Courtesy of Pam Martens.
New York Stock Exhange
According to a report out of London this morning, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE/Euronext) has been selected from a number of bidders to take over administration of Libor, the now discredited, rigged interest rate benchmark that had been previously overseen by the British Bankers Association, a lobbying organization for banks.
The idea that turning over the administration of Libor to the NYSE, whose major shareholders include some of the Wall Street firms currently under investigation for rigging Libor, would restore confidence in using Libor as an interest rate benchmark is…well…typical of Wall Street’s irrational thinking.
According to a March 31, 2013 report from Morningstar, the following Wall Street firms are among the major shareholders of NYSE/Euronext: Citigroup, 6.5 million shares; Morgan Stanley, 5.9 million shares; JPMorgan Asset Management (UK) Ltd., 4.9 million shares; Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., 4.2 million shares; Deutsche Bank AG, 3.7 million shares; Credit Suisse First Boston, 3.6 million shares; Goldman Sachs & Co., 3.1 million shares.
The Board of Directors of NYSE/Euronext includes former executives from across Wall Street, raising further red flags about the independence of the rate setting mechanism.
NYSE/Euronext also owns Liffe, a derivatives exchange operated out of Europe. Liffe trading includes derivatives indexed to Libor.
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