Back in 2010, when few still dared to question [7]that the entire move in the market is predicated on the Fed's daily POMO (then still on QE2), we laid out, [7]in a way so easy even a caveman [8]could grasp it, how every tiny move in the stock market is nothing but a function of the Fed's daily POMO on those days in which Bernanke would be directly injecting liquidity into the capital markets using his Primary Dealer frontmen. Since then nearly three years have passed, and thousands of POMO days. All of which brings us to this quarter's Treasury refunding presentation [9], and specifically the section "Effects of policy and market structure" from the Presentation to the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, in which we learn that we had in fact been right all along, and that perhaps for the first time ever, the Treasury admitted that not only "no one dares fight the Fed" but that, as expected, it is "all POMO."
There, hidden on page 26, or slide 76 of 100, where the Treasury discusses "The Impact Of Monetary Policy", the biggest "conspiracy theory" of all becomes merely the latest conspiracy fact. First, for corporate bonds...
[10]
But just as importantly, for stocks.
[11]
But most importantly, and tying it all together, POMO. Only this time, finally, the US Treasury finally admits it.
[12]
So, thanks to the US Treasury, we know that between January 2009 and April 2013, on days in which the Fed POMO was more than $5 billion, the stock market rose a total of 570 points, on days in which the POMO was less than $5 billion, the cumulative stock market gain was "only" 141 points, and when there was no POMO, the S&P gained... -51 points.
And like that, another conspiracy theory bites the dust. Are any left? Oh yes, Gold isn't manipulated because alleging "gold manipulation" is unfit for polite, dignified society and is best left to the realms of the conspiracy theorists.
Source: US Treasury [9] [9]