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Who or what is keeping stock prices up even as there is continuous economic and political turmoil around the world?

Could it be Switzerland?

Stock prices fell sharply last Wednesday when the latest “scandal” — and I don’t even remember what it was — struck the Trump administration. I mentioned in a column on Thursday my Top 10 reasons US investors should be wary of ever-rising stock prices.

One of the 10 things was the manipulation of equities markets by countries like China and Japan, which proudly admit to doing so.

And then there’s the mysterious case of Switzerland, which has an enormous portfolio of US stocks — and no obvious reason that it keeps buying.

According to its last filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Swiss National Bank owned more than $63 billion worth of stock — most of it in US companies.

In fact, that amount was $1 billion higher than it was in the previous quarterly filing with the SEC.

Since large shareholders are only required to make quarterly reports to the SEC, there’s no telling how active the Swiss National Bank is on a given day or whether it jumps in to support weak markets.

The latest filing included more than 15 million shares of Apple, 13 million Intel, 25 million General Electric, 6.6 million Facebook, 10 million Ford, 13 million Intel and on and on and…

In fact, a printed list of all the stocks is 66 pages long.

No matter what the motive is for the purchase of all that stock, the end result is the same — it’s helping to prop up stock prices.

And, I admit, the reason for the Swiss appetite for stocks could be nothing more than investment purposes. Like everyone else, the Swiss National Bank could be buying simply because the returns elsewhere — like in the bond market — are so abysmal.

But is it possible that the Swiss are acting as an agent of US financial authorities who fear that a big decline in stock prices would be against America’s national interest?

OK, I hear people shouting “conspiracy theory” already. So let’s get a little deeper into history.

Central banks around the world have always come to one another’s rescue in currency markets. If America, for instance, wanted the US dollar to be stronger than it is, a foreign central bank like Switzerland’s would purchase dollars on behalf of the US.

Mission accomplished. And nobody is the wiser that the US was behind the propping up of the dollar.

Here’s another fact. A guy named Robert Heller, who had been a governor on the Federal Reserve Board, proposed in 1989 that the Fed rig the US stock market in the event of an emergency.

Heller said this should be done only in dire situations, like the stock market crash of 1987 and the near crash just a month before he proposed this. Heller argued that rigging stocks — through the purchase by the Federal Reserve of stock index futures contracts — would be no harder than manipulating the currency markets.

Why is this one of the things investors should worry about? Because there’s no telling why the Swiss National Bank is buying all that stock and when it will stop. As so with other investors, if interest rates rise high enough, the Swiss may decide that stocks aren’t worth the risk.

So, all I have to say is: Go, Switzerland! You buy our stocks , and we’ll eat your chocolate.

It seems like a fair deal.

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