A lot of the stuff you mentioned is irrelevant, no one knows what is going on behind the scene except for the parties involved, it all here say and speculation, anyhow none of that matters because when you invest in the stock market you would have factor in all sort of risk in your calculation market risk, system risk, management risk etc..
risk management is your best strategy in the market because you can counter any curve ball throw your way, without that you investing with handicap
and retail investors has a lot of advantages compared to fund managers, nimble, size and no rules is your unfair advantage and you can beat the lot of them if you have proper risk management system and use those unfair advantage to the max
and if you can't be bothered with all that and want exposure to the market then stick with index tracking ETFs, this guaranteed you get market return regardless of what is happening in the world or who running what companies or manage what money.
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