Loading ...DEFINITION of ‘Plunge Protection Team – PPT’
A colloquial name given to the Working Group on Financial Markets. The Plunge Protection Team was created to make financial and economic recommendations to various sectors of the economy in times of economic turbulence. The team consists of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Chairman of the SEC and the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
BREAKING DOWN ‘Plunge Protection Team – PPT’
“Plunge Protection Team” was the nickname given to the Working Group by The Washington Post in 1997. The team was initially perceived by some to have been created solely to shore up the markets or even manipulate them. The team was created in response to the 1987 market crash.
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The theory is that the team manipulates markets by executing trades on several exchanges when the market isn’t behaving as it would like. It is said to only work with big banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, only to report to the President, and to keep no records of trades.