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Recent Posts
- After JPMorgan Threatens to Sue, the Fed Cuts Its Capital Requirement on the 5-Count Felon from a Planned 25 Percent Hike to Less than 8 Percent
- Three Megabanks Had Loans Outstanding of $1.832 Trillion to Giant Hedge Funds on March 31
- Jamie Dimon’s Washington Post OpEd Gets Pummeled at Yahoo Finance
- In the Span of 72 Hours, Four People Tied to a Hewlett-Packard Criminal Case Died in Two Separate Events
- Crypto Took Down Another Federally-Insured Bank and Just Handed Its CEO a 24-Year Prison Sentence
- All the Devils from 2008 Are Back at the Megabanks: Leverage, Off-Balance-Sheet Debt, Over $192 Trillion in Derivatives, Shaky Capital Levels
- New Study Says the Fed Is Captured by Congress and White House — Not the Megabanks that Own the Fed Banks and Get Trillions in Bailouts
- Data from the Fed’s Emergency Funding Program Shows Spring 2023 Banking Crisis Was Far Deeper than Americans Were Told
- These FDIC-Insured Banks Have Lost 69 to 40 Percent of their Market Value Year-to-Date
- Exposure at Hedge Funds Has Skyrocketed to Over $28 Trillion; Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Are at Risk
- We Charted the Plunge and Rebound in the Nikkei Versus Nomura and Citigroup; the Correlation Is Frightening
- Former U.S. Labor Secretary Says Billionaires Have No Right to Exist Because their Wealth Comes from Five Illegal or Bad Practices
- Citigroup Is Having a Helluva Summer: A Protest on Thursday Will Turn Up the Heat
- Nikkei Has Biggest Drop in History: Here’s What’s Causing the Global Market Selloff
- JPMorgan Is Tapping Illiquid Assets in its Global Collateral Program; the New York Fed Is Paying for Its Services
- Bank Regulators Issue Warnings on Fintech and Banking as Disasters Pile Up
- Donald Trump Gives a Speech on Not Letting China Win the Crypto Race – Not Realizing China Banned Crypto Mining and Transactions Four Years Ago
- The New York Fed Has Contracted Out Key Functions to JPMorgan Chase; We Filed a FOIA and Got These Strange Invoices
- On the Eve of Netanyahu’s Address to Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders Delivers a Breathtaking Assessment of His War Crimes
- Trump’s Sit-Down with Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago Will Cost U.S. Taxpayers Millions While Profiting Trump’s Business
- Protecting Trump and His Jet-Setting Adult Children During His Presidency Cost Taxpayers Over $1 Billion
- A Congressman and a Doctor Reported a Woman Being Shot at Trump Rally: She’s Vanished from Official Reports
- Jamie Dimon Goes Missing from Earnings Call, After Dumping $183 Million of His JPMorgan Chase Stock Earlier this Year
- U.S. Senate Candidate Backed by Hedge Fund Billionaires Was Sitting in Front Row at Trump Rally as the Sniper Fired into the Bleachers
- Project 2025: The Fossil Fuel and Banking Money Behind the Madness
- The Fund Created to Unwind a Failing Megabank Has a Problem: There’s No Money in It
- Joe Biden Versus the New York Times
- Grand Jury Transcript in Jeffrey Epstein Case Is Released, Raising Questions about Epstein’s Darkest Secrets Being Protected in JPMorgan Cases
- The Supreme Court Crowns a King, Immunizing Future Criminal Acts Under Project 2025 – a Right Wing Manifesto
- The Debate Disaster and the Supreme Court’s “Chevron” Repeal Have a Money Trail Leading to Charles Koch
- Congressman Andy Barr Stacks a Hearing on the Fed’s Stress Tests with Lobbyists for Megabanks
- The Fed Posts Historic Operating Losses As It Pays Out 5.40 Percent Interest to Banks
- Goldman Sachs’ Bank Derivatives Have Grown from $40 Trillion to $54 Trillion in Five Years; So How Did Its Credit Exposure Improve by 200 Percent?
- The Fed and FDIC Wake Up Suddenly to the Threat of Derivatives, Flunking the Four Largest Derivative Banks on their Wind-Down Plans
- Is the Stock Market Setting Investors Up for a Tech Bust Similar to the Dot.com Bust?
