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Recent Posts
- Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Is a Grotesque Giveaway to Fossil Fuel Billionaires While Adding $3.3 Trillion to Nation’s Debt
- Senator Chris Murphy Charges that Trump “Has Opened a Channel for Bribery”
- Congressman Casten: Trump’s Assault on the Rule of Law Is Causing Capital Flight Out of U.S. by Foreign Investors
- Trump’s Approval Rating Drops to 80-Year Low; IMF Says U.S. Tariffs Now Exceed the Highs During the Great Depression
- Nasdaq Has Lost More than 3,000 Points Since Trump’s First Full Day in Office in 2025; the Pain Has Barely Begun
- The Bond Crisis Last Week Was a Global No-Confidence Vote in U. S. President Donald Trump
- Trump’s Tariff Plan Guts $5 Trillion in Stock Value in Two Days; Senator Warren Calls for Emergency Action Before Markets Open on Monday
- Trump’s Attacks on Big Law, Universities, and the Media Have a Common Goal: Silence Dissent Against Authoritarian Rule
- Trump Administration Gives All Clear to Laundering Money through Shell Companies and Bribing Foreign Officials
- Four Megabanks on Wall Street Hold $3.2 Trillion in Uninsured Deposits – Which May Explain Senator Schumer’s Pivot to the GOP to Stop a Government Shutdown
- Here’s What Came Crashing Down Yesterday for Trump’s “Genius” Guy, Elon Musk: Tesla Stock, Access to Twitter (X), His Years of Secret Calls with Putin
- After Banning the Associated Press, Trump Is Now Targeting Specific Journalists That He Wants to See Fired
- Closely Watched Atlanta Fed Model Predicts Negative U.S. Growth in First Quarter
- Trump’s Gangster Diplomacy Makes Front Page Headlines Around the Globe
- Who Benefits Alongside Elon Musk If He Succeeds in Killing the CFPB: the Megabanks on Wall Street that Underwrite His Tesla Stock Offerings
- In Trump 1.0, the State Department Used Taxpayer Money to Publish a Book Elevating Elon Musk to a Superhero; It Was Funded by USAID, the Agency Musk Wants to Quickly Shut Down
- News Host Joy Reid Raises Threat of Trump Selling U.S. to Putin; Ten Days Later Her Show Is Cancelled
- Elon Musk’s DOGE Appears to Be Violating a Court Order; It Has Taken Down Hundreds of YouTube Videos that Educate Americans on How to Avoid Being Swindled
- Barron’s Releases Audio of Jamie Dimon Cursing Out His Workers at a Town Hall, as Dimon Plans to Dump Another One Million JPM Shares
- There’s One Federal Investigative Agency that Neither Trump nor Elon Musk Can Touch: It Just Opened an Investigation into DOGE
- Elon Musk’s Companies Were Under Investigation by Five Inspectors General When the Trump Administration Fired Them and Made Musk the Investigator
- Donald Trump Gives the Greenlight to Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to Return to Bribing Foreign Officials
- After Tech Geeks Built a Back Door to Loot Billions from FTX, Republicans Refuse to Investigate What Elon Musk’s Tech-Squad Did Inside the U.S. Treasury’s Payment System
- Former Prosecutor, Now U.S. Senator, Informs Tesla That CEO Musk May Be Violating Federal Law and to “Preserve All Records”
- Trump’s Hedge Fund Guy Is Now Overseeing the U.S. Treasury, IRS, OCC, U.S. Mint, FinCEN, F-SOC, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- As Elon Musk Begins Shutting Down Payments to Federal Contractors, a Strange Money Trail Emerges to His Operatives Inside the U.S. Treasury’s Payment System
- JPMorgan Chase Charged by Yet Another Internal Whistleblower with Cooking the Books
- We Asked Google’s AI Search Model, Gemini, Questions About the Fed and Wall Street Megabanks: It Got the Answers Dead Wrong
- With Trump and Melania’s Crypto Coins Likely to Raise Legal Challenges, Why Didn’t Trump Fire the SEC’s Inspector General in His Purge of IGs?
- Fossil Fuel Industry Could End Up Paying Tens of Billions for LA Wildfires and Deceiving the Public on Climate Change for Decades
- It’s Being Called the Biggest Grift by a President in U.S. History: Trump and First Lady Launch their Own Crypto Coins
- Trump Plans to Install a Fracking CEO to Head the Energy Department and Declare a National Emergency on Energy to Gain Vast Powers
- Fossil Fuel Money Played a Role in the Los Angeles Fires and the Push to Install Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense
- When It Comes to Wealth Retention in Retirement, Concrete May Be the New Gold
- Wall Street Watchdog Warns “Clock Is Ticking on a Coming Catastrophic Financial Crash”
- Wall Street Is Sending the Same Message to Americans on Fossil Fuel Financing that It Sent on Cigarettes: Drop Dead
- In a Six-Week Span, this Dark Pool with a Curious Past Traded 3.7 Billion Shares
- Wall Street’s Lobby Firm Hired Eugene Scalia of Gibson Dunn to Sue the Fed for Jamie Dimon
- Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Made $561,051 in Compensation in 2024, as Mail Costs Spiked and Delivery Deteriorated
- Fed Chair Jay Powell Sends a Bold Message to Trump and Tanks the Dow by 1123 Points
- The Head of Fixed Income at T. Rowe Price Makes the Scary Case for the 10-Year Treasury to Spike to 6 Percent
- $663 Billion in Cash Assets Have Gone Poof at the Largest U.S. Banks
- Donald Trump to Ring Bell at New York Stock Exchange Today as Hit List Posters Appear in Manhattan Targeting Wall Street CEOs
- Trump Has a Slush Fund to Prop Up the Dollar – Will He Use It to Prop Up Bitcoin Instead?
- A CEO Assassination; a Billionaire Heiress/NYPD Commissioner; a Secret Wall Street Spy Center – Here’s How They’re Connected
- Despite More than 1600 Tech Scientists Signing a Letter Calling Crypto a Sham, Trump Names a Crypto Cheerleader for SEC Chair
- The Fed Rings a Warning Bell: Hedge Funds and Life Insurers Are Reporting Historic Leverage
- Trump’s Nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel, Has Businesses Financially Intertwined with Trump
- Donald Trump Is at Risk of Getting Named in a Fossil Fuels Conspiracy Lawsuit
- Trump Is Having Difficulty Getting a Lawyer to Accept the Nomination for SEC Chair: Here’s Why
Search Results for: Federal Reserve
The Fed Posts Historic Operating Losses As It Pays Out 5.40 Percent Interest to Banks

