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Posts Tagged ‘U.S. banks’

CHRIS WHALEN DESCRIBES WHY 2011 COULD MAKE 2008 LOOK LIKE A CAKEWALK

CHRIS WHALEN DESCRIBES WHY 2011 COULD MAKE 2008 LOOK LIKE A CAKEWALK

Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist 

Christopher Whalen makes a remarkably convincing case for why we’ve simply kicked the can down the road and why the banks could be in for a repeat of their 2008 nightmares in 2011.  If Mr. Whalen is right the banking sector is in for a whole new round of government intervention, takeovers, likely nationalizations and general disaster:

The U.S. banking industry is entering a new period of crisis where operating costs are rising dramatically due to foreclosures and defaults. We are less than frac14; of& the way through the foreclosure process. Laurie Goodman of Amherst Securities predicts that 1& in 5 mortgages could go into foreclosure without radical action.

Rising operating costs in banks will be more significant than in past recessions and could force the U.S. government to restructure some large lenders as expenses overwhelm revenue. BAC, JPM, GMAC foreclosure moratoriums only the start of the crisis that threatens the financial foundations of the entire U.S. political economy.

The largest U.S. banks remain insolvent and must continue to shrink. Failure by the Obama Administration to restructure the largest banks during 2007?2009 period only  means that this process is going to occur over next three to five years –whether we like it or not.  The issue is recognizing existing losses ?? not if a loss occurred.

Impending operational collapse of some of the largest U.S. banks will serve as the catalyst for re?creation of RFC?type liquidation vehicle(s) to handle the operational task of finally deflating the subprime bubble.   End of the liquidation cycle of the deflating bubble will arrive in another four to five years.

Fast forward to the 1:07 minute mark where Mr. Whalen begins.

 


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How To Run Drug Money: Be A (Large) Bank

How To Run Drug Money: Be A (Large) Bank

Courtesy of Karl Denninger of The Market Ticker 

Oh, so the banks don’t just bilk investors and rip off municipalities, they also help Mexican Gangs run drugs?

This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers — including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine.

The admission came in an agreement that Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia struck with federal prosecutors in March, and it sheds light on the largely undocumented role of U.S. banks in contributing to the violent drug trade that has convulsed Mexico for the past four years.

That’s nice.  Guns and ammunition cost money – lots of it.  Getting that money requires some means of transporting it and "laundering" it.  For that, we turn to the largest financial institutions in the world, who, it turns out, have never been prosecuted for these felonious acts.

“Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations,” says Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor who handled the case.

Blatant disregard?  Sounds like something you’d say at a sentencing hearing, right?  Well, no….

No big U.S. bank — Wells Fargo included — has ever been indicted for violating the Bank Secrecy Act or any other federal law. Instead, the Justice Department settles criminal charges by using deferred-prosecution agreements, in which a bank pays a fine and promises not to break the law again.

‘No Capacity to Regulate’

Large banks are protected from indictments by a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory.

Indicting a big bank could trigger a mad dash by investors to dump shares and cause panic in financial markets, says Jack Blum, a U.S. Senate investigator for 14 years and a consultant to international banks and brokerage firms on money laundering.

The theory is like a get-out-of-jail-free card for big banks, Blum says.

“There’s no capacity to regulate or punish them because they’re too big to be threatened with failure,” Blum says. “They seem to be willing to do anything that improves their bottom line,


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Derivatives “Reform” or “Let’s Just Pretend It Isn’t a Problem but Act Like We Fixed It” ?

Derivatives "Reform" or "Let’s Just Pretend It Isn’t a Problem but Act Like We Fixed It"?

Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant 

[click on images/tables to enlarge]

 Pic credit: MTTS

A-ha! I f**king love "reform" in this country. God bless America!

Bloomberg:

Three of the five U.S. banks that dominate swaps trading already perform most transactions outside their depository institutions and would face minimal disruption from a congressional proposal to reorder the derivatives business, financial statements and banking records show.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. would be hit hardest by the proposal, crafted by Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln, to wall off swaps desks from commercial banks. JPMorgan had 98 percent of its $142 billion in current value derivatives holdings inside its bank in the first quarter of this year while Citigroup had 89 percent of $112 billion, the records show.

