Search Results for: JPMorgan

Why Moody’s Is Worried About the Global Banks

In a June 21, 2012 “Special Comment,” Moody’s explained its rationale for the ratings downgrades of 15 global banks, including U.S. banks:  Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs,  JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley.  Below are excerpts from that summary. — Pam Martens/June 22, 2012    “Our reassessment of the inherent risks of capital markets businesses is relevant to almost all financial institutions with some exposure to such activities.  But, it is most relevant for banks and nonbanking firms that have (or aspire to have) sizable underwriting and market-making operations and act as principal-taking intermediaries, trading securities and derivatives in global markets. Such firms typically operate through multiple subsidiaries and have meaningful platforms in the Americas, Europe and Asia. We believe the firms affected by today’s actions fit this profile, as do two other firms whose rating reviews we concluded earlier…  “All of the firms included in this rating review have, in our … Continue reading →

Congressional Hearing Shows Loss of Public Confidence in Markets

By Pam Martens: June 20, 2012 The House of Representatives held a hearing at 9:00 a.m. this morning titled “Market Structure: Ensuring Orderly, Efficient, Innovative and Competitive Markets for Issuers and Investors.” The hearing was convened by the Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee.  The panel included no one representing the public’s voice. Four of the panelists called attention to the loss of confidence that the public now has in the stock market.  Those views are in stark contrast to the perpetually repeated statement by Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, that “We have the widest, deepest and best capital markets in the world.”  There are now 264,000 links at Google’s search engine to some variation of that statement by Jamie Dimon, e.g., “the best capital markets,” “the widest, deepest and most transparent capital markets.”  The gap between Dimon’s statement and … Continue reading →

Wall Street Hearings Continue This Week

By Pam Martens: June 18, 2012 As you review the make up for the panels in these hearings, be sure to note that not one hearing has included representatives from the public or from consumer advocacy groups.  “Examining Bank Supervision and Risk Management in Light of JPMorgan Chase’s Trading Loss” House Financial Services Committee Tuesday, June 19  9:30 a.m.; 2128 Rayburn House Office Building  WITNESS LIST Panel I Thomas J. Curry, Comptroller of the Currency Mary Schapiro, Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler, Chairman, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Martin J. Gruenberg, Acting Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Scott Alvarez, General Counsel, Federal Reserve Board of Governors Panel II Jamie Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, JPMorgan Chase & Co.                                ~ “Market Structure – Ensuring Orderly, Efficient, Innovative and Competitive Markets for Issuers and Investors” House of Representatives Financial Services’ Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises … Continue reading →

Prince Jamie, His Court Jesters, and His Royal Palaces

 By Pam Martens: June 16, 2012 As the Prince took his chair in the stately chambers correctly called Senate Banking (this is where jesters whose campaigns are paid with banking money meet to bestow gifts on their benefactors – gifts like the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to deregulate Wall Street) six brave citizens yelled out against him.  Citizen Tighe Barry of Code Pink, who regularly beseeches his empire to stop killing and making war, called out loudly that Prince Jamie was a crook, a predator and should be sent to jail. He said, “These guys are not the job creators, they’re the job destroyers.” Young citizen Rob Wohl joined four fellow citizens from Occupy Our Homes.org, shouting “stop foreclosures now.” Citizen Deborah Harris, a former paramedic who said she lost her home due to unethical business practices by the Prince’s bank, said: “I told him to face up to the little people, like me, … Continue reading →

Jamie Dimon’s New Business Model From Hell Could Take Down Wall Street — Again

By Pam Martens: June 14, 2012   If you want to trade securities at any brokerage firm in the U.S., you’ll need to study intensively for about three months, memorize dizzying rules and regulations, then take a six hour licensing exam. (The exam is so rigorous that it’s compared to the CPA exam. I don’t know if it’s fact or lore, but I was told exam rooms in past decades had puke buckets in the corners.  My room didn’t in 1986.) Then, you’ll need to get fingerprinted, pass a background check, register with a host of stock exchanges, make sure you have a supervisor who holds a principal’s license, get approved in each state in which you plan to conduct business, and take ongoing continuing education classes to keep your licenses. Or, you could skip all of that and earn $14 million a year trading – without a license – stocks, … Continue reading →