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 26, 2024 ~ According to Federal Reserve data, for the first time in its history, the Fed has been losing money on a consistent monthly basis since September 28, 2022. As of the last reporting date of June 19, 2024, those losses add up to a cumulative $176 billion. As the chart above using Fed data shows, the losses thus far in 2024 have ranged from a monthly high of $11.076 billion in February to a low of $5.674 billion in May. These losses are separate and distinct from the unrealized losses the Fed is experiencing on the debt securities it holds on its balance sheet. It does not mark those losses to market since it intends to hold the securities to maturity and their principal is guaranteed at maturity by the U.S. government. The losses shown in the above chart are actual cash … Continue reading
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?

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 25, 2024 ~ Last Friday, Goldman Sachs Bank USA, the federally-insured, U.S. taxpayer-backstopped commercial bank that the international trading behemoth, Goldman Sachs Group, is allowed to operate, got a smackdown from two of its regulators, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve Board (the Fed). The two regulators released a letter they had sent to David Solomon, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group, which revealed that the commercial bank had flunked its wind-down test known as its “living will.” Derivatives were specifically cited for the “shortcomings.” Of particular note, the regulators wrote that Goldman Sachs Bank USA “…did not demonstrate the ability to model its derivatives portfolio unwind by counterparty for segmenting the portfolio in resolution. In the [upcoming] 2025 Plan, the Covered Company should demonstrate the ability to view derivatives positions at a counterparty level within both the portfolio … Continue reading
The Fed and FDIC Wake Up Suddenly to the Threat of Derivatives, Flunking the Four Largest Derivative Banks on their Wind-Down Plans

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 24, 2024 ~ Since the financial crash of 2008 and the Fed’s multi-trillion dollar bank bailouts that followed, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has been waving a giant red flag every quarter in its “Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities” reports. For sixteen years the OCC has been reporting that just four megabanks are responsible for more than 80 percent of the trillions of dollars in bank derivatives. As the chart above shows, as of December 31, 2023, Goldman Sachs Bank USA, JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., Citigroup’s Citibank and Bank of America held a staggering total of $168.26 trillion in derivatives out of a total of $192.46 trillion at all U.S. banks, savings associations and trust companies. That’s four banks holding 87 percent of all derivatives at all 4,587 federally-insured institutions in the U.S. that existed as of December 31, 2023. … Continue reading
Nvidia Hit a $3 Trillion Market Cap Last Week; Dark Pools Are Making Over 300,000 Trades in the Stock Weekly

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 10, 2024 ~ The much-hyped artificial intelligence chipmaker, Nvidia (ticker NVDA), reached a market cap of $3 trillion on Thursday, beating out Apple as the second most valuable company, just behind Microsoft. This morning, Nvidia’s 10-for-1 stock split will become effective, reducing its share price to, ideally, entice more retail investors. Year-to-date, Nvidia’s stock price is up 144 percent through the closing bell on Friday. The company was founded on April 5, 1993 and lived the bulk of its existence in obscurity until a New York Times article appeared on September 1, 2017 with this headline: “Why a 24-Year-Old Chipmaker Is One of Tech’s Hot Prospects.” Browsing the company’s prolific newsroom reveals no shortage of bold pronouncements. A June 2 press release carries this seismic prediction: “The next industrial revolution has begun. Companies and countries are partnering with NVIDIA to shift the trillion-dollar … Continue reading
$244 Billion of Treasury Debt to Hit the Market Today and Tomorrow as Interest Rates Spike on Ballooning Supply

