By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 9, 2022 ~ On September 14 of last year, we wrote this about SEC Chair Gary Gensler: “Gensler’s opening remarks at today’s Senate Banking Committee hearing include seven references to this phrase: ‘asked staff for recommendations…’ If past is prologue, this will mean that Gensler will run out the clock on actually advancing any meaningful ‘recommendations’ into concrete final rules.” Yesterday, Gensler gave a heavily promoted speech about cleaning up the way that retail stock orders are handled on Wall Street. But all the speech actually did was to ask his staff for more ideas and recommendations. The phrase “asked staff” appears 13 times in the speech. While Gensler spends his time giving speeches and asking his staff for recommendations that don’t go anywhere, large chunks of U.S. markets are blowing up in investor portfolios. Let’s start with some of the tech startups that … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 8, 2022 ~ According to the Federal Reserve’s Z.1 Statistical Releases, as of December 31, 1996 the market value of stocks (“corporate equities”) held by U.S. households and U.S. nonprofits stood at $10.255 trillion. As the dot.com bubble mushroomed, by December 31, 1999 that figure stood at $19.58 trillion. By the time all of the fraudulent research that went into listing and promoting stocks came to light, household and nonprofit wealth had shrunk by $8.6 trillion. From the end of Q4 1999 to the end of Q3 2002, the market value of household and nonprofit holdings went from $19.5812 trillion to $10.9601trillion. (See chart below.) Wall Street makes big bucks from underwriting new issues of stocks (Initial Public Offerings or IPOs) and so do the Big Law firms that serve as the underwriters’ counsel. It doesn’t matter if these companies have zero business operations … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 7, 2022 ~ The owner of Schlafer’s Auto Body & Repair in Mendocino, California has made headlines at CNN, the Los Angeles Times, and across local TV affiliates in the past few days – and not in a good way. Schlafer’s is home to an independent Chevron gas station and, as of this weekend, it was charging the highest price for a gallon of regular gas in the nation: $9.60. As of this morning, the average price for a gallon of regular gas in California is $6.37, according to AAA’s gas price tracker. AAA reports that the national average for a gallon of regular gas across the U.S. this morning is $4.91. California is far from the only state where complaints of outrageous price gouging are being heard. The Daily Record of Maryland reported yesterday that a Shell station in Bowie, Maryland was charging … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 6, 2022 ~ Last month the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released its 2021 annual report from its “Markets Group.” That’s the group that operates a trading floor (complete with speed dials to the trading houses on Wall Street) at the New York Fed, located not far from the New York Stock Exchange, as well as another trading floor on the premises of the Chicago Fed, which is not far from the futures exchanges in Chicago. That report showed that despite all of the recent talk about the Fed dramatically shrinking its balance sheet from its current size of $8.9 trillion, the internal Federal Reserve plan for the balance sheet is actually this: “After declining by about $2.5 trillion from the peak size reached in the first half of 2022, the portfolio stops declining in mid-2025, at which point it is held constant … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 2, 2022 ~ Redditors at the subreddit Superstonk are posting obscenities directed at Gary Gensler, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), over the new ad campaign from the SEC that appears to target young Reddit investors as fools that do no research before investing, lose all their money, and deserve a whipped-cream pie in the face. (Yes, a young investor actually gets a whipped-cream pie in the face during two of the ads. See videos below.) CNBC ran one of the new SEC ads yesterday. So-called “meme stocks” are heavily associated with Reddit and are specifically called out in the SEC ads, thus Redditors have concluded that the ads are directed at them. We’ve been carefully observing the Securities and Exchange Commission for the past 37 years. This is the first time that we have ever witnessed the SEC heaping humiliation on … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 1, 2022 ~ Wall Street On Parade was previously a big fan of Senator Sherrod Brown, the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee. Not so much anymore. Brown supported the nutty nomination of Saule Omarova to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the regulator of national banks, while attempting to spin the naysayers as part of a smear campaign. So far this year, the Senate Banking Committee has held hearings on tangential areas while ignoring the biggest threats to financial stability in the U.S.: the $200.18 trillion in notional derivatives (face amount) concentrated at just five Wall Street megabanks (JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America). There have been no subpoenas flying from the Senate Banking Committee as the Fed continues to cover up the largest trading scandal in its history and refusing to release to … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 31, 2022 ~ Credit union and banking trade groups have released a joint letter to the chair and ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, warning of “devastating consequences” if the Federal Reserve moves forward with a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The letter was sent on May 25, one day before the Committee convened a hearing on “Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Examining the Benefits and Risks of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency.” That hearing took testimony from only one witness, Lael Brainard, the Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve. The fact that credit unions, which frequently serve unionized labor, joined with banking trade groups to sign off on the letter, lends credibility to the “devastating consequences” the letter enumerates of a Central Bank Digital Currency. A CBDC would allow the Federal Reserve to compete for deposits with credit … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 26, 2022 ~ In October 2008 a group or individual using the name Satoshi Nakamoto released a paper outlining a new system for digital cash called Bitcoin. To this day, no one knows who Satoshi Nakomoto really is. For all we know, he/it/they could have been a strawman for the fossil fuels industry. Why do we say that? Because the major beneficiary of crypto has been the fossil fuel industry which has seen a growing demand for its dirty energy from crypto mining companies while the big losers have been the environment, local communities and average citizens around the world hoping to breathe clean air and save the planet for their children and grandchildren. Consider what Senator Elizabeth Warren had to say about crypto at a Senate hearing in June of last year: “Cryptocurrencies have turned out to be a fourth-rate alternative to real … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 26, 2022 ~ On Tuesday, the New York Fed’s trading desk released its annual report showing what it was up to in 2021. The New York Fed is the only one of the Federal Reserve’s 12 regional Fed banks to have a trading desk operation with speed dials to Wall Street’s trading houses, so we’re always interested in reading the “official” version of what’s been happening there. The report is a deeply sanitized version of the facts on the ground. (For example, there is nothing in the report to indicate that the New York Fed has established a second trading floor near the futures exchange in Chicago.) However, there is one paragraph in the newly-released report that took our breath away. It reveals that the New York Fed’s trading operation (officially called the System Open Market Account or SOMA) currently owns 38 percent of … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 25, 2022 ~ An attorney turned whistleblower who worked in compliance at JPMorgan Chase, Shaquala Williams, has named former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair as one of the parties receiving improperly processed “emergency payments” from the bank. Williams is suing the bank for retaliating against her protected whistleblowing activities by terminating her employment after she raised concerns about these payments to Blair and other serious compliance issues. (The case is Shaquala Williams v JPMorgan Chase, Case Number 1:21-cv-09326, which was filed last November in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.) The new revelation naming Tony Blair was contained in a transcript of Williams’ deposition that was filed with the court last week. Prior to that, Blair had been referred to simply as “a high risk JPMorgan third-party intermediary for Jamie Dimon…” in the Williams’ complaint. The fact that Williams … Continue reading →