MANIPULATION, NOT ERROR, BEHIND MARKET PLUNGE
By Cliff Kincaid
May 8, 2010
NewsWithViews.com
The major media say the chaos on Wall Street was the result of a “trader error, possibly a typo,” as the Washington Post put it. Some reports claim the culprit was a “fat finger” on a computer somewhere that pressed the wrong key. But Zubi Diamond, author of the Wizards of Wall Street, says these claims are all lies. “What happened in the market on Thursday is a typical example of pure market manipulation” by unregulated hedge fund short sellers.
His book, whose subtitle refers to the scam that elected Barack Obama, warns that the same hedge fund short sellers were behind the financial crash of 2008 that paved the way for Obama’s election to the presidency.
Diamond
says the historic market plunge on Thursday was “due to computerized
hedge fund short selling because there is no protection for the invested
capital in the equity markets. There is no uptick rule, no circuit breakers
and no trading curbs. Our market is primed for manipulation.”
Diamond is referring to financial regulations, which have been repealed,
designed to prevent market manipulation.
Diamond
has been adamant in his view that the financial reform bill being pushed
by Obama and liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill will do nothing to solve
this problem and regulate the hedge fund short sellers.
“No one will come on TV to tell the truth,” he complained.
Instead, he says representatives and apologists for the hedge fund short
sellers, who operate as the Managed Funds Association (MFA), “go
on TV and provide false explanation of what happened.”
Diamond says these false explanations include claims of trader error and
computerized glitches.
An example of Horatio Alger’s legendary rise from rags to riches,
Diamond came from Africa to the U.S. and became a successful businessman,
stock market investor and trader. He has about 15 years of financial market
experience and more than 23 years experience as an entrepreneur.
Diamond says that the repeal of the safeguard regulations, such as the
uptick rule, circuit breakers and trading curbs, and the introduction
of the short ETFs (Exchange traded funds), which began under Christopher
Cox at the Securities and Exchange Commission, has given the members of
the MFA tremendous power and influence. He says these individuals include
George Soros, John Paulson, Jim Chanos, James Simon, and other hedge fund
short sellers, including those who operate Quant Funds and engage in computerized
trading.
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“They
have the ability to manipulate U.S. and some international markets,”
he says. Indeed, Diamond maintains that the MFA has basically taken control
of the U.S. stock market.
My March 4, column, “Who’s
Behind the Financial Crisis?,” quoted Diamond as then warning
that any asset class that is traded in the NYSE, CME, or EUREX exchanges
“is susceptible to manipulation by the members of Managed Funds
Association and their strategic partners.”
In a previous column for AIM, commenting on the so-called financial reform
bill now before Congress, he explained, “The only financial reform
needed today is to regulate and monitor the hedge funds and the hedge
fund short sellers, some of them which are registered off-shore to avoid
scrutiny. These global operators, with investors who remain mostly anonymous,
must be compelled to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), publicly disclose their positions in the markets, and maintain
accounting and trading records for a period of 10 years so their activities
can be monitored and scrutinized. Just like mutual funds, they must be
prohibited from engaging in day trading activities.”
“What happened on Thursday happens to a select group of individual
stocks on a daily basis as the hedge fund short sellers prey on common
investors,” he asserted. “They are now expanding the manipulation
to include the whole market. They can now crash the market, panic shareholders
out of their stocks, buy to cover their short positions for hefty shorting
profits, and then buy back in at the bottom to open long positions and
then recover the whole market (indexes) to normal levels.”
These market manipulators, he notes, have the ability to drive prices
down and then drive them back up, all within a 15 minute period. “How’s
that for no-risk investing?” he says. “They make money through
stock price volatility and market volatility. They manipulate stock prices
through unrestricted short selling.”
Diamond said that one stock, Accenture, with the ticker symbol ACN, dropped from $44 dollars to .01 cent per share within 15 minutes, and recovered back to $41.00 dollars. Apple computer ticker symbol AAPL dropped 60 points in 15 minutes. It went from $258 down to $199 and then recovered to $248. All of this happened within a 15-minute period.
All of this is possible, he says, because there is no uptick rule, no circuit breaker and no trading curbs. All of these regulations were repealed, meaning that the risk and fear of investing have been transferred solely to the common investors “as the hedge fund short sellers operate with impunity looting the invested capital of American families,” he explains.
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“What
happened on Thursday will happen again,” he adds. “They are
getting bolder every day. The hedge fund short sellers, who are members
of Managed Funds Association, and their strategic partners at the different
stock exchanges, are responsible for the scam that was perpetrated on
Thursday.”
“The market plunged and recovered,” he says. “The carnage
and destruction of investor’s capital was therefore concealed.”
“This is the evil of hedge fund short selling in an unregulated
market,” he says.
© 2010 Cliff Kincaid - All Rights Reserved
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Cliff Kincaid, a veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff concentrated in journalism and communications at the University of Toledo, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Cliff has written or co-authored nine books on media and cultural affairs and foreign policy issues. One of Cliff's books, "Global Bondage: The UN Plan to Rule the World" is still awailable.
Cliff has appeared on Hannity & Colmes, The O’Reilly Factor, Crossfire and has been published in the Washington Post, Washington Times, Chronicles, Human Events and Insight.
Web Site: www.AIM.org
E-Mail: cliff.kincaid@aim.org
