Search Results for: JPMorgan

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 7, 2022 ~ There is a known $41 billion in Credit Default Swaps (CDS) on Russian debt. There is likely many billions more in unknown amounts. There are also billions more in Credit Default Swaps on state-owned Russian corporate debt and non state-owned Russian corporate debt. In addition to Wall Street not knowing which global banks and other financial institutions are on the hook to pay out on the Credit Default Swap protection they sold in case of a Russian sovereign debt default (or Russian corporate debt default), there is also approximately $100 billion of Russian sovereign debt (whose default is looking more and more likely) sitting on the balance sheets of foreign banks. Put it all together and you have the makings of a replay of the 2008 banking crisis when banks backed away from lending to each other because they didn’t know … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 1, 2022 ~ There is now an international competition for who can land the biggest insult to Russian President Vladimir Putin by severing business, financial, cultural and sports ties to Russia. Add Mickey Mouse to the growing list. Yesterday, the Walt Disney Company Tweeted this: “Given the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the tragic humanitarian crisis, we are pausing the release of theatrical films in Russia, including the upcoming Turning Red from Pixar. We will make future business decisions based on the evolving situation. In the meantime, given the scale of the emerging refugee crisis, we are working with our NGO partners to provide urgent aid and other humanitarian assistance to refugees.” As tens of thousands of outraged protesters take to the streets in cities around the world, some calling Putin a “war criminal,” and news photos spread of innocent Ukrainian children dying in an invasion … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 18, 2022 ~ There are apparently stock-picking analysts across Wall Street pumping out buy recommendations on stocks to the public who have never cast their eyes on those chilling derivative charts published quarterly by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. If the analysts had cast their eyes on those charts, the last thing they would be recommending right now are megabank stocks. We’re talking specifically about JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, which, together, control approximately 90 percent of the hundreds of trillions of dollars (notional/face amount) in derivatives held by all 4,900 banks and bank holding companies in the U.S. We’re also talking about the foreign banks that are significant derivative counterparties to these and other banks — such as Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Nomura and Barclays. The chart above shows how these banks performed yesterday … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 17, 2022 ~ Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal dropped the bombshell that the Justice Department has been conducting raids on prominent short-sellers, including Muddy Waters’ Carson Block and Andrew Left of Citron Research. The Journal reported that the Justice Department “has seized hardware, trading records and private communications….” Reuters reported yesterday that the Justice Department’s probe is “part of a wide-ranging investigation into short-sellers and hedge funds focused on suspected coordinated manipulative trading, according to two people familiar with the matter.” Reuters also reported that “dozens” of subpoenas have been issued to various firms since early last year. Of particular interest to Wall Street On Parade was a report on December 10 by Reuters which indicated that trading activity in the shares of GSX Techedu was in the cross hairs of the Justice Department because both Muddy Waters and Citron Research had circulated negative … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 11, 2022 ~ A Fed spokesperson has provided Wall Street On Parade with a detailed response to our article yesterday, which documented that trades were made in accounts in which Fed Chair Jerome Powell had a financial interest during a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in 2015 and another in 2019. Fed officials are clearly prohibited from trading before and during FOMC meetings because that is when they have insider, market-moving information. Below is the full statement from the Fed spokesperson. Following the statement, we will explain its many, serious flaws. “Chair Powell has not traded during FOMC blackout periods. The transactions that were reported occurred in family trusts over which he had no control. Chair Powell is not a trustee and did not direct or control the trades. He relinquished his previous role as a trustee in 2012 when he joined the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 10, 2022 ~ An anonymous activist group called Occupy the Fed reported in a Substack article on Sunday that Fed Chair Jerome Powell traded on the final day of a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on April 29, 2015, when he was a Fed Governor, and also on the final day of an FOMC meeting on December 11, 2019, when he was Fed Chair.  Powell’s trading directly violates the Fed’s written policy which prohibits trading “during the period that begins at the start of the second Saturday (midnight) Eastern Time before the beginning of each FOMC meeting and ends at midnight Eastern Time on the last day of the meeting.” The FOMC meetings are typically when the most sensitive and market-moving information occurs at the Fed, including votes on hiking or lowering interest rates and other confidential actions. Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 9, 2022 ~ At 3:00 p.m. last Friday, the Federal Reserve quietly released the following statement: “The Federal Reserve Board on Friday named Jerome H. Powell as Chair Pro Tempore, pending Senate confirmation to a second term as Chair of the Board of Governors. The action, effective February 5, enables him to continue to carry out his duties as Chair after the expiration of his term on the same day, and while the confirmation process is underway. In its annual organizational meeting in January, the Federal Open Market Committee separately named him as its Chair.” This is the first time in a quarter century that a Fed Chairman’s term has lapsed before he was reconfirmed by the Senate. According to Reuters, the last time it happened was 1996 when Alan Greenspan served from March 3 to June 20 as Fed Chair Pro Tempore. Powell … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 8, 2022 ~ As Wall Street On Parade, two trial lawyers, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and one of the bank’s former lawyers have suggested, the largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase, has enshrined crime as a business model. The man ultimately responsible for this business model is Jamie Dimon, the bank’s Chairman and CEO since December 31, 2006. Since 2014, JPMorgan Chase has the unprecedented distinction of admitting to five felony counts brought by the U.S. Department of Justice. In each case, it was given a deferred prosecution agreement and put on probation. (See a sampling of its Rap Sheet here.) Now Dimon and the bank have come into the cross hairs of Senator Sherrod Brown, Chairman of the powerful Senate Banking Committee that oversees the megabanks on Wall Street. Yesterday, Brown and five of … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 7, 2022 ~ Winston Churchill once described Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” The same could be said of Bloomberg LP, parent of Bloomberg News, which last Friday ran the false headline “Russia Invades Ukraine.” For still unexplained reasons, the headline was left up for at least 24 minutes on the digital front page of Bloomberg News. But as the hundreds of thousands of traders around the globe that use the Bloomberg Data Terminal well know, Bloomberg News first publishes many of its headlines on the Bloomberg Data Terminal – the cash cow of Bloomberg LP that has made its majority owner, Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire. Bloomberg’s largest customers for its Data Terminals include Wall Street megabanks like JPMorgan Chase that it also provides news coverage on via Bloomberg News. (Sometimes that coverage leaves a lot to be desired.) … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 3, 2022 ~ New details have emerged to provide a fuller picture of the turmoil that was taking place in the dark corners of markets when the overnight repo market blew up on September 17, 2019 and the Fed had to run to the rescue with trillions of dollars in cumulative loans that went on for months. Imagine if you were the Federal Reserve and had been thoroughly disgraced by waging more than a two-year court battle to prevent the press in America from doing its job and publishing the granular details of the Fed’s 2007 to 2010 bailout of Wall Street and its foreign bank derivative counterparties. Then the Fed was further disgraced after losing the court battles when in 2011 the details of the $29 trillion bailout were published. Chances are that the Fed would not be anxious to let the public … Continue reading →