Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 13, 2017 As mainstream media sees it, Roy Moore’s stunning special election loss yesterday in red-state Alabama to Democrat Doug Jones is all about narrowing Republican control in the U.S. Senate; or it’s about Trump’s inability to boost a fellow Republican; or it’s an early warning for Republicans as to how they will fare in the 2018 midterm elections. But if the media could pull itself out of the 24/7 political swamp for a moment and broaden our nation’s horizon past 2018, we might consider the impact that last night’s events will have on the lives of the women who had the courage to come forward and accuse Roy Moore of sexually molesting them when they were young girls and its impact on the next generation of American girls who desperately need and deserve less hostile work environments in our so-called “democracy” when … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 12, 2017 The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Wall Street’s self-regulator with a long history of conflicts of interest, has released a summary of its findings from the examinations it conducts at the nation’s brokerage firms. As is typical of FINRA, the document released to the public is extremely light on details. (Almost half of FINRA’s Board comes from inside the industry, with current representation from JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Citadel and Fidelity, to name just a few of the insiders.) One area of the report did stand out, however. FINRA has expressed concerns about the fairness of the price you’re getting on the stock or bond trade you’re placing with your broker. In Wall Street parlance, this is known as “Best Execution.” The report explains: “Best execution is a significant investor protection requirement that essentially obligates a broker dealer to exercise reasonable … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 11, 2017  In 2012, the Sentencing Project released a study that estimated that 5.85 million people would be ineligible to vote in the U.S. Presidential election that year because they had been convicted of a felony. In 22 states, felons lose their voting rights during incarceration, and for a set period of time thereafter. Usually, this includes while the individual is on parole and/or probation. Eleven states in the U.S. are more harsh. They deny voting rights to felons who have served their time in prison and have successfully completed parole and probation. If you’re a citizen of the United States and commit a felony, it’s a big deal. If you’re a Wall Street bank and commit a felony, it’s business as usual. In January 2014, JPMorgan Chase was charged with two felony counts by the U.S. Department of Justice for its involvement … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 8, 2017 Some of the same warning signs that emerged before the 1929 to 1933 market crash, the tech mania crash of 2000, and the epic Wall Street meltdown of 2008 are flashing red. If you have significant amounts of your 401(k) invested in equity mutual funds (that is, those invested in stocks), it’s time to take an objective appraisal of today’s market versus historic benchmarks. This is also a good time to remember that markets have lost as much as 50 percent of their value from peak to trough in the last 20 years. If that’s more pain than you’re prepared to suffer, it may be time to trim back your exposure. We’ll get to the specifics on today’s market shortly, but first some necessary background. In the market crash of 1929 to 1933, the stock market lost 90 percent of its … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 7, 2017 A lawyer who is part of President Donald Trump’s legal defense team, Jay Sekulow, has denied the news reports that Deutsche Bank has received a subpoena from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office for banking records related to Trump and his family members. In a statement to Reuters, Sekulow stated: “We have confirmed that the news reports that the Special Counsel had subpoenaed financial records relating to the president are false. No subpoena has been issued or received. We have confirmed this with the bank and other sources.” But in the same article that relayed that statement from Sekulow, Reuters’ reporters Arno Schuetze and Karen Freifeld undercut the credibility of Sekulow’s statement by writing the following: “A U.S. federal investigator probing alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election asked Deutsche Bank for data on accounts held by President Donald Trump … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 6, 2017 Just when you thought the bills coming out of this Congress could not get any more repugnant in their giveaways to the richest Americans, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee proved otherwise yesterday. The hearing to approve Senate Bill S.2155 was so tainted with doublespeak and preposterous assertions that it would beef up consumer protections, while actually slashing them to shreds, that the video of the hearing has just up and disappeared. As of 8:00 a.m. this morning, it’s not on the Senate Banking Committee website. All that we could locate to review what actually went down in this sellout-to-the-rich session was an audio recording at C-SPAN. Curiously, however, there are numerous breaks in this audio where the speaker’s comments are cut off. Typically, these occur when a Democrat is challenging some provision in the bill. C-SPAN notes that the audio “was … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 5, 2017 If Deutsche Bank is trying to remove itself from scandalous headlines, it’s not doing a very good job at it. The German language newspaper, Handelsblatt, reported yesterday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed bank records from Deutsche Bank relating to President Trump and his family members. Handelsblatt writes that “The former real-estate baron has done billions of dollars’ worth of business with Deutsche Bank over the past two decades, and First Lady Melania, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner are also clients.” The central focus of the Mueller probe is the Trump campaign’s involvement with Russia. On May 23 of this year, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and other House Democrats sent John Cryan, CEO of Deutsche Bank, a letter regarding its ties to the Trump family and Russia. The letter began: “We write seeking information relating to two internal reviews reportedly … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 4, 2017 On November 8, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman, Jay Clayton, delivered a speech at the Practising Law Institute’s 49th Annual Institute on Securities Regulation. His focus was transparency on Wall Street and he had this nugget of wisdom to share with the audience: “Looking back at enforcement actions, a common theme emerges – where opacity exists, bad behavior tends to follow. As Joseph Pulitzer said: ‘There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.’ The remainder of my remarks will concentrate on topics that have proven over time to be fertile ground for fraud on investors. The SEC may not yet have policy or rulemaking answers in these areas, but we are on the lookout for ways … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 1, 2017 On April 20 of this year, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke about the Trump administration’s tax plan at the Institute of International Finance. (Watch the video here.) Mnuchin described how the plan would pay for itself without adding to the national debt. He stated: “The deal will pay for itself. Now, having said that, we fundamentally believe in dynamic scoring. So, as you know, static scoring – you change the tax code, you plug it in, you see what the cost is. So, you are correct, fundamentally you’re lowering taxes under a static score, it’s gonna cost money. Now, having said that, some of the lowering in rates is going to be offset by less deductions, in simpler taxes. So, some of it will be made up on that but the majority of it will be made up on in … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 30, 2017 Bitcoin has soared this year by more than ten-fold, defying all of the Wall Street veterans who have compared it to the Tulip Bubble and/or a Ponzi scheme. That doesn’t mean that Bitcoin is a legitimate investment; it just means that bubbles have no set expiration date. The Nobel laureate economist, Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University, appeared on Bloomberg television yesterday and had this to say about Bitcoin: “One of the main functions of government is to create currency. And Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight. So it seems to me it ought to be outlawed. It doesn’t serve any socially useful function.” Consider the remarks Stiglitz made yesterday to our more detailed assessment along the same lines back in 2014. We wrote: “The business writers at Reuters are also dead wrong on Bitcoin … Continue reading →