Check at CNNFN.com for details!

-- stockguy (stockwatcher@watching.thecrash), April 04, 2000

Answers

Or see x's thread, "Party is over," below.

-- viewer (justp@ssing.by), April 04, 2000.

Or this thread, where I've included a 5-day chart for the Nasdaq which updates automatically. Looks like a rock rolling down a fairly steep hill...

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), April 04, 2000.

as of 12:10 dow is down 486.47 and NASDAQ is down 535.15 . i would consider this a crash if the numbers stay that way.

-- boo (boo@home.com), April 04, 2000.

*yawn*

If you folk are going to wet your panties each time theres an adjustment, maybe you should stick to a deposit account and leave the markets to those who dont see the boogie man in every dark corner of the bedroom closet.

-- Plenty more money (To be made@yet.com), April 04, 2000.

--Plenty more to be LOST too, sucker!

-- GoodDay (ToBeSafeInMoney@Markets.com), April 04, 2000.

If the numbers stay like this it WILL be a crash. Yes Big money will rebound, but there will probably be some very suicidal day traders tonight.

401K's will take a big hit, but we are supposed to bein them for the long haul anyway.

When I get home tonight, I will repost a thread started by Luna C, an astrologer who used to post on the old board. If I remember correctly, she called this move within a week or two.

I will get back to you all.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 04, 2000.

Plenty -

Not sure what you're referring to. I'm watching with interest, but no worries, as I went to cash quite a while back (about the time the charts showed that the more-than-4-standard-deviations Nasdaq was exhibiting the expected instability of any such system.)

You might want to send an e-mail over to the folks at TheStreet.com and tell 'em to calm down. They're using words like "calamity" and "massacred" in their headlines. They're just a bunch of wusses, of course, scared of a lil' ol' double-digit one-day drop in a major index. You tell 'em, you big stwong hunk, you... 8-}

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), April 04, 2000.

Great time to BUY tomorrow for the DOW , or maybe late today . FEDS got all the money and are ready to spend . justin!

-- justin (justlucky@aol.com), April 04, 2000.

Wonder when the lunatics with the uzis will start hitting the streets?

Evacuate the brokerage houses!!!

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 04, 2000.

I found that link regarding astrology and the nasdaq at the old board. It provides interesting food for thought(even though my responses to LunaC appear, at this point today, to be wrong). Here is the pasted URL as I am link-impaired and apparently happy that way, since you folk have posted so many times before how to link:

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002SMt

It really is an interesting thread. Give it a look.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 04, 2000.

If I were an employee at a brokerage house right now I would demand that my employer at least provide me with a bulletproof vest.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 04, 2000.

Remember Lady Buckeye's rule: don't take any market drops seriously that happen before 2 pm EST. I'll bet that this one will be short- lived, too. It's the ones that start a major swing down after 2 pm that seem to have the lasting effects. And, no, I don't follow this seriously enough to want to provide stats. This is just one of those little rule-of-thumb comments.

I'm in it for the long haul, and if it crashes, I'll be one of the ones selling apples to Andy (and crew) as they drive by.

-- (kb8um8@yahoo.com), April 04, 2000.

okay, okay ... EDT! Sheesh! Details!

-- (kb8um8@yahoo.com), April 04, 2000.

Boogie man turns out to be just a shadow after all . .

Market Summary - 2:21:18 PM EDT - Tuesday, April 4, 2000 - Markets close in 1 hour and 38 minutes.

DJIA 11104.34 -117.59

NASDAQ 4034.34 -189.34 (and rising) S&P 500 1476.26 -29.71 30 Yr Bond 5.77 -0.05

Got some great buys in today with the market at 3650 or so. Who blinked ?

:)

-- Plenty more where (that@came.from.com), April 04, 2000.

When the Nasdaq bounced from down 13% to down 3% in a half an hour, that was the PPT. Greedspin didn't like the fact that the Nasdaq was starting to take the Dow down with it.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 04, 2000.

