Article: The Swiss National Bank’s US Stocks: $150 Billion And Counting – OpEd

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The Swiss National Bank’s US Stocks: $150 Billion And Counting – OpEd

MISES, 15 May 2021

This time last year, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) had US stock holdings of $94 billion. The portfolio of Switzerland’s central bank has grown by $56 billion since, reporting ownership of $150 billion worth of US listed stocks as at Q1 2021.

Apple is currently the largest holding, at $8 billion, but the portfolio contains countless smaller publicly traded companies, like GameStop, valued at $25 million at quarter end this year. Continue reading “Article: The Swiss National Bank’s US Stocks: $150 Billion And Counting – OpEd”

Tweet: Anders Melin on Congress & Robinhood & Citadel

Tweet

Anders Melin
@MelinAnders

Robinhood just got asked by two lawmakers to send over its payment-for-order-flow contracts with market makers such as Citadel.

The letter came from @RepCindyAxne and @RepBillFoster

Robert Steele
@OSSRobertSteele

@Jim_Jordan @RepCindyAxne @RepBillFoster all market makers cheat and both Senate and House committees are complicit in http://wall-street-crime.org shall we dance? The tag cloud of names grows daily.

Article: Swiss central bank chief rejects ‘currency manipulator’ label from the U.S.

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Swiss central bank chief rejects ‘currency manipulator’ label from the U.S.

Elliot Smith, 17 December 2020

LONDON — Swiss National Bank President Thomas Jordan has rejected a U.S. decision to label Switzerland a “currency manipulator.”

The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday added Switzerland to a list of nations it suspects of deliberately devaluing their currencies against the dollar.

Jordan told CNBC on Thursday that neither the SNB nor Switzerland itself has artificially manipulated the value of the Swiss franc.

“Our monetary policy is necessary, it is legitimate, and we have a very low inflation rate — it is even negative at this moment — so we have to fight this deflation, and the Swiss franc is very strong, so it appreciated in nominal terms over the last 12 years enormously, both vis-a-vis the euro and vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar,” he said. Continue reading “Article: Swiss central bank chief rejects ‘currency manipulator’ label from the U.S.”

Article: Analysis: A currency manipulator tag for Switzerland may not deter FX approach

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Analysis: A currency manipulator tag for Switzerland may not deter FX approach

Saikat Chatterjee, John Revill and David Lawder, 16 December 2020

LONDON/ZURICH/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The threat of being named a currency manipulator by the U.S. Treasury may be an embarrassment for Switzerland, but even if the country does get the tag, it likely will have little effect on the Swiss National Bank’s monetary policy.

Switzerland is expected to meet all three criteria for such designation in the long-overdue U.S. Treasury report on the foreign currency practices of major trading partners. The Treasury has some discretion on whether to issue such a label, and the coronavirus pandemic, which has thrown trade and capital flows into chaos this year, could be a factor.

There would be no automatic punishment with a label, though U.S. law requires Washington to demand negotiations with designated countries.

Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan this year have also been in violation https://www.cfr.org/article/tracking-currency-manipulation of the Treasury’s three manipulation criteria: a $20 billion-plus bilateral trade surplus with the United States, foreign currency intervention exceeding 2% of GDP and a global current account surplus exceeding 2% of GDP.

Currency experts expect Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to issue the report within days, just over a month before he leaves office.

“The subtle implication of being put on this list is that you eventually could come under sanctions, and that puts pressure on these countries not to weaken their currencies so much, or to allow strengthening,” said Win Thin, global head of Currency Strategy at BBH.

But he said that in Switzerland’s case, as the exchange rate is its main tool for fighting deflation, “they may say, ‘Well, tough’”.

The Swiss central bank is firmly under the Treasury’s focus after spending 90 billion Swiss francs ($101.50 billion) on foreign currency intervention in the first half of 2020 amid pandemic-driven safe-haven inflows.

The SNB has long argued it is not trying to weaken the franc to gain a trade advantage. Instead, it aims only to stem the appreciation of its currency to head off the threat of deflation, which runs contrary to its goal of price stability.

“Switzerland has always been treated as a special case when it comes to exchange rate policy and even the U.S. Treasury has conceded in the past that Switzerland’s economic situation is “distinctive” and that its monetary policy options are limited by its small stock of domestic assets,” said David Oxley, a senior European economist at Capital Economics.

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Article: Racketeering Law Makes Its Return to Wall Street

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Racketeering Law Makes Its Return to Wall Street

Peter J. Henning

The New York Times 24 October 2019

Prosecutors have not brought a case under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, against Wall Street traders since the investment firm Princeton Newport Partners was indicted in the mid-1980s. The RICO charges filed recently against three traders at JPMorgan Chase indicate that prosecutors may be resurrecting the law to target white-collar defendants.

Prosecutors accused Michael Nowak, who was the head of precious metals trading at the bank, along with Gregg Smith and Christopher Jordan, of organizing the precious metals desk as a RICO enterprise to engage in “spoofing,” as well as wire and bank fraud in which JPMorgan and its customers were the victims

Spoofing,” which was made a crime by the Dodd-Frank Act, happens when traders are “bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution.”

Article: JPMorgan’s Metals Desk Was a Criminal Enterprise, U.S. Says

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JPMorgan’s Metals Desk Was a Criminal Enterprise, U.S. Says

By and

Bloomberg

  • U.S. invokes racketeering law in charging three metals traders
  • RICO statute is rarely used in cases involving big banks

The head of the bank’s global precious metals desk, Michael Nowak, 45, and two others ripped off market participants and even clients as they illegally moved prices for gold, silver, platinum and palladium, the Justice Department said Monday. Nowak was placed on leave last month, a person familiar with the matter has said. The other traders charged were Gregg Smith, 55 and Christopher Jordan, 47.

Article: JPMorgan traders indicted for market manipulation, racketeering: feds

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JPMorgan traders indicted for market manipulation, racketeering: feds

Stephanie Pagones

FOX Business, 16 September 2020

Three JPMorgan employees, some of whom were executives, were indicted on charges related to making fake orders of gold, silver and other metals to trick the market, federal Department of Justice announced Monday.

Gregg Smith, 55, Michael Nowak, 45, and Christopher Jordan, 47 and other co-conspirators allegedly manipulated the market by placing orders that they later canceled, in turn deceiving other participants about the actual supply and demand of the precious metals between May 2008 and August 2016, while they worked for JPMorgan’s global precious metals trading desk, the DOJ said.

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Article: Three J.P. Morgan precious metals traders charged as criminal probe continues

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Three J.P. Morgan precious metals traders charged as criminal probe continues

Dawn Giel

CNBC, 16 September 2019

Federal prosecutors on Monday accused three J.P. Morgan precious metals traders, including the global head of base and precious metals trading, of participating in a racketeering conspiracy in connection with a multiyear scheme to manipulate the markets and defraud customers.

The alleged scheme saw the nation’s largest bank by assets profit handsomely, while investors suffered losses.

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Article: The Taming of the Trading Monster

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The Taming of the Trading Monster

Even billionaires have feelings,” Alexandra Cohen had taken to saying. Her husband, Steve Cohen, is the billionaire in question. He’s one of the most successful hedge-fund managers in history—“the Michael Jordan of trading,” in the words of one Wall Street observer.

He’d built SAC Capital Advisors into one of the most profitable hedge funds in the world while amassing a net worth estimated at $11 billion.

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THE DOLLAR HAS NO INTRINSIC VALUE : DO YOUR ASSETS?