By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 24, 2022 ~ With U.S. President Joe Biden arriving in Brussels today for three summits with NATO, the G7 and the European Union, Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to put on a big show of normalcy for the citizens of Russia by reopening the Moscow Stock Exchange for stock trading after a month’s closure. The exchange, known as the MOEX, shuttered stock trading after the trading session on February 25, the day after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. On February 24, the day of the Ukraine invasion, the MOEX index had plunged by as much as 45 percent before paring the losses to 33 percent by the close. After the MOEX shuttered trading, many of the Russian companies were trading for pennies on the London Stock Exchange before it also suspended trading in Russian companies. The reopening of the MOEX today for stock trading was … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 23, 2022 ~ As someone who has watched trading screens for the past 36 years, it’s pretty easy to spot a fake market. As the charts below indicate, there is an invisible hand (or hands) pushing this stock market up when it should be plunging. The likely suspects are U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s Plunge Protection Team, known as the Exchange Stabilization Fund; foreign central banks that are aligned with the U.S. position on Ukraine and want to help stabilize financial markets in the West; hedge funds and Wall Street’s Dark Pools owned by megabanks that are net long the market; or a combination of all of the above. One thing’s for sure, the stock market is not responding in a normal fashion to soaring inflation, a hawkish Fed, spiking interest rates, and military aggression by an out-of-control dictator with 6,000 nuclear warheads. Consider the chart below: … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 22, 2022 ~ As the headlines in mainstream media grew ever more alarming in late 2021 regarding Russia’s troop buildup around Ukraine, approximately $225 million per day (or $13.7 billion over a span of 61 days) had been waged in bets that Russia might default on its sovereign debt. These bets are known as Credit Default Swaps and can be used to hedge exposure or simply speculate on a debt default in hopes of making a profit. This information resides in a publicly-available swap repository maintained by the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC). For the period of September 20, 2021 through December 19, 2021, the DTCC shows that an average of 26 trades per day were being made in the Credit Default Swaps on the Russian Federation’s sovereign debt, for a daily total of $225 million notional (face amount of credit default swaps). … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 21, 2022 ~ The Fed has just raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point with a projection of six more rate hikes ahead this year – which is usually the death knell for stocks. Russia has invaded Ukraine, a sovereign country of 44 million people, which has forced NATO countries to provide weapons to Ukraine. This has brought threats of retaliation from Russian President Vladimir Putin, creating the worst military crisis since the beginning of World War II. None of this is the stuff of which bull markets in stocks are made. Despite that, the wizards at JPMorgan Chase are telling its millions of clients around the world that it’s time to buy this stock market. (Before you decide to take advice from JPMorgan Chase, you may want to read this.) Even more interesting, the half of JPMorgan that was split off … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 18, 2022 ~ On March 8, Wall Street On Parade reported that despite announcements by British Petroleum (BP), Shell and ExxonMobil that they were cutting business ties to Russia in response to Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, another oil conglomerate, Koch Industries, remained silent. Koch Industries is the privately-owned cash cow that has fueled the infamous “Koch Brothers” creepy intrusions into every nook and cranny of American politics, using labyrinthine layers of well-financed front groups. The oldest brother, Charles Koch, whose personal wealth is estimated at $53 billion according to Forbes, remains at the helm of Koch Industries and a sprawling political power base. David Koch died in 2019. Koch front groups also played a pivotal role in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 in an effort to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin’s admirer, Donald Trump, in the White House. See: … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 17, 2022 ~ Yesterday, it was widely reported in the business press that Saudi Arabia is considering pricing its oil deals with China in China’s own currency, the Yuan, rather than in U.S. Dollars, which is the currency of choice for the bulk of the global oil trade. While it should be noted that this talk has been making headlines for the past four years without actually coming to fruition, the U.S. should stop taking the respected status of the Dollar for granted. Three of the key reasons that the U.S. Dollar has been able to maintain its status as the global reserve currency are the following: a stable government which is not subject to being toppled by coups; a large working population which allows federal tax payments to be automatically collected from paychecks in order to pay the nation’s debts on time; and, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 16, 2022 ~ We received an email alert from the House Financial Services Committee last Sunday indicating that its Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship and Capital Markets will hold a hearing on March 30 titled: “Oversight of America’s Stock Exchanges: Examining Their Role in Our Economy.” You can file that hearing under too little, too late. At a moment in history when the U.S. finds itself dangerously close to World War III and the U.S. financial system should be projecting itself as powerful and invincible to enemies of the U.S., we’re watching wheels come off a growing number of markets. Congress has been on notice that stock markets in the U.S. were rigged since March 30, 2014 when Wall Street veteran and bestselling author, Michael Lewis, released his book “Flash Boys,” and sat down with Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes to explain exactly how … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 15, 2022 ~ Traders who feel they were robbed of their profits trading nickel last week at the London Metal Exchange (LME) have taken to Twitter to verbally accuse the LME of favoring their “cronies” and behaving like “slime balls.” Lining up as crony suspect Number 1 are units of JPMorgan Chase who, together, hold the largest number of Class B shares in the London Metal Exchange than any other member. Those units are J.P. Morgan Markets Limited with 25,000 shares; J.P. Morgan Metals Limited with 19,100 shares; and J.P. Morgan Securities with 25,000 shares for a total of 69,100 Class B shares, according to a listing of shareholders on the LME’s website. In addition, the CEO of the Hong Kong Stock Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), which bought the LME in 2012, is Nicolas Aguzin. He joined the HKEX last May after spending 31 … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 14, 2022 ~ Nike can’t seem to take its own advice and “just do it.” On March 3 Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported that Nike was temporarily closing its more than 100 stores in Russia. The Wall Street Journal carried this statement from Nike: “We are deeply troubled by the devastating crisis in Ukraine and our thoughts are with all those impacted, including our employees, partners and their families in the region.” This sounds like something one might say following an act of nature – like a hurricane or a flood. It doesn’t sound appropriate for a barbaric bombing attack by Russian President Vladimir Putin on hospitals, schools and apartment buildings in Ukraine that had left hundreds of civilians dead at that point. The day after Nike’s statement to the press, we could find no official statement on Nike’s website to indicate that it … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 11, 2022 ~ Russia began its brutal invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Two days later the European Commission, U.S., U.K. and Canada announced sweeping sanctions, which have grown in granular details since then. By early this week, hundreds of corporations with the most famous brands in the world had announced that they were closing their stores in Russia, or ceasing to ship their products there, or severing joint business operations in a rebuke to Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine. But it wasn’t until this past Wednesday that anyone heard a peep from the largest U.S. banks on Wall Street about their plans to cease operations in Russia. Citigroup made its ambiguous announcement on Wednesday, March 9, followed by equally vague statements by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase on Thursday, March 10. A slogan of “The Coalition of the Timid” came to mind. Citigroup’s … Continue reading →