# For those who doubt the PPT exists



## wayneL (8 January 2008)

The semi mythical Plunge Protection Team it has been argued by some, doesn't exist.

Well it does. Its real name is the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (Google it) and it has been convened in the Oval Office (thought to be the first time it's ever been convened there) to discuss the current situation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/ma...008/01/07/ccview107.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox

Also see http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en...orking+Group+on+Financial+Markets&btnG=Search

Doubting Thomas's should read it and weep (as should us bears )


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## prawn_86 (8 January 2008)

*Re: For those who doubt the PPT exists.*

Damn i wish America could crash without affecting the rest of the world, that would be sweet justice 

The longer they fight it the worse it will get. And how dodgy is it that the head of the Fed is on the PPT, talk about creating rather than facilitating a market.

Sorry Wayne but im moving towards your camp, which i know you dont like. : But more on a greed and fear basis rather than a 'fundamental' basis, if that makes any sense


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## refined silver (8 January 2008)

Even the PPT can't fight the markets. They can't clean up the credit derivative mess, and they can't stop gold. All they do us delay, and make the ultimate moves bigger and harder.


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## nizar (8 January 2008)

*Re: For those who doubt the PPT exists.*



prawn_86 said:


> Damn i wish America could crash without affecting the rest of the world, that would be sweet justice
> 
> The longer they fight it the worse it will get. And how dodgy is it that the head of the Fed is on the PPT, talk about creating rather than facilitating a market.
> 
> Sorry Wayne but im moving towards your camp, which i know you dont like. : But more on a greed and fear basis rather than a 'fundamental' basis, if that makes any sense




LOL didnt the Fed create the PPT ??


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## wayneL (8 January 2008)

*Re: For those who doubt the PPT exists.*



nizar said:


> LOL didnt the Fed create the PPT ??




Purportedly, is was Ronald Reagan.


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## numbercruncher (9 January 2008)

Hows this for a startling little fact from that article .....




> Sovereign wealth funds stand ready to rescue banks, as they have already rescued Citigroup and UBS. *But as Moody's pointed out this week, the estimated $2,500bn in lost wealth from the US house price crash is more than the entire net worth of all the sovereign wealth funds in the world*.


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## theasxgorilla (9 January 2008)

I really enjoy Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's articles.  You get the feeling when you read them that he is one of the few that actually knows...rather than simply riding with the pack.


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## korrupt_1 (9 January 2008)

If the PPT exists, then they are probably in a bit of troubles themselves.

PPT needs cash to prop the market up... since this fallout is based around credit (cash)... where will the PPT get the funds to keep things aloft?

PPT, if it exists, will unlikely to save anyone during this corrective phase...


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## chops_a_must (10 January 2008)

> Sovereign wealth funds stand ready to rescue banks, as they have already rescued Citigroup and UBS. But as Moody's pointed out this week, the estimated $2,500bn in lost wealth from the US house price crash is more than the entire net worth of all the sovereign wealth funds in the world.




How is that even possible?


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## dhukka (10 January 2008)

PPT to the rescue?


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## wayneL (10 January 2008)

dhukka said:


> PPT to the rescue?



I'll bet GS A/C No. 95 was active today.


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## Pager (10 January 2008)

If such a thing as a plunge protection team does exist for the US stockmarkets and i doubt it then IMO its a recipe for disaster, if they start buying and the market even gets a sniff of such buying , they will think somethings up and start dumping stock.

Complete b#ll@cks, but then again this is America we are talking about  and in particular a certain Mr Bush


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## wayneL (10 January 2008)

Pager said:


> If such a thing as a plunge protection team does exist for the US stockmarkets and i doubt it



Pager,

Read the links in the OP. It is all out in the open now.


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## chops_a_must (10 January 2008)

wayneL said:


> Pager,
> 
> Read the links in the OP. It is all out in the open now.




Yeah, what has struck me as especially odd, is these successive bullet like trajectory trends to the upside. Gun barrell straight without dips. From my observations, you just don't ever get them normally on the indices (so I don't touch them with a barge pole). Yet, we seem to have had a couple of these on the US indices each day for the last week. The most striking one, right before whatever announcement tanked the market Tuesday night. Make of that what you will...


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## Timmy (10 January 2008)

Thanks for this info and links wayneL, very valuable. 

Just a few comments, for what they are worth (I wouldn’t place the bid higher than 2c).  

Central Bank intervention in currency markets is a fact of life.  Sure, the markets are left alone much of the time, lassiez-faire and all that, but from time-to-time perceptions arise within treasuries and CBs that a currency or currencies may be priced at a level far-removed from what seems “reasonable”, based on the “fundamentals”, and intervention in one form or another is the result.  There are a number of different forms of intervention, from sitting on the bid or offer, aggressively giving bids or paying offers to quickly chase price from a level, to “jawboning” (making comments or speeches designed to shift the price of the currency).