- Chase Bank Customers Are Reporting a Wave of Wire Fraud in their Accounts; the Bank Won’t Make Good on the Looted Funds
- The Senate Race in Ohio Is the Sickest in U.S. History in Terms of Billionaire Money from Outside the State
- Sullivan & Cromwell’s Legal Work for Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto House of Fraud Is Getting a Closer Look in Two Federal Court Cases
- Crypto Tries to Recreate the Koch Money Machine to Pack Congress with Shills
- French Fears Ignite Selloff in U.S. Megabanks and Foreign Peers
- Crypto Just Got Exponentially More Dangerous: Meet Fairshake
- Nvidia Hit a $3 Trillion Market Cap Last Week; Dark Pools Are Making Over 300,000 Trades in the Stock Weekly
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Is Making Enemies in All the Right Places
- A Former Exec at Citibank Raises Alarm Bells in Federal Court Over Failed Risk Controls Inside the Bank
- Charles Koch’s Money Is Being Used in Elections in Ways Only Orwell Could Have Imagined
- Freakonomics and Frankenbanks: JPMorgan Chase Sucked Up 18 Percent of All Profits of 4,568 FDIC-Insured Banks in the First Quarter
- Academic Study Provides Hard Numbers to the Sick, Revolving Door Culture at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Citigroup
- $244 Billion of Treasury Debt to Hit the Market Today and Tomorrow as Interest Rates Spike on Ballooning Supply
- CFTC Fines J.P. Morgan Securities — a Fed Primary Dealer — $100 Million for Failing to Surveil Potential Spoofing and High Frequency Trading for Eight Years
- Another FDIC-Insured Bank Got in Bed with Fintech; It’s Now Got a Dumpster Fire and Desperate Pleas from Customers for their Money
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Stock Market Panics on Treasury Yields, Fed and Trump’s Domestic Wars
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 6, 2018 In little more than a week, $4 trillion in global stock market value has vanished as quickly as a snow cone in July. The heretofore uncanny calm of a U.S. stock market setting regular new highs was punctured Friday with a 665.7 point selloff in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. That was followed by yesterday’s bungee dive in late afternoon that took the Dow down 1597 points followed by a quick partial retracement that left the Dow down 1,175 points on the day. (That plunge and retracement brought back memories of the Flash Crash of 2010. See charts above and our coverage: Flash Crash Report Raises Flags on Quasi Stock Exchanges Inside Wall Street Firms.) On a point loss basis, yesterday’s decline was the largest in Dow history. On a percentage basis, it paled in comparison to the 22.6 percent decline … Continue reading
Kochtopus Wants the Little Guy to Buy Stocks as the Market Plunges
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 5, 2018 Last Friday, the stock market, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, plunged 665.7 points. This morning, after just one minute of trading at 9:31 a.m. in New York, the Dow had bled another 307 points. You can expect a big push for the balance of the day by the shills who want to keep the dumb money in the market as a prop for the 1 percenters as they take profits and run. One member of the Kochtopus (short-hand for the secretive political network and nonprofit front groups backed by billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch) is Stephen Moore, who has somehow secured himself the position of Senior Economics Analyst on CNN, the 24/7 cable news network whose tagline is “The Most Trusted Name in News.” After the market plunge on Friday, Moore was on air at CNN by … Continue reading
As SEC Chair’s Family Grows Rich from Corporate Secrecy Firm, U.S. Named #2 Facilitator of Illicit Money
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 1, 2018 Yesterday we reported that the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton – the man ostensibly in charge of providing financial transparency to the American people – has tens of millions of dollars in family net worth tied to a Delaware company specializing in providing secrecy to corporate entities. (This actually makes sense for an administration packed with billionaires with lots of tax haven accounts.) On the heels of that confidence-draining news comes the Financial Secrecy Index for 2018 which names the United States the 2nd worst country for facilitating financial secrecy and illicit money flows, just behind Switzerland. The accompanying report from the Tax Justice Network on the U.S. specifically calls out the state of Delaware, noting the following: “The U.S. provides a wide array of secrecy and tax-free facilities for non-residents, both at a Federal level and … Continue reading
Wall Street’s Top Cop Can’t Shake Money Ties to Mysterious Firm
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 31, 2018 When Jay Clayton, President Donald Trump’s pick to head Wall Street’s top cop, the Securities and Exchange Commission, was preparing for his Senate confirmation in March of 2017, the watchdog nonprofit, Public Citizen, requested in a formal letter that the Senate Banking Committee investigate Clayton’s family ties to a mysterious company called WMB Holdings. On the day of the confirmation hearing, March 23, 2017, David Dayen penned this breathtaking assessment at The Nation: “Clayton’s family gets millions of dollars in annual dividends from a private company named WMB Holdings, some of which Clayton plans to retain even if confirmed. This company and its affiliated partners (Delaware Trust Co and CSC) are conduits for creating shell corporations and other sketchy vehicles used in tax evasion and money laundering. Public Citizen found apparent links between these companies and Mossack Fonseca, the notorious Panamanian … Continue reading
Stocks Dive as Treasury Yields Set Off Alarm Bells