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., each of which entered the commercial banking business in 2008 in the midst of the financial crisis, would be less affected. Morgan Stanley kept just over 1 percent of its $86 billion in derivatives holdings in its bank in the first quarter, and Goldman Sachs Group’s held 32 percent of its $104 billion. Bank of America Corp., which absorbed broker-dealer Merrill Lynch in 2009, had 33 percent of its $115 billion in its bank.

Now might be a good time to introduce a handy chart that shows the latest OCC data on derivatives exposure, or, more specifically, shows the concentration of said derivatives exposure among FIVE banks. You know, that would be the five banks that Blanche Lincoln might have wanted to target with this "reform" plan of hers. Just sayin, cue chart:

And let’s see, just who are those five banks?

JP Morgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citi, and Wells Fargo eh? Well four out of five ain’t bad except that fifth is a b#*ch, how on Earth does Goldman get to weasel out of this?

From the OCC report:

The report shows that the notional amount of derivatives held by insured U.S. commercial banks increased by $8.5 trillion (or 4.2 percent) in the fourth quarter to $212.8 trillion. Interest rate contracts increased $7 trillion to $179.6 trillion, while credit derivatives increased 8 percent to $14 trillion.

The report also


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Wall Street Set to Pay a Record $140 Billion In Bonuses Topping 2007

Wall Street Set to Pay a Record $140 Billion In Bonuses Topping 2007

Courtesy of Jesse’s Café Américain

While the world suffers, Wall Street pays itself record bonuses, larger even than the peak year of 2007, by taxing the productive economy to maintain an extravagant lifestyle. These bonuses are being paid with your money, and your children’s money, if you hold US dollars.

And while this happens, the US credit card banks are raising interest rates to 20+% even on customers with excellent payment records and jobs which is certainly usury, and with an arrogant impunity. The insider trading scandals and tales of government graft yet to be told are so blatant and shocking that only a captive mainstream press keeps them from being investigated.

The rest of the world looks on in shock and amazement. What has gone wrong with America? What are they thinking? America has not only lost the high ground, it is sliding into a ditch.

While Americans are pacified by bread and circuses, the rest of the world looks at a painful reality show in the States, a country in a death spiral of corrupt leadership and public apathy. If it was Zimbabwe or Iceland there would still be sympathy for the people, but far less concern.

A deflationist friend was railing about the US slide into bankruptcy, and I could not help but ask, "What happens to the paper of a bankrupt company, or country?"

Where indeed will the dollar gain its long anticipated strength, its renaissance of value?

Or yes, from "less dollars" through debt destruction. Mutant monetarism gone mad, an argument worthy of Herr Goebbels. The dollar will rise in value by immersing itself in a pool of corruption, and by destroying its shareholders, those who hold their savings in it, while oligarchs loot the financial system. Unless the US can turn its trade balance positive overnight, while raising interest rates, and maintaining a growing domestic economy based on consumption, it is not going to happen. The US is running out of degrees of freedom.

Wall Street holds the US public and government hostage by threatening financial armageddon if they do not get what they wish. We would anticipate a similar threat to the global economy based on dollar debt at some point, asking for a global monetary regime controlled out of New York and


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The Largest U.S. Banks Have Repeatedly Gone Bankrupt Due to Wild Speculation.

Excellent post by George.

The Largest U.S. Banks Have Repeatedly Gone Bankrupt Due to Wild Speculation. The Fed Blessed the Speculation then Helped Cover Up the Bankruptcies

banks, gamblingCourtesy of George of Washington’s Blog

As I have previously pointed out, the New York Times wrote in February:

In the 1980s, during the height of the Latin American debt crisis, the total risk to the nine money-center banks in New York was estimated at more than three times the capital of those banks. The regulators, analysts say, did not force the banks to value those loans at the fire-sale prices of the moment, helping to avert a disaster in the banking system.

In other words, the nine biggest banks were all insolvent in the 1980s.

Richard C. Koo – former economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and doctoral fellow with the Fed’s Board of Governors, and now chief economist for Nomura – confirmed last year in a speech to the Center for Strategic & International Studies that most of the giant money center banks were insolvent in the 1980s.

