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Recent Posts
- 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
- Citigroup Gets Fined $79 Million Two Years After It Caused a $300 Billion Flash Crash in European Stock Markets
- After Weeks of Howling by MAGA Republicans for the Chair of the FDIC “to Resign,” a Democrat Delivers the Decisive Stab in the Back
- The Curious Money Trail Behind the Supreme Court/Clarence Thomas Decision to Rescue a Federal Agency that Wall Street Hates
- Saudi Arabia’s Wealth Fund Dumps Its JPMorgan Chase Stock; Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Did the Same in 2020
- One of Jeffrey Epstein’s Protectors at JPMorgan Chase, Mary Erdoes, Has Sold $29 Million of Her Stock in the Bank Since Just Before Epstein’s Arrest in 2019
- Delinquencies on Office Property Loans at Banks Are at 8 Percent While Office Loans the Banks Sold to Investors Show 31 Percent in Trouble
- Goldman Sachs Shines Up Its Swamp Creature Reputation by Rehiring Robert Kaplan as Vice Chairman – the Guy Who Traded Like a Hedge Fund Kingpin While President of the Dallas Fed
- Cleary Gottlieb – Outside Counsel to Wall Street’s Serially Bailed Out Megabanks – Tarnishes the FDIC Chair in its So-Called “Independent” Report
- JPMorgan Chase and Its Regulators Are Hiding Dark Trading Secrets at the Largest and Riskiest U.S. Bank
- Campus Protests Over Gaza Open a Pandora’s Box for Wall Street Megabanks that Underwrote $8 Billion of Israel’s Bonds in March
- Wall Street’s Megabanks Have Trillions of Dollars Off-Balance Sheet, in a Replay of Accounting Hubris that Led to the 2008 Wall Street Collapse
- JPMorgan Remains the Second Largest Money Market Fund Manager, Despite Needing Billions in Money Market Bailouts from the Fed in 2020
- The First Bank Failure of 2024 Leaves a 1-Cent Stock for Investors and $667 Million in Losses for the FDIC
- Catch and Kill Protection Rackets: Trump, Weinstein, Epstein and Wall Street
- Wall Street’s Judge Shopping Continues: It’s Trying to Stop the FTC’s Ban on Worker Handcuffs Known as Non-Compete Agreements
- The Fed Tallies Up a Big Threat to Financial Stability in the U.S.: “Runnables” at $21.3 Trillion
- Billionaire-Owned Media Has Gone Full Throttle to Save Fellow Billionaire, Jamie Dimon
- The Professor Who Wrote the Seminal Book on Wall Street Megabanks Calls Today’s Financial System “Dangerously Unstable”
- Gold Has Set Historic Highs this Year as the Federal Reserve Has Reported Historic Losses
- Stanford Finance Professor Anat Admati Is Making Jamie Dimon Very Nervous – Again Calling His Bank “Dangerous”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Shhh! Don’t Tell the Fed or Mainstream Media that Systemic Contagion at Wall Street Banks Is Already Here
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 10, 2022 ~ At Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s last press conference on September 21 he said that there is “good reason to think that this will continue to be a reasonably strong economy.” Unfortunately, the U.S. can’t have a strong economy without strong banks willing and able to lend. And there are serious storm fronts in that area that the Fed Chair and mainstream media are choosing to ignore. Last week multiple news outlets raised the question as to whether the troubles at Credit Suisse signaled another “Lehman moment.” (See here, here, and here, for example.) A “Lehman moment” refers to the former 158-year old Wall Street investment bank, Lehman Brothers, collapsing into bankruptcy on September 15, 2008 during a widening financial crisis on Wall Street. Because Lehman was the only major Wall Street firm that the Fed allowed to collapse into bankruptcy (rather … Continue reading
All Eyes Are on Credit Suisse; But Media Blacked Out Data from the New York Fed Suggest Contagion from Nomura Is Another Threat
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 7, 2022 ~ Nomura Holdings is tiny compared to the mega banks on Wall Street. According to its website, it had just $384 billion in assets as of March 31, 2021. On the same date, JPMorgan Chase had $3.2 trillion in assets. But for reasons that neither the Federal Reserve nor Congress have yet to explain, a unit of Nomura was allowed to borrow trillions of dollars in emergency repo loans from the Fed beginning on September 17, 2019 – months before there was any COVID crisis anywhere in the world. The chart above shows that in the last three months of 2019, Nomura borrowed $3.7 trillion cumulatively under the Fed’s emergency repo loan program, topping the amount borrowed by JPMorgan Chase by $1.11 trillion. The loan amounts come directly from the emergency repo loan data being released quarterly by the New York Fed, … Continue reading
New Study: Wall Street Banks Are Doubling Down on Risk by Selling Credit Default Swaps on their Risky Derivatives Counterparties
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 6, 2022 ~ Last Thursday, while news outlets focused on videos of the devastating impact of Hurricane Ian on the southwest coast of Florida, two researchers at the Office of Financial Research published a breathtaking and almost surreal analysis of how the mega banks on Wall Street are once again doubling down on unprecedented risk with derivatives and threatening the financial stability of the U.S. The report was ignored by mainstream business media. The Office of Financial Research was created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010 to make sure that Wall Street mega banks could never again ravage the economy and financial system of the United States — as they did in 2008 – by engaging in reckless derivative trades and toxic bets. OFR describes its mission as follows: “Our job is to shine a light in the dark corners of the … Continue reading
Cape Coral: A City of 204,000 in Florida Remains 86 Percent Without Power on Day Eight Since Hurricane Ian Hit
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 5, 2022 ~ If a major fire occurs in most cities and towns across America, there is a standing procedure to quickly call for mutual aid from other fire departments to achieve a speedy and safe resolution. But when it comes to the Lee County Electric Cooperative (LCEC) that provides electricity to the city of Cape Coral, Florida, something has gone terribly wrong in the process of calling for that mutual aid in a timely manner after one of the most devastating hurricanes in Cape Coral’s history. Cape Coral is a city of 204,000 residents according to the U.S. Census Bureau. LCEC has been providing electric power to Cape Coral since its first six model homes were constructed in 1958 – a span of 64 years. But for days after Hurricane Ian hit the Southwest coast of Florida on Wednesday, September 28, as a … Continue reading
