By Pam Martens: June 11, 2014 Wall Street On Parade has been reporting for some time now that much of Wall Street’s past and current history has up and disappeared – either at the hands of high speed shredders on orders from the SEC, or through Courts sealing documents, or Wall Street’s private justice system preventing access to hearings, non-disparagement contracts when you change your job on Wall Street, or critical pieces of Wall Street history just go missing and no one can find out exactly why. Now we learn that a vital book on Wall Street’s history had vanished until an NYU Professor made it his mission to return it to the public’s hands. In 2011, Darcy Flynn, an SEC lawyer, told Congressional investigators and the SEC Inspector General that for at least 18 years, the SEC had been shredding documents and emails related to its investigations — documents … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: June 10, 2014 Southern states are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it any more. After more than five years of watching their cities and towns suffer foreclosure and mortgage abuse from the biggest firms on Wall Street, rigged Libor swaps impoverishing local governments, and massive stock losses to municipal workers’ pensions, the South is rising up and suing Wall Street over its latest fleecing scheme – high frequency trading. And before anyone starts to chuckle about the chances of Southern lawyers outfoxing the mega Wall Street law firms in their own stomping ground in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, you should know this one salient detail: one of the key Southern lawyers involved is Michael Lewis. That’s not bestselling author Michael Lewis; that’s Big Tobacco Cartel suing and winning lawyer Michael Lewis who mightily assisted in bringing the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: June 9, 2014 Last week, three Federal appellate judges with lifetime appointments, meaning they will be receiving salary and benefits for as long as they choose on the taxpayer’s dime and then a nice, fat, secure pension also courtesy of the taxpayer, ruled that the very same public that makes their own existence so cushy is not entitled to truth or facts or justice when it comes to Wall Street. Truth, facts, justice are quaint relics of a bygone American past. Today, when it comes to Wall Street, Federal judges are simply there to rubber stamp the settlements of captured regulators and then quickly re-ink the stamp for the next shady settlement. To fully grasp what happened last week you will first need to purge your mind of everything you think you know about Federal District Court Judge, Jed Rakoff, rejecting a smelly deal fashioned between the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: June 5, 2014 Evidence of ‘clandestine’ documents has turned up which may make it rough-sledding for one of Wall Street’s biggest go-to law firms in the position they staked out last Friday in Federal court. R. Tamara de Silva, a lawyer representing three traders in a closely watched Federal class action lawsuit in Chicago, told the court in April that the world’s largest futures exchange has “entered into clandestine contracts with HFTs [high frequency traders] knowing that the activities of the HFTs would adversely affect all other individuals and entities…” (See High Frequency Trading Lawsuit Against CME Group, et al for the full text.) De Silva and lawyers from O’Rourke & Moody in Chicago are facing off against the 1600-lawyer strong Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP who are known for their splashy motions to dismiss — which come very close to libeling opposing counsel. They did not … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: June 4, 2014 The regulator in charge of policing high frequency trading in the futures markets, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), held a “public meeting” yesterday to determine if the allegations raised in the Michael Lewis book, Flash Boys, relating to high frequency traders rigging the stock market might also be occurring in the futures markets. As is increasingly typical of the U.S. markets themselves, the public was no where to be found at this “public meeting” yesterday. There was no one speaking on behalf of a consumer federation; no one speaking on behalf of disenfranchised small farmers who hedge their crops in these markets; no one speaking on behalf of the union employee or teacher or public municipal worker who is watching their retirement plan assets fleeced on millions of trades daily by high frequency traders who have obtained a litany of high-speed perks, rebates … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 3, 2014 On July 17, 1996, the U.S. Justice Department charged the biggest names on Wall Street, names like Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan and predecessor firms to Citigroup, with price fixing on the electronic stock market known as Nasdaq. The Justice Department felt the firms were so untrustworthy to make a fair electronic marketplace that as part of its settlement it required that some traders’ phone calls be tape recorded when making Nasdaq trades and it gave itself the right to randomly show up and listen in on the traders’ calls. The scandal made headlines for years and revealed that the price fixing had been going on under the unwatchful eye of regulators for more than a decade. Now, more than six years after the greatest Wall Street crash since 1929, the public is still learning stomach-churning details about the lingering effects of de-regulating … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 2, 2014 Major business media is hot on the story tonight of which major Wall Street bank traded the most shares in their dark pool during the week of May 12 – 16. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) – a self policing body on Wall Street – released detailed dark pool data for the first time today. Thus far, the business media has overlooked the bombshell in the data: the biggest banks on Wall Street — the same ones the U.S. taxpayer bailed out in 2008 – have been making a market in their own stock inside the dark pools they own, right under the nose of FINRA and the SEC to the tune of tens of millions of shares a year if this data is typical of an average week. This is the equivalent of Bank of America or Citigroup being … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: June 2, 2014 One critical gauge of how fair and efficient a market is resides in the degree to which it reflects the composite wisdom of all participants. A rigged market, for example, reflects the composite wisdom of just those doing the rigging since they are privy to information that is not shared with all market players. On March 30, bestselling author Michael Lewis appeared on 60 Minutes to summarize the findings in his newest book, Flash Boys, as follows: “stock market’s rigged.” Michael Lewis was talking about stock market manipulation by high frequency traders. Increasingly, the U.S. bond market is delivering almost the same message as Michael Lewis. The U.S. Treasury market, which is experiencing a flight to safety (that suggests a slowing economy, lower corporate earnings and thus a lower stock market in the future) is essentially saying that the current composite wisdom of the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 30, 2014 SEC Chair Mary Jo White’s untenable position that “markets are not rigged” is bringing unwelcome attention to the SEC’s dismal record on ensuring that stock exchanges operating in the U.S. are fair. Since bestselling author, Michael Lewis, went on 60 Minutes on March 30 to detail, step by step, how the stock market is rigged – there has been a slow, but steady, realization that the woman President Obama sold to the American people as the white knight who would rein in abuses on Wall Street has failed miserably in that role. Under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, codified at 15 U.S. Code § 78f, the Securities and Exchange Commission is statutorily mandated to ensure that the rules of the stock exchanges are designed “to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices, to promote just and equitable principles of trade…to … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 29, 2014 You know there is a lot more to the story when the top Federal regulator of Wall Street’s biggest banks turns to three foreign countries to figure out how to beef up examining these complex webs of darkness. And London (infamous now for its blinders as the biggest banks rigged Libor interest rates, foreign currency exchange and the metals market) can’t feel too good about being snubbed in the process. It all started last year when the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Thomas Curry, commissioned a peer review study by senior financial supervisors from Australia, Canada and Singapore. Why these three countries? According to the study, “the selection criteria were countries with significant and mature financial markets, well-respected supervisory regimes, and large commercial banks that have been consistently rated among the safest in the world. While virtually all … Continue reading →