Specifically, Koo said:

  • After the Latin American crisis hit in 1982, the New York Fed concluded that 7 out of 8 money center banks were actually "underwater"
  • All the foreign banks (especially the Japanese banks) had to keep their lending facilities open to American banks so the American banking system didn’t collapse overtly and out in the open
  • The Fed knew that virtually all of the American banks were "bankrupt", but could not publicly discuss how bad the situation was. If went out and said the "American banks are bankrupt", the next day they will go overtly go bankrupt. So the Fed had to come up with a lot of stories like "its good debt on their books"
  • Then-chairman Volcker instructed the banks to keep lending to the Mexican dictator so that the Mexican economy didn’t totally collapse, because – if Mexico collapsed – it would become obvious that all of the U.S. banks were underwater, and they would immediately collapse
  • It took 13 years to manage the crisis (at another point in the talk, Koo says 15 years).
  • The way that Volcker approached the problem was that he allowed U.S. banks to keep their lending rates relatively high, while the central bank brought short-term


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Insider Scoop

Long Setup in Herbalife Still Attractive; Stock Breaks Out as New Auditor Hired

Courtesy of Benzinga.

Few stocks have attracted more news over the last six months than nutritional supplement maker Herbalife (NYSE: HLF).

Even casual market observers are aware of the circumstances surrounding the the initial bout of extreme volatility in the name back in December 2012. The shares went into free-fall at the end of the year after hedge fund manager Bill Ackman revealed in typical sanctimonious fashion that his firm Pershing Square Capital Management was short around $1 billion worth of the stock.

Amid much pomp and circumstance, Ackman laid out his short thesis at a New York investment conference and...



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Phil's Favorites

Most investors underperform their already underperforming funds

Interesting article by Joshua Brown on investors performing worse than the funds they trade in and out of. It's the same principle at play that Paul Price describes in his article: March Madness and Your Trading Decisions

Most investors underperform their already underperforming funds

Courtesy of 

At my shop we spend more of our time thinking about how we can succeed through behavior rather than through trying to find the next hot stock or fund manager.

We're always fascinated by those who choose the other, less rational route and we ...



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Zero Hedge

And The Band Played On...

Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.

Submitted by Tyler Durden.

Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform blog,

A confluence of events last week has me reminiscing about the days gone by and apprehensive about the future. I’ve spent a substantial portion of my adulthood rushing to baseball fields, hockey rinks, gymnasiums, and school auditoriums after a long day at work. I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed every moment. Watching eight year olds trying to throw a strike for two hours can become excruciatingly mind-numbing. But, the years of baseball, hockey, basketball, and band taught my boys life lessons about teamwork, sportsmanship, winning, losing, hard work, and having fun. There were championship teams, awful teams and of course...



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Option Review

Big Volume In Saks Options As Shares Rip Higher

 

Today’s tickers: SKS, USG & PFE

SKS - Saks, Inc. – Timely bullish bets initiated in Saks options just seconds prior to the closing bell on Tuesday are generating sizable gains for at least one trader today, with shares in the high-end retailer up at the highest level since 2008. The stock closed Tuesday up 11% on the day at $13.67 after the company reported first-quarter revenue above average analyst expectations. Within minutes of the close shares in SKS moved sharply to the upside after the New York Post, citing a source familiar with the matter, reported...



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Chart School

S&P 500 Snapshot: Fed Induced Bipolar Disorder

Courtesy of Doug Short.

With yesterday's dovish duo Bullard and Dudley to set expectations, the S&P 500 rallied in anticipation of Chairman Bernanke's congressional testimony and soared to its all-time intraday high, up 1.07% during his prepared remarks. But the Q&A deflated the balloon, and the 2 PM release of the latest Fed Minutes accelerated the decline. It seems that the possibility of tapering QE in the near term is not entirely off the table. The index hit its -1.23% intraday low about 30 minutes before the final bell. It then trimmed its loss to close down 0.83%. The 10-year yield jumped 9 bps to close at 2.03%, just off the 2013 interim high of 2.07% on March 11th and 37 bps off its 2013 low set 14 sessions back.

Here is a 15-minute look at the week so far.

Not surprisingly the volume on today's 2.32% high-low intraday range was 24% above its 50-day movi...



