Net Asset Value Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds

Panic On Wall Street As Anti-Insider Trading Bill Spreads Wider Net Over Information Peddling

Senator Chuck Grassley put a clause back into the Senate's anti-insider trader law that requires financial analysts who meet with Congressmen and their staffs to register their meetings.

The purpose of this clause is to bring transparency to the information peddling that represents a lucrative business for hedge funds and banks that trade on insider information from the Congressmen themselves.

There is also the selling of information obtained in private meetings with the Congress to hedge funds. And rumour has it that quite a bit of that information spreads its way through the halls of the august Wall Street banks as well who help to gather it as well.

Wall Street apparently went into full court lobbying mode when they found out that Grassley had resubmitted this clause after they had successfully had it removed.

The clause only requires analysts to register their contacts and to disclose how they might be using the information provided by the Congress.

Information is power, and private access to public power is one of the great strengths of the Wall Street monied interests.

This bill might curtail the ability of JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs to obtain private information from the Finance Committees.  And they are upset about the loss of that privilege.

I am sure Mr. Obama, the great reformer who promised transparency, is solidly behind this move by the Republican Senator Grassley, right? Hard to tell right now.

Panic on Wall Street.

Bloomberg
Wall Street Sees Analysts Snagged by Political Intelligence Bill
By Phil Mattingly and Robert Schmidt
Feb 7, 2012 12:01 AM ET

A U.S. Senate measure that would place restrictions on people who gather and sell government information to hedge funds may entangle bank research analysts and others on Wall Street, according to lawyers and lobbyists. (The others are the conduits to the trading desks of the TBTF banks - Jesse)

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, which represents firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., held a rare weekend call for members on Feb. 4 to discuss the measure, according to two people with direct knowledge of the call.

The provision, part of a broader bill that passed the Senate last week and is scheduled to face a House vote this week, may require analysts and others to register with Congress and disclose contacts with government officials, according to a legal analysis prepared for the group’s members.

“There are going to be a lot of entities and organizations who will not want their people anymore to contact government officials to get information which might be used for a number perfectly appropriate purposes,” Robert L. Walker, an attorney for Wiley Rein LLP who is listed as one of the authors of the legal memo, said of the impact of the provision. ('Jump you fuckers' as the Tea Party said before they turned corporate. lol - Jesse)

The broader bill would ban lawmakers, their staffs, and much of the executive branch from trading stocks, commodities or futures based on confidential information they learn on the job. Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, succeeded last week in adding the provision that targets trading in so-called “political intelligence.” (There is nothing 'so-called' about it. That is what it is, and it is a form of corruption, albeit lucrative. - Jesse)

Such information may include conversations with lawmakers, congressional staff or other government officials about the future of legislation or regulations that have not been made public. That information has been targeted by lawmakers, who are pushing to identify firms and individuals in the business and force them to disclose their clients....

US Seizes Iranian Assets Citing 'Deceptive Financial Practices'

These fellows in New York, Washington, and London hate to see any amateurs engaging in deceptive financial practices without an official license or the right markings.

When the Iranians get good enough to move past merely practicing deception into the big leagues of world class professional fraud, and start playing ball with the big boys maybe the Iranian central bank can sign up for the primary dealer slot recently vacated by MF Global.

It is hard to imagine that Iran even has any assets remaining in the US or in any of their foreign branches.

The repatriation of assets and gold overseas is starting to gain some momentum, based on a fresh wave of vaporization concerns. Unless you're talkin about German gold which is on semi-permanent loan to Wall Street.

Bloomberg
Obama Freezes Iranian Government, Central Bank Assets
By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan
February 06, 2012, 11:47 PM EST

Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama ordered a freeze on all Iranian government and central bank assets held in the U.S. or any foreign branch of a U.S. entity, the White House said today.

The president cited “deceptive practices” of the Iranian central bank and an “unacceptable risk” to the international financial system from Iranian activities.

Previously, only assets belonging to sanctioned Iranian entities or individuals were frozen. The order, signed by the president yesterday, blocks all property and interests in property belonging to the Iranian government, its central bank, and all Iranian financial institutions, even those that haven’t been specifically designated for sanctions by the U.S. Treasury.

Longstanding U.S. regulations already prohibited American citizens or entities from virtually all direct and indirect transactions involving Iran or its government, aside from those exempted under general licenses for transactions involving food, medicine, remittances and humanitarian relief.

The measure was mandated as part of Iran sanctions legislation that was passed by Congress and signed by the president Dec. 31.

“I have determined that additional sanctions are warranted, particularly in light of the deceptive practices of the Central Bank of Iran and other Iranian banks to conceal transactions of sanctioned parties, the deficiencies in Iran’s anti-money laundering regime and the weaknesses in its implementation, and the continuing and unacceptable risk posed to the international financial system by Iran’s activities,” Obama said in his congressional notification...

MF Global Collapsed in the Face of a $310 Million Margin Call Made by 'Undisclosed Party'

The margin call was predicted here about day two as I recall. The question in my mind is the extent that JP Morgan and any of their other bankers and credit line holders played in this.

It will be interesting to see how this case progresses from the Giddens-Freeh bankruptcy team and into the hands of the regulators and Justice Department.

So far (for the past three years) the Obama Administration has been adverse to looking too far into these sorts of cases before throwing a waiver or settlement without admission of any guilt on the table.

Bloomberg
MF Global’s $310 Million Margin Call Exceeded Its Market Value
By Matthew Leising
February 06, 2012, 8:33 PM EST

Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- MF Global Holdings Ltd., the futures broker that filed the eighth-largest bankruptcy in October, faced a $310 million margin call on its final day that exceeded its market value.

Calls for payments tied to bets MF Global made on European sovereign debt increased Oct. 24 and continued through Oct. 31, the day the futures broker formerly run by Jon Corzine filed for bankruptcy protection, according to a report yesterday from James Giddens, a trustee overseeing the brokerage’s liquidation. MF Global had a market value of $198 million on Oct. 28 as it held $6.3 billion in European sovereign-debt trades.

After tracing 840 transactions of $327 billion in the company’s final days, Giddens is still analyzing where some of the $1.2 billion in missing customer money “ended up,” he said in the report. Corzine’s firm failed after credit-rating downgrades, a record quarterly loss and revelations about its $6.3 billion European debt trade unnerved investors. The missing money has sparked Congressional hearings and former customers have said it undermined confidence in the futures industry.

“For three months, our investigative team has worked to understand what happened during the final days of MF Global when cash and related securities movements were not always accurately and promptly recorded due to the chaotic situation and the complexity of the transactions,” Giddens said in a statement.

The trustee didn’t disclose the identity of the counterparties making the margin calls. The trades were cleared through LCH.Clearnet Ltd., according to an MF Global contingency plan drafted before its failure. In the plan, which was designed to address the effects of a credit-rating downgrade on the company’s solvency and liquidity, MF Global questioned whether it should move the debt trades out of LCH.Clearnet.

“How will LCH respond, how much in excess margin will be required, time period, can/will they force us out?” the brokerage questioned in a section of the plan titled “immediate decision making required.” The undated plan indicated the company could move some of the cleared positions to the over- the-counter market, where it could get more favorable terms.

Congress, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department are investigating events surrounding the collapse of MF Global, including the disappearance of the customer funds...