Search Results for: JPMorgan

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 28, 2021 ~ According to their latest 13F form filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as of March 31, 2021 the U.S. mega banks on Wall Street held a staggering $6.56 billion in three Chinese education stocks that just had their business model put through a shredder by the Chinese Communist Party. As of yesterday’s close, that $6.56 billion is now worth about 90 percent less than it was on March 31. Depending on just when these mega banks started panic dumping their positions, their losses could be substantial. New Oriental Education & Technology (stock symbol EDU), Gaotu Techedu (which previously went by the name GSX Techedu) (stock symbol is now GOTU), and TAL Education Group (stock symbol TAL) were all trading below $7 a share shortly after the market opened this morning. New Oriental has gone from a share price of more … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 26, 2021 ~ What happened on July 20 with the 56-44 vote in the Senate to confirm Kenneth Polite (pronounced Po-leet) to head the most powerful criminal law enforcement office in the United States, the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, is a cautionary tale that should concern every American. Despite Polite owing more than $1.5 million in debts according to his financial disclosure form and public mortgage records; paying over 18 percent interest on an outstanding balance on a credit card; 19.99 percent interest on a personal loan; and now accepting a job where his income will be slashed by about 77 percent – not one Senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked a single question about this man’s bizarre financial picture during his confirmation hearing on May 26 or in written questions that followed. Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 14, 2021 ~ On Monday, the Federal Reserve (which includes no one elected to office by the American people) thumbed its nose at President Joe Biden, the man who received more than 81 million votes in the 2020 Presidential election, representing a 51.3 percent mandate from the American people who vote. On Friday, July 9, President Biden released a sweeping Executive Order warning federal agencies against actions that create “excessive market concentration” with specific mention of bank merger activity. One business day later, the Federal Reserve…wait for it…approved another bank merger. The Federal Reserve’s actions from January 1, 2006 through the latest data available on June 30, 2020, define the Fed as the quintessential “excessive market concentrator.” According to the Fed’s own data, it has approved 3,576 bank mergers, while denying zero merger applications, since January 1, 2006. (See data here and here.) At the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 13, 2021 ~ This evening, the PBS program, Frontline, will do something that corporate broadcast media has failed to do since the financial crash of 2008. Frontline will air the results of its year-long investigation of the most powerful financial institution in the world – the central bank of the United States – known as the Federal Reserve, or simply “the Fed.” The Fed’s radical makeover of itself began in December of 2007 when the Fed decided, on its own, that it had the authority to secretly pump out trillions of dollars in cumulative loans to prop up the mega banks on Wall Street, as well as to the foreign banks that were on the other side of Wall Street’s hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivative trades. The Fed secretly ran that program through at least July of 2010 according to the eventual … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 11, 2021 ~ Fed Chair Jerome Powell will take his seat before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday at noon and before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. for his semi-annual testimony on monetary policy. Some embarrassing questions may come up for Powell based on an investigative report on the Fed that’s airing earlier in the week. This Tuesday evening, the PBS investigative program, Frontline, will broadcast a documentary covering its year-long investigation of the Federal Reserve’s bailouts of Wall Street, from the financial crisis of 2008 to the present. According to the information about the program that Frontline has released, the documentary, titled “The Power of the Fed,” will include interviews with multiple people who believe that the Fed has been captured by Wall Street and is creating dangerous asset bubbles. Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham will tell viewers … 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: July 8, 2021 ~ Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the jury. You are tasked with the grave undertaking of deciding if the U.S. stock market is mentally fit to function as a barometer of the health of the U.S. economy and a gauge of the well-being of the nation in general. We will introduce evidence showing that on January 6, 2021, as a violent mob of thousands overtook police and seized control of the United States Capitol building around 2 p.m., the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a new intraday high of 31,022.65. And as the grisly scenes of rioting and mayhem continued to play out on every news channel in the United States, the Dow gave up very little of its huge gains on that day, closing at 4 p.m. with a gain of 437.80 points. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 7, 2021 ~ Last week the New Mexico Attorney General’s office filed a breathtaking, 128-page anti-trust lawsuit in federal court in New Mexico on behalf of the state’s $31 billion investment fund, the New Mexico State Investment Council. The Council manages a permanent endowment along with money for 23 state agencies. The lawsuit alleges, backed by striking evidence, that the following banks have engaged in a 16-year conspiracy of “bid rigging and price fixing” in the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market: Bank of America/Merrill Lynch; Barclays; BNP Paribas; Citigroup; Credit Suisse; Deutsche Bank; Goldman Sachs; JPMorgan Chase; Morgan Stanley; and RBS. The lawsuit also names a swaps trade association, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), as a defendant, noting that a “majority of ISDA’s board members” are employed by the bank defendants. The lawsuit characterizes ISDA as a “front organization.” Two other companies … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 2, 2021 ~ Dennis Kelleher, the co-founder, President and CEO of the nonpartisan Wall Street watchdog, Better Markets, has issued a scathing rebuke of the Federal Reserve’s so-called “stress tests” of the mega banks on Wall Street, calling them “toothless.” Kelleher’s criticisms revolve around two key points. The Fed is preordaining the outcome of the tests by (1) pumping up the banks’ capital with financial handouts prior to the tests and (2) by removing key aspects of the stress tests that would negatively impact the outcome. Kelleher writes that the Fed’s “unprecedented” support to financial markets and the economy since last March was $4 trillion and “has materially helped to bolster bank balance sheets and capital levels.” But Kelleher is overlooking the more than $9 trillion in cumulative repo loans that the Fed showered on the trading units of these mega Wall Street banks, at … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 24, 2021 ~ If you’ve been following our reporting of JPMorgan Chase since Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon has been at the helm, you’re aware of one striking fact: this bank has a pattern of getting into bed with unsavory characters: Bernie Madoff, check. Racketeering traders, check. A sex trafficker of children, Jeffrey Epstein, check. Money launderers, check. The guy who bragged on his resume that he knew how to game electric markets, check. Despite an unprecedented record of five felony counts from the U.S. Department of Justice since 2014, to which it admitted guilt, and the reputational damage this has done to its brand, JPMorgan Chase’s asset management unit made the unusual decision last year to form a joint venture with an SFR (Single-Family Rental company) whose tenant complaints are so eye-popping that they fill pages on the internet and have been the … Continue reading →