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All About Trends

Mid-Day Update

Reminder: David is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Click here for the full report.




To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...

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Market Montage

More History

Submitted by Mark Hanna

Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.

Doing a lot of data mining as we watch this market go parabolic.

The S&P 500 is 13.4% over the 200 day moving average.  10%+ is considered overbought, and 12% is very rare.

The current Relative Strength Index (RSI) on the S&P 500 is 75.  Over 70 is generally overbought (below 30 oversold).  To put in perspective in 1999 the S&P touched 70ish a few times but never hit 75.   The NASDAQ in 1999 – early 2000 hit mid 70s a few days in July 99 and Mar 00.  Then in the parabolic move in November and December 1999 (NASDAQ gained over 1000 pts!) it sat between 70 and mid 80s for most of two months; of course t...



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Sabrient

What the Market Wants: No Easy Answer

Courtesy of David Brown, Sabrient Systems and Gradient Analytics

So, what did the market want today?  Nothing it appears.  It traded on weak volume and had very little movement.  This morning the market hated commodities especially silver, but by days end, the market liked silver, gold and even oil but not the dollar.  Why?

Last week the economic reports were tough, with bad misses on more than one occasion.  But the market tended to ignore the bad news, probably because money continues to pour into equities from money market funds, long term fixed income, and many struggling foreign economies.  On Thursday, investors finally caved to even more bad news from Initial Jobless Claims and weak Housing Starts.  Then on Friday, when Michigan Sentiment and Leading Indicators posted large positive surprises, the money came pouring back to generate qui...



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OpTrader

Swing trading portfolio - week of May 20th, 2013

Reminder: OpTrader is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current  trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).

We also indicate our stop, which is most of the time the "5 day moving average". All trades, unless indicated, are front-month ATM options. 

Please feel free to participate in the discussion and ask any questions you might have about this virtual portfolio, by clicking on the "comments" link right below.

To learn more about the swing trading virtual portfolio (strategy, performance, FAQ, etc.), please click here

Optrader 

...

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Stock World Weekly

Stock World Weekly

NEW: Newsletter writers are available to chat with Members regarding topics presented in SWW, comments are found below each post.

Here's the latest Stock World Weekly! Just sign in with your PSW user name and password, or sign up to try it out. 

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IRA Strategy/Income Trader

The IRA portfolio

Reminder: Craigzooka is available to chat with Members regarding his virtual portfolio performance, comments are found below each post.

By Craigzooka

I am going to share with you how I manage my IRA and the power of reducing your cost basis.  My goal each year is a 20% return in my IRA.  Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't, but I believe that all of my success is due to reducing my cost basis.  To illustrate the power of reducing your cost basis here are some trades we did last year.  These trades are taken from an educational portfolio we ran in a paper-trading account for a little more than a year.

  • We bought RIG on 5/15/2012 for $44.13, sold it on 1/18/2013 for $46 but booked a profit of $1,154.
  • We bought MT on 1/4/2012 for $19.24, sold it on 12/21/2012 for $15 but booked a profit of $454.
  • We bought CHK on 1/27/2012 for $21.93, sold it on 10/19/2012 for $18 b...


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ETF Selector

Stock Market Gets Big News After Friday’s Close

Courtesy of John Nyaradi.

Stock market posts another record setting week, but the big news came after Friday’s close.

Courtesy of NASA

The stock market put on another record setting show with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) closing at a record high 15,118 and the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) closing at 1633.70, another all time closing high.

For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) gained 1%, the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) climbed 1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite (NYSEARCA:...



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Pharmboy

Give Them an Inch, They Will Take a Mile

Reminder: Pharmboy is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.

Well, well, well....it is good to know that there are others in the scientific arena who believed that YMI Bioscience's data (cough - Gilead) is a better drug than Incyte's Jakafi.  Now, the definitive data are still unknown, but there was enough evidence from a Phase 2 trial to take a small risk for a huge reward.  So, let's forget about Apple (AAPL), and do nothing but biotechs from now until Congress passes universal health care coverage for prescriptions....and drive the prices down so that research and development is no longer feasible to conduct in the US. Even Seattle Genetics (SGEN) has been on a tear as of late...



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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...

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