Search Results for: JPMorgan

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 8, 2023 ~ Since the banking crisis began making headlines at expensive media real estate, the narrative has been that deposits are fleeing the small commercial banks and flooding into the biggest banks that are perceived as too-big-to-fail and thus offer a safer venue for deposits. Because these mega banks are the same ones that the Fed has been bailing out since the financial crisis of 2008, that narrative requires believing that our fellow Americans are dumber than a stump. We decided to check out that narrative for ourselves. Not only is that scenario wrong, but it is so decidedly wrong, and it’s so easy to get the accurate figures, that from where we sit it looks like there might have been an agenda by someone to harm smaller banks. (Since it’s short sellers who have benefited to the tune of more than $7 … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 1, 2023 ~ On Wall Street, the business model is you eat what you kill. Jamie Dimon and the bank he helms, JPMorgan Chase, just devoured First Republic Bank after Dimon had orchestrated the worst “rescue” of First Republic in the history of banking rescues. Given the outcome, one has to wonder if this rescue flop was a bug or a feature. (See Related Articles below.) After 7 weeks of Jamie Dimon’s “rescue,” First Republic and its preferred shares had been downgraded by credit rating agencies to junk; its common stock had lost 98 percent of its market value, closing at $3.51 on Friday and at $1.90 in pre-market trading early this morning; its long-term bonds were trading at 43 cents on the dollar; and depositors continued to flee the bank. And in order to pay out all those deposits that were taking flight, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 17, 2023 On April 11, Wall Street On Parade ran this headline: Fed Report: Largest 25 U.S. Banks Have Shed $700 Billion in Deposits Over Past Year. Using deposit data directly from the Federal Reserve’s weekly H.8 report, we documented that contrary to the misleading reporting in the mainstream business press, it wasn’t the regional banks that were losing the bulk of deposits in the U.S., with the biggest banks the beneficiaries, it was actually the biggest banks that were dramatically shedding deposits. We explained as follows: “The reality is that the 25 largest domestically-chartered commercial banks in the U.S. have been bleeding deposits for most of the past 12 months, shedding more than $700 billion in deposits between April 13, 2022 and March 29, 2023. To put that in even sharper focus, all U.S. domestically-chartered commercial banks have lost a total of $970 billion during … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 13, 2023 Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is desperately attempting to redirect the media’s focus to anything other than two federal lawsuits that name his bank as a knowing facilitator and cash conduit for Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking ring. One lawsuit has been filed by the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands where Epstein owned an island-compound and air-lifted young girls in and out. The other lawsuit has been filed by an alleged underage victim of Epstein’s, Jane Doe 1. Dimon’s high-powered p.r. machine has been churning out headlines on his role as “rescuer” of the teetering bank, First Republic, (never mind that there are few signs that the bank has actually been rescued). And one would think that Dimon has written a new Magna Carta for all the press attention going to his unremarkable annual letter to shareholders. … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 3, 2023 ~ According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), there were 4,706 federally-insured banks and savings associations in the U.S. as of December 31, 2022. Of those, according to the quarterly report released last Friday from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a little less than one-quarter found a reason to engage in derivative trading activities. As of December 31, 2022, just 1,139 FDIC-insured commercial banks and savings associations reported trading of derivatives in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the OCC. Ostensibly, instead of running a derivatives casino, the other three-quarters of taxpayer-subsidized banks were doing what taxpayers want federally-insured banks to do: make business loans; provide affordable mortgage loans to homebuyers; provide checking accounts devoid of hacking, identity theft and predatory overdraft fees; and not blow up the bank by getting in bed with derivatives, crypto … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 21, 2023 ~ Jamie Dimon is the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., which is also ranked the riskiest global bank by its regulators. But instead of getting his own house in order in the midst of a banking crisis, Dimon has been peculiarly focused elsewhere. Over the past five days, Jamie Dimon’s legions of publicists have been burning up the phone lines with reporters, pushing the narrative that Jamie Dimon is some kind of financial wizard who needs to have a seat at the table to save the regional bank, First Republic Bank. (Scroll down here to see the exhaustive public relations effort that has gone into this narrative.) Last Thursday, news hit the wire services that Dimon had lined up 11 banks willing to place $30 billion in uninsured deposits into First Republic Bank. JPMorgan Chase, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 17, 2023 ~ At 6:33 a.m. this morning, this big, bold headline appeared at the very top of Bloomberg News web page: “How Dimon and Yellen Helped Secure $30 Billion Lifeline for First Republic.” This headline is part of a very long, highly questionable promotion of Jamie Dimon by Bloomberg News as the wunderkind of Wall Street banking. In reality, under Dimon’s tenure as Chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase has been on an unprecedented crime spree, including being charged with five felony counts by the U.S. Department of Justice, and his bank is annually ranked by U.S. banking regulators as well as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision as the riskiest bank on the planet. (See charts at this link at the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research. Give the page time to load the charts.) This morning’s headline at Bloomberg News was clearly … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 6, 2023 ~ The Attorney General’s office of the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) has filed a First Amended Complaint against JPMorgan Chase that has less redactions than an earlier version. The complaint makes devastating and detailed charges. It charges that the bank sat on a pile of evidence that Jeffrey Epstein was running a child sex trafficking ring as it continued to keep him as a client; accept his lucrative referrals of wealthy clients; and provided him with large sums of cash and wire transfers to pay off victims – one of whom was a “14-year old sex slave.” Attorneys for the bank are now resisting allowing Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon from being deposed under oath in the matter as to what he knew and when he knew it. The case is USVI v JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. (22-cv-10904) in U.S. District Court … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 16, 2023 ~ If yesterday had been National Creepy Crooks Day, JPMorgan Chase would have taken top honors. Bloomberg News reported on the creepy emails that former JPMorgan Chase executive Jes Staley was sending back and forth from his email account at the bank to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, as the bank was only too happy to handle 55 accounts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for Epstein. One set of emails suggested Staley was having kinky or sexual relationships with individuals dressed up as Disney characters. (Leave it to JPMorgan to take down not only its own brand but taint Disney’s brand as well.) Anyone who has ever worked at a major Wall Street brokerage firm or investment bank knows full well that emails are monitored by the company. This suggests that Staley knew he had nothing to fear from the bank’s … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 30, 2023 ~ According to a Yale School of Management study, in 2013 JPMorgan Chase had 1,339 hedge fund clients. As of July of last year, that number had soared to 4,281 according to the annual Convergence Inc. study. While Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley topped the total number of hedge fund clients (with 5,150 and 4,964, respectively) JPMorgan Chase ranked number one in terms of hedge fund Assets Under Advisement (AUA). (See Convergence Inc. study linked above.) There’s a big problem here that federal bank regulators are choosing to ignore at the peril of the U.S. financial system. JPMorgan Chase, unlike Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, is the largest federally insured, taxpayer backstopped, depository bank in the United States with more than $2.47 trillion in deposits as of June 30, 2022. Unfortunately, as a result of the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in … Continue reading →