced a surprise intermeeting discount rate hike. Gold immediately moved down, the dollar moved up, and global stock futures took a 1% dive. Subsequently, Japan went down 2% or so, New York opened down and to no one's great surprise, it and gold reversed to the upside. Great volatility, times to coincide with options expiration.

Then tonight, to new special news, Japan has fully reversed Friday's plunge, and is up 3%.

Intentional or not, people are smelling a bad odor from the Fed. It looks like almost overt market manipulation.

The Fed needs to be as pure as the driven snow. It used to make announcements during trading hours. Now it has whipsawed traders and investors with suspicious timing.

Poorly done.

Copyright (C) Long Lake LLC 2010

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