Search Results for: jay clayton 8 out of 10

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 4, 2022 ~ From 401(k) plans to mutual funds to the federal government workers’ pension plan to foreign central bank stock portfolios – everyone is feeling Facebook’s pain today. The parent company’s stock (Meta Platforms, Inc.) lost 26.39 percent of its value yesterday – in one trading session. That’s what happens when the Fed is allowed, with no restraints from Congress, to fuel a bubble market that allows one company — that pays no dividend and has no barriers for upstarts like TikTok to steal its user base — to gain a market cap of over $1 trillion. On June 28 of last year, Facebook’s stock closed above a $1 trillion market cap for the first time. It has been on a price decline since last September and when the stock market’s closing bell rang yesterday, it was a $647 billion stock. Its market … 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 11, 2021 ~ When it comes to prosecuting the serial criminal cases arising out of Wall Street, there are two critical posts: the head of the Criminal Division at the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. (The Securities and Exchange Commission has only civil powers and, thus, conveniently, cannot bring criminal charges.) President Biden failed to properly vet his nominee, Kenneth Polite, to head the Criminal Division, “despite screaming red flags on his financial disclosure form.” Polite was confirmed for the job by the U.S. Senate on July 20. Senators asked zero questions about these financial red flags. Yesterday, President Biden announced that he was nominating Damian Williams to become the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the office that brings (or fails to bring) the majority of criminal cases involving Wall Street … 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: May 25, 2021 ~ On Wednesday, the Senate Banking Committee will haul each of the CEOs of the largest U.S. banks on Wall Street to a hearing. Three of those banks have been charged with, and admitted to, egregious felonies. But we will be shocked if any Senator dares to inquire about these unprecedented felony counts. Until 2014, no major Wall Street bank that held federally insured deposits had ever been charged with a felony in a century. That all changed on January 7, 2014 when the U.S. Department of Justice charged JPMorgan Chase with two criminal felony counts for its role in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. The bank had managed the business account for Madoff for decades and had even written to U.K. regulators that it suspected Madoff of running a fraudulent operation. It failed to share any such concerns with U.S. regulators. … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 11, 2021 ~ When the motherlode of stock market bubbles finally pops, exposing the corrupt edifices on which it was built, you can count on one thing for sure – there will be lots of testimony before Congress that no one could have seen it coming. The simple chart above, that took us 30 minutes to prepare in an Excel spreadsheet, is proof that anyone among the legions of Wall Street bank regulators at the Federal Reserve, the OCC, the FDIC, and the SEC can see what’s coming. The chart compares U.S. GDP to the total stock market value at December 31, 1999, prior to the bursting of the dot.com bubble; at December 31, 2007, prior to the bursting of the subprime and derivatives bubble; and on December 31, 2020, prior to the bursting of whatever the bailout boys decide to call this bubble. … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 5, 2021 ~ The House Financial Services Committee has released its official Memorandum outlining the general topics it wants to cover in tomorrow’s hearing on the wild trading action in GameStop and other meme stocks in January that has raised serious questions about U.S. market integrity. The implosion of the Archegos Capital Management family office hedge fund in March, which has generated losses of more than $10 billion thus far at global systemically important banks, will likely be a key topic when the Senate Banking and House Financial Services Committees haul Wall Street bank CEOs to hearings on May 26 and 27, respectively. An insightful paragraph in the Memorandum for the House hearing tomorrow reads as follows: “Testimony given at the first two GameStop hearings raised concerns about the market dominance of some capital market participants, as well as correlated risks arising from the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 28, 2021 ~ The only thing worse than SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s pick for Director of Enforcement at Wall Street’s so-called watchdog is the way corporate media is attempting to spin it. On April 22 Gensler announced that he had appointed Alex Young K. Oh to be his top Wall Street crime fighter. Reuters (and numerous other media outlets) spun the announcement like this: “The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday named former federal prosecutor Alex Oh as its new head of enforcement, the first woman of color to lead the division, which plays a crucial role in policing U.S. financial markets.” Yes, Alex Young K. Oh was a former federal prosecutor, but one of numerous assistant U.S. Attorneys working in the Southern District of New York more than two decades ago. What Oh has been doing for the past two decades is … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 29, 2021 ~ It was a bone-chilling 42 degrees with winds gusting to 28 miles per hour when Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States on January 20. Today is Biden’s 69th day in office. Washington D.C.’s beloved Cherry Blossoms are within days of reaching their peak, and yet, Biden’s nominee to Chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, has not been confirmed by a full vote in the Senate. Given that former President Trump’s SEC Chair, Jay Clayton, has left U.S. markets in their most perilous state since 1929, one would think that the Senate would be rushing to hold a vote to confirm Gensler. (Clayton had legally represented 8 of the 10 largest Wall Street banks in the three years before Trump nominated him to become SEC Chair. Clayton left the SEC after a controversial … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 10, 2021 ~ Yesterday’s Senate Banking Committee hearing to assess if the wild trading in meme stocks like GameStop and others requires new regulations on Wall Street turned into an overall assessment that Wall Street’s capital allocation system is broken and the main function of Wall Street today is a wealth transfer system for the rich. The Chair of the Committee, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) summed it up as follows: (Read his full, enlightening remarks here.) “We’ve seen Wall Street treat the markets as a game for decades – a game they always win, at the expense of pretty much everyone else. Wall Street has never been friendly to the little guy. Surely this time is no different. Yes, some regular people have had success. But fundamentally, the system is set up to funnel more wealth to the already-wealthy. Just like in Las Vegas, … Continue reading →