The Reserve Bank of Australia has a code for such intervention, they call it “smoothing and testing”.  When the RBA is engaged in a bit of smoothing and testing of the AUD it is wise not to stand on the other side (at least in the short-term).

So, for me, it is no great leap to accept that efforts at intervention occur in other markets.  A nice example of “jawboning” are Greenspan’s words of many years ago now about “irrational exuberance”, which caused a rapid sell-off in global markets.  A man in his position does not say such words off-the-cuff.  Now, his comments did not have a lasting impact, the markets recovered quickly to become even more irrational over the next 5 years.  This is important, too, and was explicitly referred to in that article you have linked in The Telegraph:

“Not even a Bush New Deal can hold back the post-bubble tide that is drawing in across the globe. What it can do is buy time.”

The existence, and activities, of a “plunge protection team” is NOT a reason to go out and buy with your ears pinned back, not at all.  It is there to slow any fall, to “buy time”.  If the PPT was a unit of the RBA they would describe themselves as being engaged in a bit of “smoothing and testing”.  

Question: where did the phrase “Plunge Protection Team” come from?  That name in itself is instructive.  It is not the “Decline Protection Team” – they are not trying to halt falls, just stop them turning into a plunge.

And a second question: how does one become a fly on the wall in such meetings...


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## Timmy (10 January 2008)

chops_a_must said:


> Yeah, what has struck me as especially odd, is these successive bullet like trajectory trends to the upside. Gun barrell straight without dips. From my observations, you just don't ever get them normally on the indices (so I don't touch them with a barge pole). Yet, we seem to have had a couple of these on the US indices each day for the last week. The most striking one, right before whatever announcement tanked the market Tuesday night. Make of that what you will...




One of these bullet-like surges to the upside on Tuesday was right after the release of home sales data showing a lower-than-expected result...go figure...BUT, in the context of this thread that move is very telling indeed.


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## prawn_86 (10 January 2008)

Timmy said:


> And a second question: how does one become a fly on the wall in such meetings...




I dare say you would need an Ivy League education and a hell of a lot of powerful connections. 

I suggest you start working on a legacy so the kids can become those flies


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## Pager (11 January 2008)

wayneL said:


> Pager,
> 
> Read the links in the OP. It is all out in the open now.





I can understand there may be a body/commitee who advices on this type of thing but find it hard to believe there are actually involved in buying in the US stockmarkets to try and prop it up, but as i said above anything is possible with the Bush administration 

If they are doing so, IMO they are playing a very dangerous game, that could lose the already heavily in debt US Govt $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and cause a financial crisis the likes the world has never seen.


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## dhukka (11 January 2008)

They don't need to go in buying. Just send one of the PPT members out
and promise some rate cuts is all that's needed.


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## Pager (11 January 2008)

dhukka said:


> They don't need to go in buying. Just send one of the PPT members out
> and promise some rate cuts is all that's needed.




Couldnt that be seen as insider trading


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## Uncle Festivus (11 January 2008)

Pager said:


> Couldnt that be seen as insider trading




The families that own the Fed have been inside traders since it was formed. Just watch Goldman Sachs . Who owns the Fed - Goldman, Sachs, Rockefeller ....... This is an orchestrated period of asset accumulation by the insiders, just follow the money.....


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## DB008 (11 January 2008)

Cheers Wayne,
Very good read. l hadn't heard of the PPT until now. So, $2500Bn debt coming our way. That's alot. Just put more 0's onto everything.
Guess we are in the poo-poo now. 

Should mortgage holders even bother paying any extra? Seems like, sell, rent and sit on some cash is the best thing to do in the coming months? Maybe pick up some real bargins in a few months? (If a crash like this is coming, well, were all f%$ked).
Now l'm wondering how many other secret organisations are out there?


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## dhukka (24 January 2008)

Looks like the PPT finished lunch got serious around 1pm today.


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## powerkoala (24 January 2008)

xoa said:


> Cutting rates may temporarily bailout Wall Street, but at the expense of people who were wise enough to get out.




this is PPT we are talking about.
not the effect of just rate cut. dow was down 300 point even with the rate cut. but after that, bounce 600 point to positive 298 point.


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## chops_a_must (19 November 2008)

wayneL said:


> The semi mythical Plunge Protection Team it has been argued by some, doesn't exist.
> 
> Well it does. Its real name is the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (Google it) and it has been convened in the Oval Office (thought to be the first time it's ever been convened there) to discuss the current situation.
> 
> ...




Breaking News:

Being discussed on TV now, in a very unexpected manner on CNBC.

Also Breaking News:

Chicago trader mysteriously murdered.


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