Search Results for: citadel

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 15, 2024 ~ Dave McCormick, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, was sitting in the front row at Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday and narrowly missed being in the line of fire according to an interview he gave to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday morning. McCormick told Tapper that Trump had called out from the podium, asking McCormick to join him on the stage and he “started to walk up onto the stage” when Trump said: “No, no, I will have you up in a little bit. And then the shooting started a minute or two later. And so, had he not changed his mind, I think I would have been up on that stage.” According to the PBS video of Trump’s opening remarks at the rally, which also capture the gunfire, Trump called McCormick a “great, great … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 12, 2022 ~ On May 4, 2020, while Jay Clayton was the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Trump administration, the SEC granted approval for a new national stock exchange called MEMX, whose Wall Street megabank owners have admitted to a collective nine criminal felony counts brought by the U.S. Department of Justice. JPMorgan Chase accounts for five of those felony counts; Goldman Sachs and a subsidiary account for two felony counts; Citigroup and UBS account for one felony count each. The other owners of MEMX include: Bank of America, BlackRock, Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, E*TRADE, Fidelity Investments, Flow Traders, Jane Street, Manikay Partners, Morgan Stanley, TD Ameritrade, Virtu Financial, Wells Fargo, and Williams Trading. The SEC’s letter approving MEMX as a national securities exchange stated that the SEC was confident that MEMX would “prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 2, 2022 ~ As we reported on Monday, there’s a new book out from Simon & Schuster with the provocative title: The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy. The book, written by bestselling author Christopher Leonard, is sprinkled with eye popping revelations – particularly in regard to how hedge funds have been able to effectively mint billions by designing trades to take advantage of the Fed’s repo bailouts and quantitative easing. Quantitative easing (QE) is a scheme launched by former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, beginning in November 2008. QE means that the New York Fed, through its open markets desk, buys up Treasury securities and federal-agency-backed Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) from its 24 primary dealers. The Fed’s purchases of tens of billions of dollars a month of these securities creates artificial demand that would not otherwise exist, thus lowering … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 8, 2021 ~ Fed Chair Jerome Powell was quick to refer an investigation into the Fed’s trading scandal to the Inspector General of the Federal Reserve. Notably, he did not refer the matter to the U.S. Department of Justice which has criminal prosecution powers. Unlike the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as more than 30 other Federal agencies, the Inspector General of the Federal Reserve is not nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Instead, the Inspector General of the Federal Reserve is appointed by the “head” of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors; he reports to that same Board of Governors; and he can be terminated by them with a two-thirds vote. The Inspectors General have been codified into law under 5a U.S. Code 8G which notes that “Each Inspector General shall … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 14, 2021 ~ The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing today titled “Oversight of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.” The SEC needs a lot of oversight because that’s the federal agency that didn’t catch Bernie Madoff for more than four decades, despite a financial expert, Harry Markopolos, sending the SEC detailed written reports (in 2000, 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2008), making the case that Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme. The SEC was also asleep at the switch while Wall Street banks concocted their subprime debt bombs, then bet billions of dollars that they would fail while selling them to public pension funds as good investments. Those subprime bombs blew up in 2008, cratering the U.S. economy and leaving millions of innocent Americans jobless and homeless. More recently, the SEC was caught flat-footed when the family office hedge fund, Archegos Capital Management, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 25, 2021 ~ Billionaire hedge fund titan Ken Griffin’s Citadel Advisors has had a stake in the biotech company, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, since at least December 31, 2011 – a decade ago. The same is true for billionaire Jeffrey Yass’ giant hedge fund, Susquehanna International Group. Both stakes have grown in size in recent years. As of the most recent 13F SEC filing for Citadel Advisors for the quarter ending June 30, 2021, it and its related entities held a stake in Regeneron of long call options and common stock with a value of $189.7 million versus a short position of puts with a value of $188.5 million. As of its filing with the SEC for the quarter ending June 30, 2021, Susquehanna International Group reported a long position of common shares and calls of 1,116,127 shares valued at $623.4 million versus a short position … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: August 16, 2021 ~ As millions of struggling Americans face eviction this fall; as children are dying in hospitals from a raging pandemic; as his political party is facing a brutal fight in the upcoming midterms — what does former President Barack Obama do? He throws himself a lavish, celebrity-studded birthday bash at his $12 million waterfront mansion on Martha’s Vineyard with a sprawling dining tent potentially creating a super-spreader event. The party was held on Saturday evening, August 7. New York Times columnist, and Pulitzer Prize winner, Maureen Dowd, gave it the scathing review it deserved in this past Sunday’s print edition of The Times. In the article, Dowd quotes André Leon Talley’s take on the over-the-top soiree. Talley said “the Obamas are in Marie Antoinette, tacky, let-them-eat-cake mode. They need to remember their humble roots.” The brutal truth is that the Obamas have been in tacky, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 5, 2021 ~ Robinhood is the poster boy for the craziest, most unregulated stock market era since 1929. That one ended in tears. This one will also. Robinhood is the trading app used by millions of young, inexperienced retail investors to trade stocks and options on their mobile phones. The company went public last Thursday on the Nasdaq stock market (the wonderful folks who brought us the dot.com crash in 2000). Robinhood closed the trading week last Friday with a share price of $35.15 – an embarrassing 7.5 percent below its IPO price of $38. Curiously, so far this week, through Wednesday’s closing price of $70.39, the stock has soared 100.256 percent from Friday’s closing price. In an efficient, regulated stock market that is capable of engaging in its core function of price discovery, Robinhood would not have doubled in price in three trading sessions. … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 9, 2021 ~ Donald Trump was inaugurated as President on January 20, 2017. But 16 days before Trump even took office, he sent the message to Wall Street that “I’ve got your back.” On January 4, 2017, Trump nominated Jay Clayton to Chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, ostensibly the top watchdog on Wall Street. But Clayton’s resume ensured that he would be doing a lot more recusing than watchdogging.  Clayton, a law partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, had represented 8 of the 10 largest Wall Street banks in the three years prior to his nomination. Clayton did not disappoint. He looked the other way as the Wall Street banks traded their own bank’s stock in their own Dark Pools. He wore blinders as the Wall Street banks flagrantly violated the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation’s Volcker Rule. He took no action to stop Wall … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 30, 2021 ~ On Thursday, June 24, the day that the 40-year old Champlain Towers South Condo in Surfside, Florida collapsed suddenly at 1:23 a.m., the Sun Sentinel newspaper ran this headline later that day on its website: “Buildings don’t just fall down. Why did the condo in Surfside?” If you’ve been carefully following the news over the past half century, you know that a number of tall buildings have fallen down in the United States. But the vast majority of those have been from a domestic or foreign terrorist attack or gas explosions. What the majority of Americans do not realize is that the biggest risk to a high-rise building collapsing comes during the construction phase – and the reasons for that should greatly concern all Americans. We did research in the federal government’s various archives and located four high-rise buildings and one … Continue reading →