By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 8, 2015  When the revision to second quarter Gross Domestic Product was released by the Commerce Department on August 27, boosting GDP to 3.7 percent, it had a lot of people scratching their heads. Consumer Metrics Institute came right out with it, writing: “Once again we wonder how much we should trust numbers that bounce all over the place from revision to revision. One might expect better from a huge (and expensive) bureaucracy operating in the 21st century. Among major economies, only the Chinese numbers are more suspect.” Ouch. Jeffrey Sparshott and Jon Hilsenrath, economic writers at the Wall Street Journal, were more subtle in their assessment, suggesting that “How fast the economy grew depends on how you measure it. An alternative measure, gross domestic income, advanced at a much slower 0.6% pace last quarter. Both GDP and GDI measure overall economic activity … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 7, 2015  New York University has devolved into a dystopian model of higher education reimagined by Wall Street knaves who serve on its Boards and their kingpin attorney, Martin Lipton, who has been NYU’s Board Chairman for 17 years. As the university has thrown million dollar pay packages and perks like vacation homes with forgivable loans at its President, John Sexton, and an elite group of faculty, students have been buried under debt by the likes of the serially charged and now admitted felon, Citigroup, and are turning to prostitution in increasing numbers to meet the obscene hidden fees and staggering tuition piled on their shoulders by NYU’s masters of the universe. It now costs over $240,000 for a four-year degree at NYU – a nonprofit university subsidized by the taxpayer. At a protest rally in Washington Square last Tuesday against NYU’s tyrannical … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 3, 2015  The Shanghai stock exchange, which has been creating global stock market convulsions while trimming 39 percent off its value since June, will be closed for the next two days. The Chinese holiday started on Thursday in Beijing with a big parade and show of military might to commemorate the 70th anniversary of V-Day and the defeat of Japan in World War II. The massive military pageantry and display of weaponry was widely seen as a move by President Xi Jinping to reassert his authoritarian rule in the wake of a sputtering domestic economy, $5 trillion in value shaved off the stock market in a matter of months, and the need to devalue the country’s currency on August 11 in a bid to boost exports. Tragically, what has received far less attention than melting China stocks is the mass arrests of dissidents, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 2, 2015 The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 469.6 points yesterday for a loss of 2.84 percent but Wall Street banks and trading firms took a far heavier bruising. Business media have been placing the blame for global stock market convulsions on China’s slowing economy, devaluation of its currency and seemingly unstoppable selloffs in its wildly inflated stock market. There would seem to be much more to this story than we know so far to explain the outsized fall in Wall Street bank stocks. Yesterday, with the Dow losing 2.84 percent, the major names on Wall Street fared as follows: Citigroup, down 4.75 percent; Bank of America, down 4.65 percent; Wells Fargo, down 4.39 percent; JPMorgan Chase, down 4.13 percent; Morgan Stanley, down 3.86 percent; and Goldman Sachs, down 3.44 percent. The Blackstone Group, a private equity firm with significant involvement in China, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 1, 2015  JPMorgan Asset Management is running “sponsored content” at Barron’s, the financial publication, with today’s date and a remarkably rosy economic outlook given last week’s market rout and this morning’s Dow futures plunging to down 396 points at 9:02 a.m. – just 28 minutes before the market was set to open in New York. There used to be a time when advertising in newspapers was called advertising and you knew money was changing hands. All Barron’s is saying about JPMorgan’s “sponsored content” is this: “Barron’s news organization was not involved in the creation of this content.” Here’s the curious part of what JPMorgan Asset Management has to say about the U.S. economy: “…we find little to indicate that a slowdown is imminent. In any event, historically there’s been a long lag between signals of a downturn and the onset of recession. In … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: August 31, 2015  The riveting writer, Michael Hudson, has read our collective minds and the simmering anger in our hearts. Millions of American have long suspected that their inability to get financially ahead is an intentional construct of Wall Street’s central planners. Now Hudson, in an elegant but lethal indictment of the system, confirms that your ongoing struggle to make ends meet is not a reflection of your lack of talent or drive but the only possible outcome of having a blood-sucking financial leech affixed to your body, your retirement plan, and your economic future. In his new book, “Killing the Host,” Hudson hones an exquisitely gripping journey from Wall Street’s original role as capital allocator to its present-day parasitism that has replaced U.S. capitalism as an entrenched, politically-enforced economic model across America. This book is a must-read for anyone hoping to escape the most corrupt era … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 27, 2015  That big so-called rally at the market close yesterday was not a rally but a short squeeze. That’s when the hedge funds that have put on short positions size up the amount of stock for sale at the close of trading and, if the amount is light, they decide to close out their short positions by buying stock to cover. On Tuesday, there was approximately $3.5 billion in orders to sell at the close, resulting in the late day selloff. Yesterday, there was only about $500 million to sell, making it risky to hold short positions, thus the short squeeze driving the Dow up 619 points at the close. Expect to see a lot more of these spikes, up or down, in the last two hours of trading. Assessing just how large the bubble has grown in U.S. markets as a … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 26, 2015  Wall Street has tried to keep all eyes focused on the ongoing rout in China’s stock markets and away from the slowdown in both earnings and revenues in the Standard and Poor’s 500 index of the largest U.S. corporations. In remarks yesterday, Sam Stovall, Managing Director of U.S. Equity Strategy for S&P Capital IQ said that among the growing concerns are “a possible U.S. profit recession.” Last evening, Bloomberg Business reported that “Profits reported by S&P 500 companies in the second quarter fell 2 percent from a year ago and are projected to slip 5.5 percent in the current period.” As earnings and revenues slide, the corporate balance sheets bloated with debt taken on to buy back the company’s own shares will provide an unwelcome headwind to grow earnings. Since 2009, S&P 500 corporations have spent over $2 trillion buying back … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 25, 2015  America’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, has lost 10.87 percent of its market capitalization in the past three trading sessions. That’s $27.18 billion in three days, raising serious questions about the Federal Reserve’s theory that beefed up equity capital would buffer the mega banks in a market downturn. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 3.57 percent yesterday, JPMorgan lost 5.27 percent, despite its rich dividend yield of 2.92 percent.  The indefatigable Eric Hunsader, owner of the market data firm Nanex, was Tweeting the abominations occurring in the stock market yesterday as the opening bell set off a bungee dive to a loss of 1,089 points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). The Dow ended the day down 588 points to close at 15,871.35, a three day loss of 1,477 points. One of Hunsader’s Tweets remarked on the bizarre price action … Continue reading →