Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 3, 2014 On July 17, 1996, the U.S. Justice Department charged the biggest names on Wall Street, names like Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan and predecessor firms to Citigroup, with price fixing on the electronic stock market known as Nasdaq. The Justice Department felt the firms were so untrustworthy to make a fair electronic marketplace that as part of its settlement it required that some traders’ phone calls be tape recorded when making Nasdaq trades and it gave itself the right to randomly show up and listen in on the traders’ calls. The scandal made headlines for years and revealed that the price fixing had been going on under the unwatchful eye of regulators for more than a decade. Now, more than six years after the greatest Wall Street crash since 1929, the public is still learning stomach-churning details about the lingering effects of de-regulating … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 2, 2014 Major business media is hot on the story tonight of which major Wall Street bank traded the most shares in their dark pool during the week of May 12 – 16. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) – a self policing body on Wall Street – released detailed dark pool data for the first time today. Thus far, the business media has overlooked the bombshell in the data: the biggest banks on Wall Street — the same ones the U.S. taxpayer bailed out in 2008 – have been making a market in their own stock inside the dark pools they own, right under the nose of FINRA and the SEC to the tune of tens of millions of shares a year if this data is typical of an average week. This is the equivalent of Bank of America or Citigroup being … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: June 2, 2014 One critical gauge of how fair and efficient a market is resides in the degree to which it reflects the composite wisdom of all participants. A rigged market, for example, reflects the composite wisdom of just those doing the rigging since they are privy to information that is not shared with all market players. On March 30, bestselling author Michael Lewis appeared on 60 Minutes to summarize the findings in his newest book, Flash Boys, as follows: “stock market’s rigged.” Michael Lewis was talking about stock market manipulation by high frequency traders. Increasingly, the U.S. bond market is delivering almost the same message as Michael Lewis. The U.S. Treasury market, which is experiencing a flight to safety (that suggests a slowing economy, lower corporate earnings and thus a lower stock market in the future) is essentially saying that the current composite wisdom of the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 30, 2014 SEC Chair Mary Jo White’s untenable position that “markets are not rigged” is bringing unwelcome attention to the SEC’s dismal record on ensuring that stock exchanges operating in the U.S. are fair. Since bestselling author, Michael Lewis, went on 60 Minutes on March 30 to detail, step by step, how the stock market is rigged – there has been a slow, but steady, realization that the woman President Obama sold to the American people as the white knight who would rein in abuses on Wall Street has failed miserably in that role. Under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, codified at 15 U.S. Code § 78f, the Securities and Exchange Commission is statutorily mandated to ensure that the rules of the stock exchanges are designed “to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices, to promote just and equitable principles of trade…to … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 29, 2014 You know there is a lot more to the story when the top Federal regulator of Wall Street’s biggest banks turns to three foreign countries to figure out how to beef up examining these complex webs of darkness. And London (infamous now for its blinders as the biggest banks rigged Libor interest rates, foreign currency exchange and the metals market) can’t feel too good about being snubbed in the process. It all started last year when the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Thomas Curry, commissioned a peer review study by senior financial supervisors from Australia, Canada and Singapore. Why these three countries? According to the study, “the selection criteria were countries with significant and mature financial markets, well-respected supervisory regimes, and large commercial banks that have been consistently rated among the safest in the world. While virtually all … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 28, 2014 Now that the worldwide Occupy Wall Street protest movement has been beaten, pepper-sprayed, mass-arrested and hog-tied into submission; now that assorted financial luminaries have exhorted corporate media to stop giving air time to people calling bankers evil; it’s now safe for the 1 percent to take over the debate – or so the thinking goes in London. Prince Charles, who lives in four mansions in England, Scotland and Wales, delivered the opening speech yesterday for a conference on “Inclusive Capitalism” hosted by Lady de Rothschild, wife of multi-billionaire Sir Evelyn Robert de Rothschild, in the heart of financial skulduggery, the City of London, Wall Street’s alter ego. Rounding out the day’s speakers were former President Bill Clinton, who repealed the depression era investor protection legislation known as the Glass-Steagall Act which deregulated Wall Street and is widely blamed for the 2008 financial collapse and … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 27, 2014 Last week, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) released a trove of some 4,000 documents it obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showing that the movements of the mostly peaceful participants in the Occupy Wall Street protests were subjected to an “enormous spying and monitoring apparatus” that included coordination between the Pentagon, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, local police, private security contractors and corporate interests. Increasingly, Americans’ time-honored First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble and dissent are playing out as open-season on protesters and mass arrests, followed by years of evidence destruction or tampering in court cases. As Wall Street On Parade perused the new documents from PCJF, one in particular raised red flags. Its subject line referred to the Occupy Wall Street movement as “Friggin Occupy” and it came from a veteran police officer. The PCJF is currently … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 22, 2014 Three years before bestselling author Michael Lewis stunned the world on 60 Minutes on March 30 of this year with the announcement that “stock market’s rigged,” lawyer R. Tamara de Silva had made the case quite poignantly on her law firm’s blog. Even more importantly, she simultaneously called on the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice to commence an investigation. It was only after the charges in the Lewis book, “Flash Boys,” went viral around the globe that the FBI, Department of Justice and SEC acknowledged that there might be a problem with high frequency trading and the integrity of U.S. markets. Subpoenas are now flying. On January 17, 2011 at 9:23 p.m., de Silva wrote on her blog: “High frequency trading firms make profits of almost $21 billion a year by using inside information to cheat. “High frequency trading firms … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 21, 2014 There are lots of reasons to worry about America’s future. But one worry that we seldom hear discussed in any comprehensive way is the growing brand impairment resulting from the loss of Americans’ belief in their country’s sense of decency and the loss of credibility abroad from the too-big-to-discipline CEO – who, for better or worse, is acutely aligned with the corporate brand. Whether we like it or not, great corporate brands create jobs in America and tarnished brands result in job losses. There seems to be an intellectual disconnect in the thinking of the corporate Board of Directors who continue to lavish obscene pay on the discredited CEO and the reality that the corporate brand – the most valuable asset the corporation owns – is being severely diminished in the eyes of the consumer whose trust or distrust in that … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 20, 2014 If it’s at all possible, don’t die on the premises of a too-big-to-fail bank like JPMorgan. That’s because if you do your otherwise meritorious life and career is likely to be turned into a circus of slanderous tidbits in order to promote the reputation of the global banking behemoth as the benevolent guardian of all things noble and saintly. A coroner’s inquest began at 10 a.m. in London this morning to investigate how 39 year old Gabriel Magee, a technology Vice President who worked in JPMorgan’s European headquarters at 25 Bank Street in London, came to be found dead on a 9th level rooftop at approximately 8:02 a.m. on the morning of January 28 of this year. The inquest had barely begun when the wire service, Reuters, ran this headline: “JP Morgan Executive Had High Alcohol Level Before Skyscraper Plunge, London … Continue reading →