Search Results for: JPMorgan

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 2, 2021 ~ The chart above has been compiled by the St. Louis Fed using the New York Fed’s data for its issuance of Reverse Repurchase Agreements, otherwise known as Reverse Repos. What’s a Fed Reverse Repo? According to the New York Fed, it is when counterparties loan the Fed money in exchange for collateral, which is typically Treasury bills. In the most recent action, we’re talking about the New York Fed, acting on behalf of the Federal Reserve, selling U.S. Treasuries to Wall Street banks, trading houses, mutual funds and government-sponsored enterprises in overnight and weekend deals and paying zero or next to zero as an interest rate when it buys back the securities. Why would the smartest guys on Wall Street, who never let a loose dime slip through their fingers in order to get a larger cut of the annual bonus pool, be … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 28, 2021 ~ CEOs from the six largest banks on Wall Street testified under oath yesterday before the House Financial Services Committee. But only one CEO, Jamie Dimon, had an ear-piercing electronic sound emanate from his microphone, which blocked out the sound of his voice, when he was asked key questions by two separate members of Congress. The situation was so bizarre that Congressman Juan Vargas, a Democrat from California, said this about the episodes: “It reminded me of the movie ‘Young Frankenstein.’ Every time they said ‘Luther’ the horses would get scared. Every time they said ‘Jamie Dimon,’ the computers would get scared.” The first episode occurred after Congressman Al Green, a Democrat from Texas, told Dimon that two of the banks previously purchased by JPMorgan Chase had used slaves as loan collateral and at one point, after calling in a loan, the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 27, 2021 ~ Last evening, Bloomberg News, followed by the Wall Street Journal, reported that the U.S. Department of Justice has opened a probe into the late March collapse of the Archegos family office hedge fund. The Wall Street Journal reported that “Banks that lent to Archegos, including Credit Suisse Group AG, UBS Group AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley,” had been contacted for information by the Justice Department. According to media reports, Archegos is believed to have leveraged $20 billion of its own capital into more than $100 billion in stock and derivative exposure through margin loans from the banks named above, as well as others. Among the laundry list of items the Justice Department may be investigating, is whether the banks violated the Federal Reserve’s Regulation T, which would have limited the banks to an initial margin loan of no … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 27, 2021 ~ Senator Sherrod Brown opened yesterday’s Senate Banking Committee hearing with some fiery words about the mega banks on Wall Street, stating: “Like most Americans, I want businesses to make money, and I don’t mind that bankers are rich. Some people are going to be wealthy, and that’s fine. Here’s the problem: under the current system, Wall Street profits no matter what happens to workers, because those profits now come at the expense of workers. And your banks are the ones that largely built that system. “We often hear about the ‘invisible hand.’ But the economy isn’t physics – it’s not governed by scientific laws outside our control. It’s made up of people making choices about our values and the society we want to live in. The ‘invisible hand’ doesn’t lay off workers. The ‘invisible hand’ didn’t invent credit default swaps. The … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 26, 2021 ~ Below are selected remarks from Jamie Dimon’s prepared statement for the Senate Banking Committee hearing today, which will take testimony from a total of six Wall Street bank CEOs. Wall Street On Parade’s annotated remarks appear in brackets and italics. ~~~ “Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Toomey and distinguished members of the Committee, I appreciate the invitation to appear before you to talk about JPMorgan Chase, the strength and resilience of the U.S. financial system, and the people, businesses and communities we serve.” [The strength of the U.S. financial system would, of course, be a lot safer and sounder if the largest bank in the U.S., at which Dimon serves as Chairman and CEO, had not been charged with five felony counts since 2014, all occurring under his leadership. The bank admitted to all five counts.] “JPMorgan Chase is a global financial services firm … 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 10, 2021 ~ You know there’s a problem when the media relations office at the Federal Reserve will not turn over the bio for one of its employees that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen just tapped to be the acting head of a key Wall Street banking regulator. After days of media rumors that Yellen was set to appoint Michael Hsu, an Associate Director of the Federal Reserve’s Division of Supervision and Regulation, to be the acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Yellen made the announcement official on Friday. Hsu is set to assume that position today. We had attempted to obtain Hsu’s bio from the Federal Reserve for days. We were told they had no official bio. We asked for the resume Hsu provided when he was hired. We received no response. We then asked the Treasury Department’s … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 7, 2021 ~ Remember the phrase “putting lipstick on a pig.” It became popular after the dot.com bust when it was learned that the big Wall Street banks had glowingly recommended “hot” new issues of stocks to their customers while secretly calling them “crap” and “dogs” in internal emails. Putting lipstick on a pig is what the Federal Reserve is attempting to do in the Financial Stability Report it released yesterday afternoon. Both the lipstick and the pig are captured in this paragraph on page 8 of the Fed’s report: “Banks remain well capitalized, and leverage at broker-dealers is low. Measures of hedge fund leverage are somewhat above their historical averages, but the data available may not capture important risks from hedge funds or other leveraged funds.” To unpack the scope of the Fed’s deception in this paragraph, one needs to first understand that … 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 →