Jamie Dimon’s New Business Model From Hell Could Take Down Wall Street — Again

By Pam Martens: June 14, 2012 If you want to trade securities at any brokerage firm in the U.S., you’ll need to study intensively for about three months, memorize dizzying rules and regulations, then take a six hour licensing exam. (The exam is so rigorous that it’s compared to the CPA exam. I don’t know if it’s fact or lore, but I was told exam rooms in past decades had puke buckets in the corners.  My room didn’t in 1986.) Then, you’ll need to get fingerprinted, pass a background check, register with a host of stock exchanges, make sure you have a supervisor who holds a principal’s license, get approved in each state in which you plan to conduct business, and take ongoing continuing education classes to keep your licenses.  Or, you could skip all of that and earn $14 million a year trading – without a license – stocks, … Continue reading →

Can You Trust This Banker

By Pam Martens: June 13, 2012 Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, told the U.S. Senate Banking Committee today that “there are no off-balance sheet vehicles…” But JPMorgan Chase’s financial filings with the SEC for 2011 tell a different story. Those documents state: “Includes off–balance sheet risk-weighted assets at December 31, 2011, of $301.1 billion, $291.0 billion and $38 million…for JPMorgan Chase, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and Chase Bank USA, N.A., respectively.” Dimon was not asked to testify under oath today. In an exchange with Senator Bob Menendez, Dimon said he never criticized the new regulatory requirements for increased capital for banks. Senator Menendez said he did. Dimon said that was untrue. The Senator was referring to an interview Dimon gave to the Financial Times of London which was published on September 12, 2011. The Financial Times reported as follows: Dimon: “ ‘I’m very close to thinking the United States shouldn’t be … Continue reading →

Moody’s to Lower the Boom on Wall Street By End of June

By Pam Martens: June 11, 2012 As Congress and a growing number of economic analysts rethink the mega bank model and the repeal of the depression era Glass-Steagall Act that walled off commercial banks holding insured deposits from high risk investment banks and brokerage firms, Moody’s is expected to raise more alarm bells within the next two weeks.  It is anticipated based on previous statements from Moody’s that up to 17 global banks may see a ratings downgrade.  Among the group, five of the largest U.S. banks could be negatively impacted, including, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley.  Morgan Stanley may see a multi-level downgrade; its corporate bonds are trading as if the downgrade has already occurred.  This is not reassuring to the millions of brokerage clients in the firm’s Morgan Stanley Smith Barney unit. In 2009, Morgan Stanley purchased 51 percent of the … Continue reading →

MF Global Trustee Releases 275-Page Report on Final Days of Firm

By Pam Martens: June 4, 2012 James Giddens, the trustee overseeing the return of customer money at the failed commodities firm, MF Global, this morning filed a 275-page report with the court outlining the firm’s final days and its transformation under CEO Jon Corzine.  Read the full report here. In the report, the Trustee indicates a belief “that there are claims, including claims for breach of fiduciary duty and negligence, that may be asserted against Mr. Corzine, Mr. Steenkamp, and Ms. O’Brien, among others.”  Steenkamp was CFO and O’Brien, who took the Fifth before Congress, was an assistant treasurer involved in wiring customer funds to cover overdrafts at other units of the firm.  The trustee has previously stated that $1.6 billion in customer funds is missing.  Read a Wall Street On Parade report here. The trustee also indicated that he may be forced to litigate against JPMorgan Chase.  The report … Continue reading →

Senate Banking Hearing: Mission Impossible to Regulate Wall Street

By Pam Martens: May 22, 2012 If bank depositors were not sufficiently frightened to learn that JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank by assets, was using customers’ insured deposits as collateral to sell credit default insurance to hedge funds – the same dangerous derivatives maneuver that blew up AIG Financial Products and made the giant insurer a ward of the U.S. taxpayer – today’s U.S. Senate hearing added more reason for anxiety.  The hearing was convened from 10 a.m. to 12 noon by the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs to hear from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Mary Schapiro and Gary Gensler, Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).  The two main regulators of the derivatives used by JPMorgan, that produced trading losses currently estimated by outside analysts at $3 billion to $5 billion, had to concede that they had no advance knowledge of … Continue reading →