Posts

Showing posts with the label DERIVATIVES

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Have Mysteriously Disappeared from this Week’s Senate and House Banking Hearings

Image
SUBSCRIBE TO THIS NEWSLETTER Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Have Mysteriously Disappeared from this Week’s Senate and House Banking Hearings By  Pam Martens and Russ Martens : September 20, 2022 ~ There are  eight Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBS) in the U.S . They are: JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Bank of New York Mellon, Morgan Stanley, State Street and Wells Fargo. These are the banks that pose the greatest risk to the stability of the U.S. financial system and are monitored under the Federal Reserve’s stress tests. Five of those eight banks pose the greatest risk to financial stability because together they hold $200.18 trillion (yes  trillion ) in notional derivatives (face amount) or 86 percent of all derivatives held by all of the nation’s banks, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency – the federal regulator of national banks. Those banks are: JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, an...

Here’s the Chart of the Global Bank Causing Panic in Markets This Morning

Image
 SUBSCRIBE TO THIS NEWSLETTER Here’s the Chart of the Global Bank Causing Panic in Markets This Morning By  Pam Martens and Russ Martens : October 3, 2022 ~ The Swiss global bank, Credit Suisse, which is a derivatives counterparty to major Wall Street banks and U.S. insurers, raised alarm bells in markets on Friday and is raising more anxiety this morning. Its 5-year credit default swap (CDS), a measurement of its risk of defaulting on its debt, jumped to 250 basis points on Friday and traded as high as 350 basis points in early morning trade today. The big move in the CDS on Credit Suisse is further impacting the price of its common stock. The shares closed on Friday in New York at $3.92, just pennies away from its all-time low, then dropped another 11 percent in early morning trading in Europe today. When a major derivatives counterparty begins to see a blowout in its credit default swaps, that impacts the stock prices of all major Wall Street banks with significant exposure...

Credit Suisse and the Fed’s Plunge Protection Team

Image
 SUBSCRIBE TO THIS NEWSLETTER Credit Suisse and the Fed’s Plunge Protection Team By  Pam Martens and Russ Martens : October 4, 2022 ~ At 6:53 a.m. this morning (ET), Dow futures were up 454 points. That followed the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining 765 points yesterday. No one who has been a trader on Wall Street or a stock broker for multiple decades believes this rally is real. Wall Street veterans are thinking that either  the Fed’s plunge protection team  or the  Treasury’s plunge protection team  is behind the rally. Equally unbelievable, as the chart above indicates, is the fact that the major mega banks on Wall Street closed in the green yesterday. Many of these are counterparties to Credit Suisse derivatives and thus subject to the potential for contagion. Until everyone who works on Wall Street is 25 years old and too young to remember  what happened in 2008 after Citigroup began to quake , Wall Street traders are not going to believe that...

Nowhere to Hide: The Fed-Induced Bubble in Stocks and Bonds Is Blowing Up; Even the Typical Safe Havens of Gold and T-Notes Are Losing Money

Image
  SUBSCRIBE TO THIS NEWSLETTER Nowhere to Hide: The Fed-Induced Bubble in Stocks and Bonds Is Blowing Up; Even the Typical Safe Havens of Gold and T-Notes Are Losing Money By  Pam Martens and Russ Martens : September 25, 2022 ~ The corrupt political backdrop for today’s unprecedented market quagmire feels like a hyperbolic trailer for a low-budget sci-fi thriller: The former president of the only remaining superpower in the world has been charged with “staggering” frauds against banks – the ones he just deregulated as president. (This same former president was also caught red-handed with Top Secret documents after he left public office — but the super power’s 18 intelligence agencies have no idea what he did, or was planning to do, with these documents.) On the other side of the globe, the sitting president of a bygone superpower is engaging in nuclear saber-rattling and conscripting 60-year-old men to fight an illegal war while young, able-bodied men flee the country en masse...

AIG Was Brought Down by Derivatives in 2008. It Just Spun Off a Company Whose Prospectus Mentions Derivatives 371 Times

Image
  SUBSCRIBE TO THIS NEWSLETTER AIG Was Brought Down by Derivatives in 2008. It Just Spun Off a Company Whose Prospectus Mentions Derivatives 371 Times By  Pam Martens and Russ Martens : September 16, 2022 ~ Yesterday, mainstream media was touting that the largest Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the year, Corebridge Financial, had just finished its first day of trading. The IPO was priced at $21 and closed at $20.73 (ticker: CRBG), not an illustrious start. Corebridge Financial is the life insurance and annuity business of the giant insurer, AIG. In 2008, AIG required a $180  billion  bailout from the U.S. government because of its derivatives and stock loan deals with the big trading houses on Wall Street – many of the same ones that are now underwriting this IPO. If that’s not enough to make you suspicious, consider the fact that the word “derivatives” is mentioned 371 times in the prospectus for Corebridge Financial. (More on that in a moment, but first some backg...

The Market Is Freaking Out Over the Potential for a Perfect Storm: Fed Tightening, Shaky Mega Banks, and a Sharp Decline in Household Wealth

Image
  SUBSCRIBE TO THIS NEWSLETTER The Market Is Freaking Out Over the Potential for a Perfect Storm: Fed Tightening, Shaky Mega Banks, and a Sharp Decline in Household Wealth By  Pam Martens and Russ Martens : September 14, 2022 ~ The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,276 points yesterday for a decline of 3.94 percent. The Dow’s losses were outpaced by the tech-heavy Nasdaq, which gave up 632.8 points for a drop of 5.16 percent. The sharp selloff was triggered by the 8:30 a.m. report yesterday morning, an hour before the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange, that inflation had come in hotter than expected in August. Wall Street had been looking for a 0.1 percent decline in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Instead, the August reading showed an increase of 0.1 percent. The year-over-year rate slowed to 8.3 percent from 8.5 percent in July. The Fed is set to meet next Tuesday and Wednesday and with the CPI number coming in hotter than anticipated, there is now talk of the...