Market manipulation at it’s finest.
Today we had one of the all time classic tricks. Late morning, Jon Hilsenrath who writes for the Wall Street Journal came out with an article entitled “How the Federal Reserve Could Tweak ‘Considerable Time'”
Basically he is the mouth piece for the Fed. They use Jon as a conduit to the markets to float ideas and test market what they may release after their meeting.
Today he was discussing how they may or may not take the phrase “considerable time” out of their policy statement. This refers directly to the amount of time we have before interest rates begin to rise.
All in all it’s a sham.
The Fed is concerned about spooking the markets, therefore they want to see how the “players” respond to the pending news, so they release it early through Mr. Hilsenrath.
They started doing this under the previous Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, and obviously have decided to continue the practice.
This is what our Federal Reserve has come to. They tell congress that their mandate is monetary policy and full employment. Yet, just about every move they make is in direct response to markets.
Talk about the tail wagging the dog.
So what we had today was a one two punch of options expiration week game playing by the large institutions and the Federal Reserve of the United States of America deliberately leaking information ahead of their secret meeting. Nice.
Nothing today changes the near term picture. Expect more games following the Fed announcement.
Watch the video below to get much more detail about the markets and what to expect.