How much influence do hedge funds have on the NYSE?

I meant to start this thread before the upcoming hype kicked in, but whatever.

Look, us retail investors are basically at the mercy of the big players—specifically the CIA and pension funds. I thought we could use one thread to track their moves (or lack thereof) to try and predict what’s coming next. Why? Because fund activity drives the NYSE way harder than any other factor. Sure, fundamental and technical analysis matter, and reports are fine, but we need to watch the money flow from these institutions. I'm just speculating here, not claiming to be a prophet.

For instance, why is volume so dead right now, even though prices look insanely good?

My take? The CIA is sitting on the sidelines. They're likely tied up paying out people exiting their positions because their returns have been a disaster lately. They're burning through their last bit of cash just to cover those exits, so they aren't in the mood to buy. Why risk it when they don't even know where the floor is? Anything they buy today, they might be forced to dump even lower tomorrow just to pay off departing shareholders. They're stuck waiting for a trend shift. Once things turn positive, the pressure to pay out drops, and *then* they can actually start buying. That's why the market is stagnant.

On the flip side, I bet pension funds are thinking exactly what those guys over at Vanguard just admitted. They think the market is overvalued—even though it hasn't been for a long time. These guys move much slower than the CIA, and they're totally blindsided by the current reality. After seven years of seeing gains, these pension funds are staring at losses! Panic-stricken, they fled to bonds and "safe" bets, but they're going to miss out on the massive upside that only stocks can provide to offset those losses. They won't jump back in until the market has already surged. By then, they'll be buying at the top, which is classic behavior for them.

The only ones trading lately are retail investors—either scraping together their last bit of cash or selling just to pivot into something else.

Ever wonder why the Nasdaq doesn't rally with the rest of the world, yet it crashes just as hard? It's because our market can't sustain higher prices without institutional backing and heavy volume. On the downside, you don't need high volume to tank. Bottom line: with the funds blocked, decent news from abroad isn't enough to shift the needle. You'd need incredible news to move this thing. I think we might see that starting today. It'll start slow, and I just hope the good news doesn't dry up before we get some real momentum.

Zeff noticed the growth stalling in another thread. Clearly, the funds know a rally is coming, but they don't have the liquid cash ready. They need more time to accumulate as much as possible at these current levels.

That's my two cents. What do you all think about how these funds are behaving?

I agree; we’re dealing with a completely controlled, small-scale market. In my view, prices are decent right now—not exactly the "bargains" everyone claims they are—because stock prices here aren't driven by fundamentals, but rather by whatever happens to be catching people's attention at the moment. That volatility is even more pronounced in our neck of the woods. While yesterday's rallies in the USA and Europe were notable, I expect them to trickle down here, though certainly not with the same intensity.

I also suspect the real issue is that the CIA is just waiting to scoop up cheap capital once people finally decide to stop pulling money out and start reinvesting it. Once that shift happens, the market will surge aggressively, and at certain price points, the IMF will step in, creating a massive "boom effect" on the exchange.

So, the question is: why isn't the CIA moving yet, and when will things get complicated? For instance, about a month ago, everyone was pulling cash out out of fear of further losses; meanwhile, I was actually buying more to lower my average entry cost. But today, and likely in the coming days, I think we'll see the opposite: people pulling money out of funds because they want to recoup their losses quickly, lured by headlines claiming stocks are "cheap," prompting them to jump into individual buying instead.

The most important thing to remember is that there is no such thing as a "cheap" stock. There are only profitable stocks and unprofitable ones; "cheap" doesn't exist.

That's all from me.

So, here’s my take on this, and I’m definitely no expert:
The CIA is essentially sidelined right now, just stuck waiting.
Pension funds are holding out for a positive trend before they jump in, but since the move can really only be triggered by the CIA—who are currently blocked—we're looking at a bit of a closed loop. I guess the only thing that might actually help us is some fresh capital coming in from overseas. Given how things look with projected growth and inflation, I’m worried we might be waiting a long time. Not until those pension funds decide this market isn't undervalued anymore. And when that actually happens... who knows.
It feels like they're playing by that old rule: there's always a lower price to wait for.

I suppose we should just be grateful that these funds are behaving the way they are.
Following the momentum from companies like Ine and HT, there was this massive investment stampede that drove prices up to somewhat unrealistic levels. This essentially pushed the entire market into a precarious spot; if the funds had continued to fuel that fire, we would have seen even more euphoria, leading far more people to dive headfirst into the stock market, which inevitably results in much more heartbreak than what we're seeing now.

If you take a moment to look at the trajectory of the Nasdaq from '97 until today, it becomes clear that the market didn't just spontaneously appear six months or a year ago—that's when most people jumped into stocks that had already seen 10x gains, all in the naive hope that they’d keep climbing at that same rate.
Do fundamentals play no role here? Of course they do, and they are precisely why we saw such significant growth, but the problem is that most investors only showed up once those fundamentals had already reached their peak.

Now, some investors seem to think they can practically blackmail the funds—buying up shares only to dump them back onto the funds at inflated prices, forcing them to use their own capital to buy them back again. It sounds like a perfect financial perpetual motion machine where everyone wins, provided we had someone like Marshall sucking up enough cash from the USA to patch things up every now and then.

Jacob Wood9 said:I suppose we should just be grateful that these funds are behaving the way they are.
Following the momentum from companies like Ine and HT, there was this massive investment stampede that drove prices up to somewhat unrealistic levels. This essentially pushed the entire market into a precarious spot; if the funds had continued to fuel that fire, we would have seen even more euphoria, leading far more people to dive headfirst into the stock market, which inevitably results in much more heartbreak than what we're seeing now.

If you take a moment to look at the trajectory of the Nasdaq from '97 until today, it becomes clear that the market didn't just spontaneously appear six months or a year ago—that's when most people jumped into stocks that had already seen 10x gains, all in the naive hope that they’d keep climbing at that same rate.
Do fundamentals play no role here? Of course they do, and they are precisely why we saw such significant growth, but the problem is that most investors only showed up once those fundamentals had already reached their peak.

Now, some investors seem to think they can practically blackmail the funds—buying up shares only to dump them back onto the funds at inflated prices, forcing them to use their own capital to buy them back again. It sounds like a perfect financial perpetual motion machine where everyone wins, provided we had someone like Marshall sucking up enough cash from the USA to patch things up every now and then.

excellent🤣

It’s my take that the CIA was sitting quite comfortably on a pile of Cash Register during that recent sell-off. When the retirees were putting the squeeze on them, they didn't just sell off the bare minimum to cover pension payouts; they actually seized the opportunity to stack some extra liquidity. Now, they’re just sitting on their hands, watching the market and waiting for the perfect moment to jump back in. The real headache, though, is the sheer number of fund managers out there. It’s hard to coordinate a move when everyone is acting independently. Their only real chance at leverage is if they act in unison against those four major retiree groups.

Right now, we’re looking at a classic "standby" scenario. It’s all about patience and letting the market exhaust itself—though, let's be honest, most people will find the psychological strain more draining than the actual numbers. This could drag on for a while...

We have essentially reached the endgame here. The NYSE has been hovering at this plateau for quite some time now, which tells me we’ve entered the final phase—a total war of attrition that could last ages. And honestly, who decided that the CIA or the IMF have to wrap up the year in the green? If that were a rule, we'd have a lot more millionaires walking around. I mean, if you invested in January and were already up by Christmas, life would be far too easy, wouldn't it?

This whole game is going to keep playing out. If there is any silver lining, it’s that both sides are defending the NYSE at roughly the same level, even if their underlying motives couldn't be further apart!