Plenty -

Trading collars should have kicked in when the drop hit 10%, so only buy orders were processed for the next hour. Helped immensely. Just a taste of how stocks lose value so much faster than they gain.

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), April 04, 2000.

Upon further review...

I used the wrong terms. "Collars" or "curbs" are the program trading restrictions, and they activate on a "mere" 2% uptick or downtick. It's "circuit breakers" that kick in on moves of 10%, 20%, or 30%, and those are actual trading halts.

Sidecars, Collars, Circuit Breaker

Didn't hear nuttin about a trading halt on the Nazz, so my theory doesn't appear to hold. Whatever turned the market at 1:30PM, it doesn't seem to have been the "curbs"/"circuit breakers".

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), April 04, 2000.

I think the circuit breakers are only used for the Dow. Not sure if they have something like that for Nasdaq.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 04, 2000.

http:/ /www.cnnfn.com/2000/04/04/markets/q_trading_halts/

Trading halts explained Circuit-breaker and trading-collar levels for second-quarter 2000 April 04, 2000: 2:21 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Here are the New York Stock Exchange circuit-breaker and trading collar limits for the second quarter of 2000 In the event of a 1,050 point (10%) decline in the DJIA: 7 Before 2 p.m., there will be a one-hour trading halt. 7 Between 2:00 and 2:30 p.m., there will be a 30-minute halt. 7 After 2:30 p.m., there will be no halt. In the event of a 2,100 point (20%) decline in the DJIA: 7 Before 1 p.m., there will be a two-hour halt. 7 Between 1:00 and 2 p.m., there will be a one-hour halt. 7 After 2 p.m., the market will close. In the event of a 3,150 point (30%) decline in the DJIA, regardless of the time, the market will close for the day. Trading-collar levels

In the event of a 200-point advance in the DJIA, all index-arbitrage buy orders of the S&P 500 stocks must be stabilizing for the remainder of the day. The collar will be removed if the DJIA moves back to within 100 points of the previous day's close. In the event of a 200-point decline in the DJIA, all index-arbitrage sell orders of the S&P 500 stocks must be stabilizing for the remainder of the day. The collar will be removed if the DJIA moves back to within 100 points of the previous day's close.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), April 04, 2000.

DOW , WOW up over 500 pts. in 2 hours . Thank you Uncle Alan! justin

-- justin (justlucky@aol.com), April 04, 2000.

When the Nasdaq bounced from down 13% to down 3% in a half an hour, that was the PPT. Greedspin didn't like the fact that the Nasdaq was starting to take the Dow down with it.

LOL. Ahhh, yes, the infamous "PPT," the secret organization responsible for propping up the market so many times in the past year or so. How many times has it been? 15? 20? One wonders what they're doing with all the billions of shares of stock they must have accumulated by now.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), April 04, 2000.

here's the crux though:

At their lowest, the Nasdaq had dropped 575 points, or 13.6 percent, while the Dow skidded 504, or 4.5 percent, as investors who bought shares using borrowed money were forced to sell to meet brokers' demands that they put up more cash.

Don't think they sold on the highside. A LOT of ppl lost some bux.

-- (doomerstomper@usa.net), April 04, 2000.

hmmm,

Actually it's all taxpayer money from the Treasury that is being used. The way I understand it is that Greenspan increases the liquidity of funding available to the banks and the banks and their customers buy the stocks. I don't think the government itself actually buys the stocks, but even if they did they wouldn't care. It's not their money, it's ours!

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 04, 2000.

Hawk:

So you think that, if the market looks bad, Greenspan immediately increases liquidity to the banks and then the banks call their customers and say "Hey, we've got a more liquidity, come get some"? The customers then rush over, get some of that extra liquidity, and then use it to buy stocks? This is what controls the stock market?

Any evidence that anything like this ever happens? Or, is this just your "understanding"?

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), April 04, 2000.

