Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,
In 1791, the first Secretary of the Treasury of the US, Alexander Hamilton, convinced then-new president George Washington to create a central bank for the country.
Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson opposed the idea, as he felt that it would lead to speculation, financial manipulation, and corruption. He was correct, and in 1811, its charter was not renewed by Congress.
On Monday, HSBC announced its deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) had expired, removing the threat of criminal prosecution for money laundering which had been hanging over the company for five years. From the Financial Times.
A few months ago, we noted that the Bank of Japan had decided to throw every textbook out of the window and crank their plunge-protection to '11'after reports surfaced that they owned a staggering 75% of Japan's ETFs.
The BOJ first started their buying spree in December 2010 - when they held no ETFs at all - and have since accumulated some $150 billion in aggregate holdings. The buying was all as part of unprecedented "economic stimulus" which has undoubtedly contributed to the Nikkei 225 Stock Average surging roughly 125% since December 2010.
Despite all the risk/margin worries, and volatility fearmongering, and fraud allegations, Bloomberg reports that, according to a person familiar, Goldman Sachs plans to clear bitcoin futures contracts when they go live next week.
“Given that this is a new product, as expected we are evaluating the specifications and risk attributes for the bitcoin futures contracts as part of our standard due diligence process,” Tiffany Galvin, a
spokeswoman for the bank, said in an emailed statement.
Citi stock tumbled, closing at session lows after the bank's CFO John Gerspach confirmed that the trading woes plaguing other banks would impact it as well, previewing Q4 trading as down "in the high teens." The percentage decline in trading revenue from a year earlier is largely driven by the bank’s fixed-income unit, Gerspach said on Wednesday at an investor conference in New York.