Fed Chair Powell Sold Up To $500K of Securities on Same Day as Bank Stress Test Results
Centimillionaire Powell continues to obstruct disclosure of trade dates as FED buys more than $200 Billion in USTs and MBS in the month of May into historic inflation
The Office of Government Ethics quietly dropped Fed Chair Jay Powell’s annual financial disclosure for his 2021 transactions over the long holiday weekend. Surely, that wasn’t intentional. Surely, Wall Street-owned corporate media will cover it. If you couldn’t tell, we’re being sarcastic. You can review the disclosure yourself here: https://extapps2.oge.gov/201/Presiden.nsf/PAS+Index/C449CA3633F7780285258850002EC7B0/$FILE/Jerome-H-Powell-2022-278.pdf
But we’ll give you the quick download, just in case the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg and all the other Fed shills can’t afford the ink given the important things they cover (like how we’ve already hit “peak inflation” or how strong the economy really is even if it doesn’t feel that way to you). Suffice it to say, after the sprawling Fed insider trading scandal last year, centimillionaire Jay Powell isn’t about to come clean and own up to his own trading and disclosure violations.
As usual, Powell’s Form 278-e obstructs disclosure of the majority of trade dates. How many trades were there? We don’t know because he improperly hides the vast majority of dates behind “Multiple” — we do know there were at least 30 trades.
How many trades were during FOMC trade blackouts just like we exposed for Powell’s 2015 and 2019 transactions? We again have no idea. We do know that, as of May 16, Jay Powell is still invested in BDC Properties, LLC - a large DC area real estate investment company. We do know Jay Powell is still invested in substantial municipal bond holdings, which he is prohibited from holding by the Fed’s new trading rules!
In the Ethics Agreement he signed with OGE back in December 2021, Powell agreed to divest his muni bond holdings “as soon as practicable.” How the fuck is it that the Fed Chair’s personal financial advisor has been unable to divest Powell’s muni bonds in the past 6 months? Is the muni bond market really so illiquid it can’t handle a few million in redemptions?! Yikes!!!
Also of note, Powell disclosed(!) a large securities sale on June 24, 2021 — up to $500,000 in a Goldman Sachs proprietary fund (that invests primarily in what else - muni bonds). So what happened on that date you might wonder? Well, it was the exact same day that the Fed released “stress tests” for U.S. megabanks as required by the Dodd-Frank Act! Outside of the FOMC blackout period, it’s hard to imagine a more inappropriate day for a Fed official to make such a large securities transaction.
So what were the results? The banks supposedly all passed with flying colors, and equity markets remained strong on the back of the Fed pumping $120BN per month in QE purchases. Of course, many in the financial industry have doubts that everything is so rosy. Sheila Bair, head of the FDIC during the GFC, said of the results: “I’m losing my faith in the stress tests.” Bair felt the tests have become too predictable and are “looking in the rearview.”
But Powell and the Fed decided to remove all restrictions on bank dividends and share buybacks anyway. And Wall Street rejoiced with the largest employee bonuses EVER. Just one year after regular Americans like first responders, health professional, and truck drivers pulled the country through a pandemic with great personal sacrifice — only to be burdened with an inflationary cost of living crisis so that Powell’s cronies felt zero pain.
Quite simply, we’re mired in one of the most shameful chapters in American history. Our elected politicians in Congress don’t seem to give a shit (we can count on one hand the few that do). The fact that spineless Wall Street puppet Jay Powell garnered 80 votes from our Senators and is still the Fed Chair after all of this is truly mind boggling and gutting. We absolutely must hold these Senators — both Democrat and Republican — accountable in November.
Meanwhile, the Fed continues to purchase more than $200 Billion in US Treasurys and residential mortgage-backed securities in the month of May (with 2 Treasury auctions still scheduled next week). The figures are substantially in excess of the NY Fed’s own estimates for principal payments on the Fed’s asset holdings. How are we to believe the Fed is simply rolling over and reinvesting? Who the fuck thinks it was a good idea to wait until June to start QT other than Wall Street? It is crucial that the public know whether the Fed is deceiving us about actually ending QE in March, especially when the Fed’s actions have caused a nationwide inflation crisis.
We’ll keep it short today and let you all get back to your holiday weekend (if you’re able to take any time off under the crush of double-digit inflation). It’s a great time to remember how much our forebears sacrificed for us. We must not take it for granted, but that’s exactly what unelected officials like Fed Chair Powell do by repeatedly debasing our currency and burdening regular Americans with rampant inflation solely to enrich their cronies on Wall Street.
Happy Memorial Day.
-#OccupyTheFed
*Everything Occupy The Fed writes is for informational purposes only and represents the writers’ opinions based on publicly available information. Nothing we write is ever intended as, nor should it be relied upon as, investment advice. The best investment advice in this Golden Age of Fraud seems to be based on inside information from government officials, and we would never try to compete with that.
"No longer relevant, Powell, 68, told Republican U.S. Senator John Kennedy, 69, about the once-important measures of cash and easily spent assets that was a central focus for the Fed in the past
“When you and I studied economics a million years ago M2 and monetary aggregates seemed to have a relationship to economic growth,” Powell said, referring to one main measure of the money in public hands. “Right now ... M2 ... does not really have important implications. It is something we have to unlearn I guess.”"
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-powell-econ/powells-econ-101-jobs-not-inflation-and-forget-about-the-money-supply-idUSKBN2AN2EM
Take notice of the date Feb 23 2021...right before the "transitory" cover, then the "I made a mistake"
Another fine article. The stats on maturities and prepayments are not found elsewhere (mass media) for some reason. European inflation for May just came in at 8.1%, way more than “expected.” While the U.S. government lollygaggs on releasing the May number, there have been 13 straight monthly under predictions of inflation by those folks and the Fed. Look for error #14 to be spun by the media and the Fed.