Hawk -

From the link I posted:

"All US exchanges, including options and futures exchanges, have adjusted their rules to correspond to the new NYSE Circuit Breakers so that the futures and stock exchanges remain coordinated."

That was a truly astonishing bounce today, but there was not anything like true capitulation. By the end of the day, the sentiment on the discussion boards I read was not "Ohmigodohmigodohmigod!", but simply, "Whew! Wild ride, huh?" Market psych is still positive. Today's mini-panic was just a small taste of how fast the market moves down. Given the speed of the bounce, we may not even have shaken out most of the margin players, so the game may continue in earnest...

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), April 04, 2000.

As usual, hmmm and Cooke are FOS.

The PPT is real, is orchestrated by Greenspan and the Treasury Dept., and was documented in the Time article on the LTCM collapse in 1987.

Do your homework kids, or its off to bed with no supper...

-- (@ .), April 04, 2000.

ah, 1997.

-- (@ .), April 04, 2000.

CNBC is calling today the TRILLION DOLLAR turnaround!

-- justin (justlucky@aol.com), April 04, 2000.

Gaaawd Jim are you dumb!!! Do I have to explain everything to you?? Do some research, learn something, don't just sit around like a dufus and make stupid remarks!

Here is an article about how the PPT was established because they didn't want another crash like 1987 to happen again. Now do your homework you silly boy!

PPT established after 1987 crash

Dee, thanks for that info. If the circuit breakers apply to both markets then how come they didn't use them today for the Nasdaq?

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 04, 2000.

The PPT is real, is orchestrated by Greenspan and the Treasury Dept., and was documented in the Time article on the LTCM collapse in 1987.

LOL. Do you mean this article? Well, let's see what it says, shall we??

The article refers to the the economic upheaval in Asia and the 554 point drop in the Dow which occurred in November 1997. Here's what it says about the "PPT:"

The body, known as the President's Working Group on Financial Markets--for heaven's sake, don't call it a crash team--is charged with coordinating the U.S. government's response to economic upheavals. It was formed in the aftermath of the 1987 crash. Chaired by Rubin, it includes Greenspan, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt, Commodities Futures Trading Commission chairman Brooksley Born, Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council (NEC), and other officials.

Now, what would the US government's "response" be? Well, according to the article, one possible response is as follows:

The afternoon brought no rally; in fact, the circuit breakers may have heightened the carnage. But Rubin's team didn't entertain talk, as there had been in 1987, of flooding the markets with liquidity by lowering interest rates.

Hey, look! There's that phrase of Hawk's, "flooding the markets with liquidity." But wait, how would they flood the markets with liquidity?? What does it say there??

Why, by lowering interest rates of course! How devious!! The Fed chairman lowering interest rates!! Who would have heard of such a thing!

So is that what the "PPT" has been doing behind our backs? Propping up the stock market by secretly lowering interest rates? Gosh, the rates must be at about 2% by now! LOL

Oh, and let's see what the masterful "PPT" did on that fateful day in November 1997 to bring us back from the brink of chaos:

Doing nothing was an option; saying nothing was not. Sitting with his advisers, his tie loosened and his shirt collar unbuttoned, Rubin began to worry aloud about what he would say. The message had to hold up, he said, even if the market continued to head south. Fearful that Wall Street might think he was trying to jawbone investors into buying, Rubin and his staff spent a full hour parsing just a few words. The message was designed not so much to buck up financial professionals--they were on their own--as to reassure the 50 million Americans with money in stocks. Said Sperling: "The prudent thing to do was to make clear our confidence in the economy." Rubin delivered that message on the Treasury's steps, standing beneath a statue of the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. He uttered six painstakingly constructed sentences, the last of which was the most important: "Remember that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are strong."

Well, look at that . The PPT got together and decided that the best thing to do was to write a speech. That's almost as devious as lowering interest rates! Does the power of the PPT have no limits??? LOL.

Turns out, Greenspan's speech did help to calm things down. But nowhere does the article mention any behind-the-scenes manipulation of the markets.