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 30, 2018 The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield touched 2.7 percent on Monday and as of 8:16 a.m. this morning it has returned to that level. The sharp rise in Treasury yields produced a 177 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday. As of 10:07 a.m. this morning, the Dow had lost an additional 334 points. Many market watchers see even more dangerous headwinds for the stock market if the 10-year Treasury reaches a 3 percent yield. (See our analysis: Rising Treasury Yields Pose Risk for Those Over-Weighted in Stocks.) The recent market action suggests that investors are about to get a serious investing lesson in the concept of supply and demand. According to research from the major Wall Street banks, there is going to be a stunning doubling of the net issuance of U.S. Treasury securities in the current Federal … Continue reading
JPMorgan’s Most Admired Bank Award: General Public Had No Say
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 29, 2018 Someone really needs to send the good folks at Fortune Magazine a heads up that naming a bank that has admitted to three criminal felony counts in 2014-15 and lost more than $6 billion gambling with its depositors’ money does not have the makings for a most-admired anything, unless possibly most-admired for dodging jail time. JPMorgan Chase has decided to spin the award as follows on its website: “JPMorgan Chase was given the top industry ranking the second year in a row on Fortune magazine’s list of ‘The World’s Most Admired Companies of 2018.’ Fortune also ranked the firm as the tenth most-admired company in the world.” One might suspect from the above that the industry in which JPMorgan Chase was ranked was the overall financial services industry or overall banking industry. But it wasn’t. JPMorgan Chase achieved its top award … Continue reading
Meet the Conflicted Team that Could Prosecute Trump-Russia Charges
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 26, 2018 According to former FBI Director James Comey, President Donald Trump asked him for a personal loyalty pledge. Comey didn’t give it. Comey was fired by Trump. Trump has also made repeated remarks to suggest that his view of what is supposed to be an independent U.S. Justice Department is rather one that functions as his personal Praetorian Guard, protecting him while prosecuting or firing his perceived enemies – a roster that is growing exponentially by the day. Given that background, the recent appointments at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York are particularly alarming. U.S. Attorney offices across the United States prosecute the criminal and civil cases in their jurisdiction in which the United States is involved. Because Donald Trump’s questionable business dealings and campaign activities occurred mainly in New York, and he has a residence there … Continue reading
Did U.S. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin Give Dollar Shorts a Wink in Davos?
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 25, 2018 U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin opened his mouth at the base of the snow-covered mountains of Davos, Switzerland yesterday during the World Economic Forum and sent an instant chill through currency markets around the world. After Mnuchin made the highly inappropriate remark that a weak dollar would be good for U.S. trade prospects, the U.S. Dollar plunged to a three-year low. Anyone who knew in advance that Mnuchin was going to make such a comment could have cleaned up in currency trades yesterday. Two U.S. banks (JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup) and two foreign banks (Barclays and RBS) were charged with felony counts on May 20, 2015 for their roles in rigging foreign currency markets. Mnuchin is a former 17-year veteran of Goldman Sachs and should have known better than to make such a remark at an event covered by 500 journalists … Continue reading
That Goldman Sachs Guy Is Dragging Trump and His Cabinet to Davos
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 24, 2018 To hear Gary Cohn, the immediate past President of Goldman Sachs tell it, U.S. President Donald Trump will be feted as a beloved world leader when he arrives in Davos, Switzerland tomorrow morning for the World Economic Forum. Despite Trump hurling many insults at Goldman Sachs during the Presidential campaign, Cohn, who had spent much of his adult life at Goldman, was quickly picked by Trump to be his Director of the National Economic Council just one month after the election in 2016. Yesterday Cohn shared the podium with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the White House press briefing and had this to say about Trump’s trip to Davos: “The President departs tomorrow evening and arrives Thursday morning local time in Switzerland. On Thursday he will have a variety of meetings with world leaders and a quick meeting with Klaus … Continue reading
Meet Don and Shannon McGahn: Trump’s Regulatory Chainsaw Couple
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 23, 2018 President Donald Trump’s White House Counsel, Don McGahn, has a long history of gutting campaign finance laws to the benefit of corporations. His wife, Shannon McGahn, also an attorney, has a long history in efforts to roll back financial regulations on Wall Street. They have become corporate America’s favorite power couple in Washington. We’ll get to the details in a moment but first some necessary background on how campaign finance law was brazenly corrupted at the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2011, half of our research team (Pam Martens) filed an explosive exclusive with CounterPunch (which we now carry in our archives at Wall Street On Parade). The article revealed that a sitting justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, had been entertained by billionaire Charles Koch and his wife, Elizabeth, at their lavish private club, the Vintage Club, in Indian … Continue reading