Search Results for: Federal Reserve

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 10, 2019 ~ On Friday markets digested the nonfarm payrolls report from the U.S. Labor Department showing a weak job growth in May of just 75,000. That news adds to a myriad of other economic data, including a slowdown in durable goods orders, that suggest a deceleration of the U.S. economy. The Atlanta Fed’s closely watched GDPNow indicator is showing a very weak 1.4 percent forecast for the second quarter of this year. The 10-year U.S. Treasury note has duly noted the deceleration in the economy and has fallen from a yield of 2.9 percent since the middle of December to 2.08 percent at Friday’s close. The yield of the U.S. Treasury has an inverse relationship to its price. That is, as the market value of the Treasury note rises, the yield declines. Thus, as the perception grows that the U.S. economy is … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 7, 2019 ~  Federal Reserve inspectors appear to be on some kind of mind-altering drug or their superiors are simply taking their marching orders from Wall Street cronies in the Trump Administration. Yesterday the Fed released a terse 104-word statement indicating that the largest and serially charged bank in the U.S., JPMorgan Chase, had shown “evidence of substantial improvements” in its “risk-management program and internal audit functions” and the Fed was therefore removing the dog collar it had put on the bank in January 2013. (JPMorgan Chase had been required to provide written progress reports to the New York Fed in 2013 until further notice – which became six years.) The Fed’s actions in 2013 stemmed from JPMorgan Chase secretly gambling with depositors’ money in exotic derivatives in London and losing at least $6.2 billion of those funds. The incident became infamously known … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 5, 2019 ~ It felt like headline writers were out to engineer a stock market rally yesterday by scaring hedge funds that had shorted the market to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. When traders who are short the market act simultaneously on breaking news, (news that suggests the stock market is going to rally), by buying back stock to close out their short positions, that causes a big upward spike in the stock market. In Wall Street parlance, it’s called a short squeeze. It happens a lot in a secular bear market and is a head fake to investors desperately looking for a bullish trend. A number of major business publications put a bullish spin on what the Chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, actually said in his opening remarks yesterday morning at a conference sponsored by the Federal … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 3, 2019 ~ U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin (a/k/a the former foreclosure king) has been attempting to dismantle regulatory restraints on Wall Street’s worst instincts since he took office. Making Mnuchin even more dangerous is the fact that, under statute, he simultaneously sits as head of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (F-SOC) even as he appears to be attempting to undermine financial stability in the U.S. One of Mnuchin’s most alarming actions on behalf of F-SOC came last October 17 when the Council announced that it was removing the designation of Prudential Financial as a SIFI – a Systemically Important Financial Institution that required enhanced supervision and prudential standards. Mnuchin stated at the time: “The Council’s decision today follows extensive engagement with the company and a detailed analysis showing that there is not a significant risk that the company could pose a threat … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 28, 2019 ~ Simon Potter, who runs the Federal Reserve’s open market operations at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is stepping down at the end of this week, as is Richard Dzina, head of the New York Fed’s Financial Services Group. Wall Street is buzzing over the fact that the two are long-tenured executives at the New York Fed;  are exiting simultaneously, and with only a four-day notice to the public and the markets – suggesting that their departure may not have been voluntary. The praise lavished on the pair in the press release issued today by John Williams, President of the New York Fed, also suggests that an effort is being made to soften the blow of their surprise departure. Potter is responsible for carrying out the monetary policy mandate of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) by supervising the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 24, 2019 ~ Most stock owners of J.C. Penney never thought they’d see the day when it traded as a penny stock. But that’s what happened yesterday when shares of the large retailer closed at 91 cents, a loss of 9.79 percent on the day. The macro picture is that J.C. Penney employs 95,000 people and operates 864 stores across the United States. Its future will have an impact on jobs and commercial real estate prices in the United States. At 91 cents a share, those prospects aren’t looking too good right now. The broader markets fared better than J.C. Penney yesterday but were, nonetheless, a sea of red. After being down more than 400 points intraday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with a loss of 286 points or 1.11 percent at 25,490. The Nasdaq, laden with tech losers, lost 122.5 points … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 23, 2019 ~ U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin appeared yesterday before the House Financial Services Committee. You know it was a bad day for the Secretary when the low point was not Congressman Stephen Lynch’s request to the Chair, Maxine Waters, to have Mnuchin held in contempt for not following the statute that calls for the IRS to turn over tax returns on any American when requested by an authorized Committee of Congress. Mnuchin has said he will not turn over the tax returns of the President of the United States, which are under subpoena by Congress. (The Internal Revenue Service, which holds these tax returns, is an agency of the U.S. Treasury.) Waters said she will seek the advice of the Committee’s counsel on the contempt request. A number of Democratic members of the Committee intensely questioned Mnuchin on  his myriad deregulatory … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 21, 2019 ~ After chasing the super rich for a century, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are now offering no minimum accounts. As we will explain shortly, their motives may not be all that altruistic. In March of 2016, the Wall Street Journal’s Emily Glazer reported that clients of JPMorgan Chase’s Private Bank “will be required to have at least $10 million in investible assets, twice the current minimum of $5 million.” What smells like real money to Goldman Sachs has also been eight-figures and higher. In 2013, the New York Times reported that Goldman had a $10 million minimum to manage private wealth and was booting out its own employees’ accounts if they were less than $1 million. High net worth individuals are what each of the mega Wall Street banks look for since the more money the bank invests, the more fees it generates … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 17, 2019 ~ At a House Financial Services Committee hearing yesterday, Republicans attempted to marshal arguments for why U.S. banks needed more relief from regulatory oversight. Those arguments weren’t helped by the news of the day. As the hearing got underway, headlines were being promulgated around the globe that JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and three foreign banks had been fined $1.2 billion by the European Commission for rigging foreign exchange markets. The U.S. Department of Justice leveled criminal felony charges on the same two U.S. banks in 2015 for rigging the same market. Both banks admitted to the charges at that time. A decade after the greatest financial crash in the United States since the Great Depression; after the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation has failed miserably in stopping the ongoing crime spree by Wall Street’s largest banks; and as radical right-wing members of Congress … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 15, 2019 ~ The House Financial Services Committee, Chaired by Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, has been doing the heavy lifting for Congress when it comes to oversight of the mega banks on Wall Street. After grilling the CEOs of these banks on April 10, the Committee will convene again tomorrow to grill the Federal regulators of these serially charged mega banks. The witness list includes: Rodney Hood, Chairman, National Credit Union Administration; Jelena McWilliams, Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC); Joseph Otting, Comptroller, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC); and Randal Quarles, Vice Chairman of Supervision, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The Committee has released a very impressive Memorandum, which lays out the Frankenbank framework that exists in the United States today. For example, consider this one sentence from the Memorandum: “U.S. G-SIBs [Global Systemically Important Banks] made … Continue reading →