Do your homework kids, or its off to bed with no supper...

Mmm, my supper was tasty. LOL.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), April 04, 2000.

hmmm,

No you haven't even started eating your supper. You've been hiding your spinach and peas underneath the table like a bad little boy. Start eating some of this, fully digest it, and then come back and we'll see if you still think like a naive little kid...

link 1

link 2

No cheating now, eat the WHOLE thing! :-)

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 04, 2000.

Thanks for the links there, Hawk. That first one sure is big. Luckily, though, it has an Executive Summary. And fortunately, my browser has a Find function. As it happens, neither article mentions anything about the government's team propping up the stock market. Perhaps I'm just missing the relevant portion, but since you've obviously read the articles, you shouldn't have any trouble quoting the parts that back up your argument, much as I have done in my previous post.

Or were you perhaps hoping that I would really waste my time on a 483K article that doesn't even begin to back up what you're saying? LOL.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), April 04, 2000.

Hawk,

I'm with you on the issue of the Plunge Protection Team. One sees their semi-transparent hand in almost all the recent turnarounds. It's rumored that the FED has been active in buying S&P 500 futures whenever the market starts to tank. Today's turnaround was little short of miraculous, especially since the P/E of the NASDAQ is something over 265. I'd say that the pros are selling and the stooges keep buying.

-- Stockman (stocks@ppt.fed), April 05, 2000.

hmmmmm,

Find function? Shame, shame, gonna have to send you to bed without dinner, and tomorrow you need to get up and eat all that cold spinach you left on your plate.

It isn't quite as simple as Greenspan and the SEC announcing on television to the world that they are manipulating financial markets. They've got their greedy little hands working furiously behind the scenes, but they explain it in a way that makes it seem completely justifiable, and in fact as if they are saving us from ourselves. Would be far too simple to allow the economy to operate on it's own principles, they have to control it, to "protect" us from financial ruin of course. Finish your homework boy, you've still got a lot more left to learn. :-)

Stockman,

I think you're absolutely right. What we saw today was a lot of the pros selling, including some of the executives who have inside information about the lousy earnings reports they are about to dump on investors. It looked to me like Greenspan gave the go ahead to pump the Nasdaq just shortly after it started to take the Dow down with it. He doesn't care about the Nasdaq but he wants to protect the Fortune 500 and the almighty industrials.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), April 05, 2000.

Hawk:

It appears that Hmmm has done a pretty good job of analyzing your information. Now that I've had my supper and am still up, I'd still like to know exactly how the PPT pulled this one out of the barrel. Interest rates are still where they were yesterday, M1, M2, and M3 don't show any unusual rise, and I see no indication of anyone in the government buying stocks to prop up the market. So, since you apparently know how this is being done, give us the details.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), April 05, 2000.

Uh, guys? Apparently, it wasn't gummint types today. It was funds protecting themselves - The Street.com: More About Margin

...We dodge a big bullet in this decline because mutual funds bent on stopping redemptions came in and bought their favorites.

That prop-up, the so-called hidden hand of buying -- is no stranger to those of us who short stocks. But there is a difference this time. The people who got crushed today weren't members of the mutual-fund club. They were risk-takers who thought that the dip would allow them to hang on. The completion of their close-outs allowed the mutual funds to create a short-term bottom.

Nevertheless, until this margin debt goes back to normal levels -- UNTIL WE SEE AN ACTUAL DECLINE IN ITS USAGE -- we are going to see many selloffs like we saw today...

Makes a lot of sense. The big funds can't allow massive drops like this, at least not until they can unwind their own positions, so they'll jump in and risk some serious coin on a very bad day, in order to try to stabilize the market and avoid much bigger losses in the form of investor redemptions. The game continues...

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), April 05, 2000.

"Nasdaq, Dow Claw Back Up - Nasdaq, Dow Recover from 500-Point Losses"

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/stockmkt000404.html

At one point today, the Nasdaq had relinquished all gains made this year. With late buying, the index is now up about 17 points since January. With recent gains, the Dow is down 193 points on the year. (ABCNEWS.com)

-- (Market@new.s), April 05, 2000.

