Plunge Protection Team - Urban Legend?
Some may be wondering if they even exist. Well, they do. The Plunge Protection Team is officially known as the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets – was created after the 1987 crash. It appears to have powers to support the markets in a crisis with a host of instruments, mostly through buying futures contracts on the stock indexes (Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell) and key credit levers. And it has the means to fry “short” traders in the hottest of oils. The team is led by Treasury chief Hank Paulson, ex-Goldman Sachs, a man with a nose for market psychology, and includes Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and the key exchange regulators. PPT was created by Ronald Reagan to prevent a repeat of the Wall Street meltdown of October 1987. Its members include the Secretary of the Treasury, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the chairman of the SEC and the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Modus Operandi Of PPT According to John Crudele of the New York Post, the ...