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 29, 2024 ~ When Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell held his press conference on May 1 to explain the Fed’s latest policy actions, more than a dozen reporters showed up to ask questions. Those reporters came from every major business news outlet. (See transcript here.) But on the same date, when the U.S. Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets, Josh Frost, conducted a press conference to announce the details of the Treasury’s plans to issue $125 billion in Treasury debt securities (quarterly refunding), only one reporter from Bloomberg News showed up to ask questions. (See the awkward video at this link.) Perhaps the U.S. Treasury needs to hire a strong arm like Michelle Smith, Director of Communications at the Fed for the past 23 years, to oversee its press conferences. Or, perhaps a lighter touch would be more welcome. Then again, maybe the U.S. … Continue reading
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

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 28, 2024 ~ How does a Wall Street trading firm gain competitive advantage to entice spoofers and high-frequency trading firms to use its trading platforms instead of those of its competitors? How about having its trading compliance personnel wear a blindfold as billions of trades occur over the span of 8 or 9 years? That is essentially what three of JPMorgan Chase’s federal regulators have suggested is behind the $448 million in fines they’ve leveled against three separate units of the largest bank in the United States. When JPMorgan Chase filed its quarterly report with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 1, it sheepishly admitted that the $348 million it had already paid out to two of its regulators for trading violations was not the end of this saga. It said that it “expects to enter into a resolution with a third U.S. … Continue reading
Citigroup Gets Fined $79 Million Two Years After It Caused a $300 Billion Flash Crash in European Stock Markets

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 22, 2024 ~ Two U.K. regulators, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), announced this morning that they have leveled fines totaling $78.5 million against Citigroup’s European trading arm, Citigroup Global Markets Ltd. (CGML). See here and here. The fines relate to a $300 billion flash crash in European stock markets on May 2, 2022. Citigroup is the parent of the fourth largest federally-insured bank in the United States, Citibank. During the 2008 financial crisis, Citigroup imploded and became a 99-cent stock because of its high-risk market activities. It received over $2.5 trillion in bailouts and cumulative loans – the largest bailouts in global banking history. The U.K. regulators have today put the blame for that May 2, 2022 flash crash on a trader on Citigroup Global Markets’ Delta One trading desk, who, according to the regulators’ scenario, entered a … Continue reading
After Weeks of Howling by MAGA Republicans for the Chair of the FDIC “to Resign,” a Democrat Delivers the Decisive Stab in the Back

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 21, 2024 ~ Yesterday, at 10:08 a.m., Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio and the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, sent out a shocking emailed statement to the press indicating that Brown was “calling on the President to immediately nominate a new Chair who can lead the FDIC at this challenging time and for the Senate to act on that nomination without delay.” By 6:27 p.m. the Associated Press was reporting that Martin Gruenberg would step down as Chair of the FDIC and President Joe Biden would announce his nomination to replace him “soon.” The Brown statement was a gut punch to every engaged American and journalist who actually understands what’s at stake here. It was not only a back stab to Gruenberg, it was a back stab to Brown’s highly-respected colleague on the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has … Continue reading
Delinquencies on Office Property Loans at Banks Are at 8 Percent While Office Loans the Banks Sold to Investors Show 31 Percent in Trouble

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 13, 2024 ~ On Friday, the Federal Reserve released its semiannual Supervision and Regulation Report on banks. Commercial real estate loans at banks – particularly on office properties – continued to rank high on the Fed’s list of concerns. The Fed included the chart above showing that delinquency rates on office property loans held by the banks had skyrocketed from just over 1 percent at the end of 2022 to over 8 percent as of December 31, 2023. (The red text and arrow have been added by Wall Street On Parade.) Banks are major lenders to the commercial real estate (CRE) market, providing almost $3 trillion in financing. According to a February 27 report from S&P Global, as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, two megabanks dwarfed all others in their commercial real estate loan exposure. JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, the … Continue reading
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

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 9, 2024 ~ The swampiest trading house on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, issued a press release on Tuesday which was revolting – even to Wall Street veterans who are familiar with its scandalous history. (See Related Articles below.) The press release stated that “Rob Kaplan will rejoin the firm as Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs and a member of the Management Committee. He will be a member of the Executive Office and will be based in Dallas.” Robert (Rob) Kaplan is the man who scandalized the Dallas Fed and the Federal Reserve (the central bank of the United States) by flagrantly serving his own trading interests and violating financial reporting rules while trading like a hedge fund kingpin in S&P 500 futures for his own account during a declared National Emergency in 2020 (from the COVID-19 pandemic) while he was President of the Dallas … Continue reading