Interesting day yesterday.

In my opinion, a manipulated market is a dangerous thing.

Trading curbs and circuit breakers are a form of market manipulation. The do not allow the full cycle of greed and fear to express itself. These artificial barriers to market blowoffs actually keep the market propped up at artificial levels.

The fact that the Mutual Funds jumped in to buy stock yesterday when the market was in freefall reflects market manipulation.

As far as the PPT goes. It is a well known and very well documented fact that both Japan and Hong Kong as countries bought into their markets in 1998 to provide support and stability. Whether this was a good move or not, I have no idea. But it cannot be called a free market with government entities controlling the outcomes. My suspicion is that some form of government intervention also exists in the USA behind the scenes.

Imagine going to a Casino where the house jumped in every time to prevent a disasterous night at the tables or the slot machines. After a while, all of the gamblers wouldn't view their activities as gambling anymore. If the gamblers could make 30 to 50 percent return per year simply by bringing their money to the casino, who wouldn't do it?

The large mutual funds referred to in The Street.com article have to be considered a part of the PPT. The bankers (investment houses) were called upon by the government during the meltdown at the end of 1929 to do the same thing. It was printed in every paper that the bankers were coming to the rescue. After a period of hemmorhaging money, the bankers finally had had enough and threw in the towel. This is why the lowpoint on the Dow didn't come until the early 1930's. Artificial support by the bankers extended the selloff from days to a period of years.

Fear has taken a backseat to greed in the current market. The average investor has been told to invest for the long term (a good idea), buy on the dips (not always a good idea. And the behavior of the market since 1987 has reinforced the notion that the government will step in and prevent a disaster in the markets. Greed has ruled since that time with fear raising its ugly head only a few times.

To summarize, artificial barriers to free market movement will tend to prop up the market. This is due to inflated investor expectations and a feeling of safety that develops when the market always comes back and goes to a higher level following a fall. Investing is gambling. Many investors choose to ignore this. How can it be gambling if they always win? Good question? All markets eventually correct or crash. Who knows when this one will. But when it does, a lot of investors will be surprised that the investing activities they participated in were actually gambling.

OK pollies. Rip into me.

-- greg holmberg (drgah@earthlink.com), April 05, 2000.

It isn't quite as simple as Greenspan and the SEC announcing on television to the world that they are manipulating financial markets. They've got their greedy little hands working furiously behind the scenes, but they explain it in a way that makes it seem completely justifiable, and in fact as if they are saving us from ourselves.

That's great. So what exactly are they doing behind the scenes then?

It's rumored that the FED has been active in buying S&P 500 futures whenever the market starts to tank.

Which comes back to my original premise that the FED must have billions of shares of S&P 500 futures by now. What are they doing with all of them?

The fact that the Mutual Funds jumped in to buy stock yesterday when the market was in freefall reflects market manipulation.

That's funny, I always thought that it reflects the timeless strategy of "buy low, sell high".

The large mutual funds referred to in The Street.com article have to be considered a part of the PPT.

Why? Because they bought when the market was falling? Looks like there are lots of people who are part of the PPT and don't even know it. LOL.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), April 05, 2000.

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/daily/feb/26/plunge.htm

Plunge Protection Team

By Brett D. Fromson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, February 23, 1997; Page H01

-- (P@P.T), April 05, 2000.

Aparently I'm a member of some "PPT" thing or other.

News to me.

Do I get a T-Shirt ?

=)

-- Plenty of T-Shirts (in@XL.please), April 05, 2000.

And with five minutes to go in today's action, the Nasdaq has dropped just over 3% in about 30 minutes. Looks like a mess of folks looked at that nice little rise in the afternoon session and said, "OK, I'm out for now." Take the chips and maybe go see Siegfried and Roy or something...

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), April 05, 2000.