Like many others, I am so tired of the continual excuses for taking the market lower that I'm ready to just say "go for it!" The Fed has jumped through about every hoop the hedge funds have demanded and one gets the definitive feeling that they are making the list longer on a daily basis. Now, it's not just lower interest rates, it's lower interest rates in conjunction with the whole world! So, if the U.S. drops the target rate by 1%, they will probably take the market down 400 pts because the rest of the world didn't do the same thing. And how in hell can we get them to do what these over-paid, self important managers want done? Obviously nothing. And if by some miracle we could get it done, they will have 4 new things on the list the next day.
Maybe we've reached the point of saying something along the lines of this. "We have done nearly everything possible to alleviate the current situation and now, it simply needs time to work. If the Fed continues to believe that the markets are being manipulated by hedge funds, it may be time to take a hard look into the make-up of these funds and how they operate. They can not be allowed to cause the failure of most American's retirement funds for the gain of the few and if we determine that is what is happening, new laws and regulations will be installed to end it"
I believe in an open and freely operating market but no one envisioned a whole lot of wealthy people pooling their money together to push the markets where they wanted them to go to the benefit of those limited investors. Not only doing that but doing nearly everything with no public over-sight or reporting.
Yes, I know that unwinding these fund's tentacles from the market would be costly but when it would end, we could have a stock market again rather than a roulette table with a brake peddle on the wheel.
Bob