Credit Suisse and the Fed’s Plunge Protection Team
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 4, 2022 ~ At 6:53 a.m. this morning (ET), Dow futures were up 454 points. That followed the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining 765 points yesterday. No one who has been a trader on Wall Street or a stock broker for multiple decades believes this rally is real. Wall Street veterans are thinking that either the Fed’s plunge protection team or the Treasury’s plunge protection team is behind the rally. Equally unbelievable, as the chart above indicates, is the fact that the major mega banks on Wall Street closed in the green yesterday. Many of these are counterparties to Credit Suisse derivatives and thus subject to the potential for contagion. Until everyone who works on Wall Street is 25 years old and too young to remember what happened in 2008 after Citigroup began to quake, Wall Street traders are not going to believe that … Continue reading
Here’s the Chart of the Global Bank Causing Panic in Markets This Morning
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 3, 2022 ~ The Swiss global bank, Credit Suisse, which is a derivatives counterparty to major Wall Street banks and U.S. insurers, raised alarm bells in markets on Friday and is raising more anxiety this morning. Its 5-year credit default swap (CDS), a measurement of its risk of defaulting on its debt, jumped to 250 basis points on Friday and traded as high as 350 basis points in early morning trade today. The big move in the CDS on Credit Suisse is further impacting the price of its common stock. The shares closed on Friday in New York at $3.92, just pennies away from its all-time low, then dropped another 11 percent in early morning trading in Europe today. When a major derivatives counterparty begins to see a blowout in its credit default swaps, that impacts the stock prices of all major Wall Street … Continue reading
Two Senators – a Republican and a Democrat – Testify to Senate Banking Committee on China’s Threat to U.S. National Security and Competitiveness
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 30, 2022 ~ Yesterday, Senator Robert (Bob) Casey, Jr. (D-PA) and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) testified before the Senate Banking Committee. At a time when there is little that the two political parties can agree on in Congress, it was refreshing to hear these two Senators from different parties earnestly explain the threat that China’s ambitious agenda poses to the U.S.; how outward investment by U.S. corporations is furthering China’s agenda; and outline legislation to deal with the threat. Senator Casey explained the problem as follows: “For decades, the United States has steadily ceded its manufacturing power to other countries, particularly foreign adversaries, like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Russian Federation. Outsourcing our manufacturing and supply chains has put our economic and national security at risk. Unfortunately, the pandemic exacerbated this problem, as we experienced acute shortages of things like PPE and … Continue reading
Two Weeks to the Day After Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Played a Cruel Trick on Desperate Migrants, a Category 4 Hurricane Is Barreling Down on His State
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” – Matthew 25:40 By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 28, 2022 ~ This morning, the words “catastrophic” and “dangerous” and “life threatening” are being used to describe Hurricane Ian, a category 4 hurricane that is expected to make landfall this afternoon on Florida’s Gulf Coast, then rip through the central and northern parts of the state. Those words are weighing heavily on the minds of Floridians this morning, as well as the words above from Matthew 25, verse 40. It was exactly two weeks ago to the day that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis lured desperate migrants, including children, who were seeking asylum in the United States after a treacherous journey from Venezuela, to board two charter planes that dumped them on Martha’s Vineyard … Continue reading
There’s a War for the Fed’s Ear on Inflation Between Larry Summers and Jeremy Siegel – It’s Getting Nasty
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 27, 2022 ~ Both Wharton finance professor Jeremy Siegel and Harvard economics professor Larry Summers are trolling Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Siegel thinks Powell is “talking way too tough” on inflation while Summers thinks Powell is not restrictive enough. Siegel appeared on CNBC yesterday and scolded Powell to “offer the American people an apology” for his poor monetary policy over the years. In a Tweet, Summers effectively told the Fed Chairman to shut up, lecturing him on not talking so much at his press conferences. (See Tweets below.) In his CNBC interview, Siegel cited “home prices declining, commodity prices declining, freight rates declining,” as examples of easing inflationary pressures that warrant the Fed taking a less aggressive stance on raising rates. He also cited the sharp rise in the U.S. dollar, saying “the dollar is showing how tight the Fed actually is.” Summers … Continue reading
Nowhere to Hide: The Fed-Induced Bubble in Stocks and Bonds Is Blowing Up; Even the Typical Safe Havens of Gold and T-Notes Are Losing Money
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 25, 2022 ~ The corrupt political backdrop for today’s unprecedented market quagmire feels like a hyperbolic trailer for a low-budget sci-fi thriller: The former president of the only remaining superpower in the world has been charged with “staggering” frauds against banks – the ones he just deregulated as president. (This same former president was also caught red-handed with Top Secret documents after he left public office — but the super power’s 18 intelligence agencies have no idea what he did, or was planning to do, with these documents.) On the other side of the globe, the sitting president of a bygone superpower is engaging in nuclear saber-rattling and conscripting 60-year-old men to fight an illegal war while young, able-bodied men flee the country en masse. The world’s financial markets have gone off the rails in an equally disorienting fashion. The central bankers that had … Continue reading