Search Results for: JPMorgan

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 25, 2023 ~ On March 30, 2022, two highly troubling events occurred: (1) Fed data showed that unrealized losses on available-for-sale securities at the 25 largest U.S. banks were approaching the levels they had reached during the financial crisis in 2008; and (2) the Fed simply stopped reporting unrealized gains and losses on these banks’ securities. As the chart above indicates, the Fed had reported this data series from October 2, 1996 to March 30, 2022 – and then, poof, it was gone and could no longer be graphed weekly at FRED, the St. Louis Fed’s Economic Data website. (See chart above from FRED.) On the same date, the Fed also discontinued the weekly data for unrealized losses or gains on available-for-sale securities at all commercial banks and small banks.) This data series was halted after the Fed had embarked on March 17, 2022 … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 21, 2023 ~ On July 27, the Federal Reserve, FDIC and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released a proposal to require higher capital levels at banks with $100 billion or more in assets – those that demonstrated quite clearly this past spring that they could spread systemic contagion throughout the U.S. banking system. Community banks will not be impacted at all by the new proposals according to the regulators. The three federal bank regulators provided a very generous public comment period of 120 days on the proposal. (Submit your own comment here.) The large banks had to only begin transitioning to the new rules on July 1, 2025, with full compliance not due for an absurd five years – on July 1, 2028. On September 12, the banking cartel made their anger known in a 7-page letter that assaulted the proposal from … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 20, 2023 ~ We’re very sorry to have to tell you this, but if you’re not watching Senate Banking or House Financial Services Committee hearings when the topic is about increasing bank capital or any new regulations to make the U.S. banking system less prone to blowing up, you are likely seriously underestimating how corruption has become the new normal in the United States of America. The big banks’ trade associations and law firms that pay millions of dollars each year to registered lobbyists to bend Congress to their will are now dominating the witness list at these hearings. The right-wing Republican Senators that are funded by the banks and Wall Street then read from a script written by the lobbyists to ask their toady questions, pretending there is actually a give-and-take in these hearings. Take, for example, the hearing held on September 14 by … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 14, 2023 ~ There may be a lesson here: don’t put the word “Republic” in the name of your bank; don’t hold a lot of uninsured deposits; and don’t have wads of unrealized losses on your investment securities. If those lessons sound familiar, it’s because they played out in stunning fashion earlier this year when the second, third and fourth largest bank failures in U.S. history occurred. One of those banks that blew up was First Republic Bank, which was put into FDIC receivership on May 1 and later sold, under much controversy, to the already behemoth JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S. (JPMorgan Chase can’t seem to stay away from criminal charges. It thus far has notched five felony counts in its belt and is currently being sued by the U.S. Virgin Islands for “actively participating” in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking of minors … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 12, 2023 ~ The outspoken nonprofit watchdog, Better Markets, and its co-founder, President and CEO, Dennis Kelleher, have planned a unique full-day webinar for tomorrow from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET. (Register here at no cost. You do not need Zoom to watch the program.) For millions of Americans who understand that the U.S. cannot remain a superpower, or even compete effectively on the world stage without a first-class banking system and a properly functioning Wall Street, this is an opportunity to hear from people who have been on the front lines of the battle for genuine reform for decades. Wall Street On Parade has covered the efforts of many of these individuals over the years. This virtual conference of some of the smartest minds in the country when it comes to banking and Wall Street could not come at a more critical time. … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 11, 2023 ~ Last Thursday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) released its Quarterly Banking Profile for the quarter ending June 30, 2023. The report includes the FDIC’s Problem Bank List. While the actual names of the problem banks aren’t provided, the total assets listed provide an indication of whether any large banks are on the list. The FDIC’s first quarter banking profile had published a “Problem Bank List” showing just 43 banks with total assets of $58 billion as of March 31, 2023. Unfortunately, on March 10 Silicon Valley Bank blew up with assets at year-end 2022 of $209 billion. Two days later, on March 12, Signature Bank blew up with assets of $110 billion as of year-end. Clearly, the FDIC did not see these as problem banks in advance of their blowing up in a matter of days. What the FDIC did know … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 22, 2023 ~ The stock prices of KeyCorp and Comerica had already lost more than 40 percent of their market value over the past year through the closing bell on Monday. KeyCorp was sporting a depressed share price of $10.89 at the close yesterday after trading in the single digits during the banking crisis in March. Then S&P Global delivered more bad news yesterday. It downgraded the credit rating on both KeyCorp and Comerica by one notch.  Outlooks were indicated as “stable” for both banks by S&P. Three other banks were also downgraded by one notch yesterday by S&P: Valley National Bancorp, UMB Financial Corp. and Associated Banc-Corp. S&P lowered outlooks on two other banks to negative: River City Bank and S&T Bank. The ratings action on KeyCorp is particularly noteworthy. According to the Federal Reserve, as of June 30 KeyCorp had $193 billion in … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 15, 2023 ~ The Bill Clinton administration’s repeal in 1999 of the 1933 Banking Act, commonly known as the Glass-Steagall Act, ushered in the greatest kleptocracy America has ever known. The Cambridge dictionary defines “kleptocracy” as: “a society whose leaders make themselves rich and powerful by stealing from the rest of the people.” In fact, the actual goal of repealing Glass-Steagall was to do just that. The momentum for the repeal of Glass-Steagall came from the announcement in 1998 that Wall Street veteran, Sandy Weill, wanted to merge his trading firms, Salomon Brothers and Smith Barney (under the Travelers Group umbrella), with Citicorp, parent of the federally-insured Citibank commercial bank. Because of the Glass-Steagall Act, such a merger was illegal at the time. The 1933 Congress that passed the Glass-Steagall Act had watched the stock market lose 89 percent of its value over the years … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 10, 2023 ~ That office space company we warned our readers about so extensively in 2019, WeWork, collapsed to 13 cents a share yesterday. Its bonds were trading at about 13 cents on the dollar. WeWork’s stock has been on a steady decline since the company began to trade publicly on October 21, 2021. The chart above shows how investors would have fared in WeWork stock versus a 10-year U.S. Treasury note since WeWork started trading in 2021. The collapse in the share price this week came as a result of an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday in which the company uttered these discomforting words: “…as a result of the Company’s losses and projected cash needs, combined with increased member churn and current liquidity levels, substantial doubt exists about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.” The … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 7, 2023 ~ Deposits at the 25-largest domestically-chartered U.S. commercial banks peaked at $11.680 trillion on April 13, 2022, according to the updated H.8 data maintained at the Federal Reserve Economic Database (FRED). As of the most current H.8 data for the week ending on Wednesday, July 26, 2023, deposits stood at $10.709 trillion at those 25 commercial banks, a dollar decline of $970 billion and a percentage decline of 8.3 percent. Equally noteworthy, the decline shows no signs of letting up. According to the FRED data, between July 5 and the most current reading on July 26, the 25 largest U.S. banks shed $174 billion in deposits. Despite all of the misleading news reports about depositors seeking out the perceived safety of the largest banks since the banking crisis in the spring, it’s actually been the smaller banks that have staged a comeback … Continue reading →