Search Results for: Federal Reserve

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 23, 2021 ~ Fed Chair Jerome Powell now finds himself in the same position as Morgan Stanley’s Howie Hubler and JPMorgan’s Bruno Iksil: he’s got a big trade on and no exit plan. The problem for the U.S. economy is this: Hubler and Iksil were gambling with billions of dollars. Powell is gambling with trillions of dollars. Powell’s Fed has effectively become the Whale in the U.S. debt market. Powell was last sworn in as Fed Chair on February 5, 2018. Five days earlier, the securities held on the Fed’s balance sheet totaled $4.2 trillion. As of last Wednesday, that figure stood at $8.179 trillion, thanks to Powell’s endless purchases of U.S. Treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Making this situation even more dicey, the Fed bought these debt securities with money it creates out of thin air. The U.S. taxpayer is on … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 19, 2021 ~ Yesterday, at 11:41 a.m., as Cornell Law Professor Saule Omarova sat before the Senate Banking Committee for her confirmation hearing to head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the regulator of national banks, Republican Senator Tom Cotton Tweeted the following: “Saule Omarova stole $214 (~$400 adjusted for inflation) from T.J. Maxx in 1995. She’s woefully unqualified to supervise the banking system.” Cotton’s Tweet links to a Fox News report which indicates that it has obtained the police report that shows that Omarova was 28 years old at the time of the arrest in 1995. The items she was reported to have taken without paying for them were “four pairs of shoes, two bottles of cologne, two belts and socks.” According to the report, she had left the store with the items when confronted by a security guard … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 11, 2021 ~ Former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan made “over $1 million” trades in and out of S&P 500 futures throughout his tenure at the Dallas Fed, which began in September 2015 and ended with his resignation on September 27 of this year over his scandalous trading. Trading in S&P 500 futures is a market-timing device used by hedge funds and day traders. No individual with market-moving information at the Federal Reserve should ever use such a device. The U.S. stock market is open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (ET) Monday through Friday. But S&P 500 futures trade around the clock during weekdays. The E-mini S&P 500 futures contract is the most popular and liquid S&P 500 futures contract. It can be leveraged by as much as 95 percent. The E-mini trades continuously from 6 p.m. Sunday night through 5 p.m. on … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 10, 2021 ~ According to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s daily appointment calendar, he met privately with Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, from 3:00 to 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 30. JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States. It is supervised – badly – by the Federal Reserve. Just how bad is that supervision? JPMorgan Chase is the only U.S. bank to have been charged by the Justice Department with five felony counts since 2014 – admitting to all of them. But despite that unfathomable number of felony counts under the same Chairman and CEO, the Board of JPMorgan Chase didn’t sack Dimon. The Federal Reserve didn’t order JPMorgan Chase’s Board to sack Dimon either – not even after the bank was charged with rigging the U.S. Treasury market last year – the market that allows the U.S. … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 9, 2021 ~ The word “leverage” appears 107 times in the Federal Reserve’s Financial Stability Report that was released yesterday. The second mention provides a warning of what happens when leverage blows up the financial system – something Americans learned all too well in 2008: “Excessive leverage within the financial sector increases the risk that financial institutions will not have the ability to absorb even modest losses when hit by adverse shocks. In those situations, institutions will be forced to cut back lending, sell their assets, or, in extreme cases, shut down. Such responses can substantially impair credit access for households and businesses.” Perhaps this is an understatement from the Fed. Not only did major institutions like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers “shut down” from insolvency in 2008, putting tens of thousands of workers out of a job, but this is also what can … 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: November 5, 2021 ~ Yesterday, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq set new record highs for the sixth straight trading session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, closed in the red. That’s because two high-priced bank components of the Dow, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, closed in the red and helped to pull the index into negative territory. (The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a price-weighted index.) As the chart above indicates, the declines in Goldman and JPMorgan were part of a major bank selloff yesterday – a striking and disturbing divergence from the broader indices. It would be impossible to have a healthy stock market going forward if the mega banks that finance the bulk of corporate activity descend into a downward spiral. Among the worst bank performers yesterday were three foreign global banks that have a heavy presence on Wall Street: the British bank, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 4, 2021 ~ On April 5 of this year, Axios ran this headline: “Poll indicates low trust, poor public perception of the Fed.” Axios had commissioned an Ipsos poll which found that 53 percent of Americans didn’t trust the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve. An earlier Axios/Ipsos poll released on February 23 had found that a stunning 60 percent of Americans didn’t trust the Fed. Both of those polls were taken before the trading scandal at the Fed further damaged its credibility. Those poll numbers likely explain why Fed Chairman Jerome Powell uses every press conference he conducts as an opportunity to state that the Fed’s priority is to work for the American people. Unfortunately, the facts keep getting in the way of that statement. Powell held another of his press conferences yesterday and did more harm to the Fed’s credibility by making … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: November 3, 2021 ~ Yesterday, President Biden stunned moderates in his party by formally sending his nomination of Cornell Law Professor Saule Omarova to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to the Senate. The OCC regulates national banks, those operating across state lines, which include some of the largest banks in the nation, such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup’s Citibank. Many folks believed that after Omarova’s recent law journal article became widely analyzed, she would remove herself from consideration or Biden would quietly ask her to step aside. As Wall Street On Parade revealed last week, Omarova’s 69-page paper published in the Vanderbilt Law Review in October, proposed the following: (1) Moving all commercial bank deposits from commercial banks to so-called FedAccounts at the Federal Reserve; (2) Allowing the Fed, in “extreme and rare circumstances, when the Fed is unable to … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 2, 2021 ~ The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Federal Reserve is conducting an investigation of the trading activities that led to the resignations of Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren on September 27. The trading of other Fed officials may also be under the microscope. The OIG investigations are conducted by federal criminal investigators who have the power to “carry firearms, seek and execute search and arrest warrants, and make arrests without a warrant in certain circumstances.” The investigative findings can be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice for criminal or civil prosecution, if warranted. In the case of Kaplan, the matter belongs in the hands of the Department of Justice right now. Despite having ongoing access to market-moving information throughout 2020, Kaplan was trading in and out of S&P 500 futures in individual trades … Continue reading →