by Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade
The Federal Reserve has thrown everything just short of the kitchen sink at propping up the mega banks on Wall Street – the same ones that were never prosecuted for their fraudulent issuance of mortgage securities and causing the worse economic crash since the Great Depression in 2008. (The Fed bailed the same banks out back then also – to the tune of $29 trillion in cumulative loans.)
But yesterday’s market action suggests that something is definitely amiss. The S&P 500 index closed at 3380, just 7 points away from topping its all-time high of 3386 that it set on February 19 of this year. The Dow also gained 289.9 points on the day. But now look at the chart above. There was a sea of red in the Wall Street bank stocks. While the losses in Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo were all less than 1 percent, they stood out noticeably. For example, six of the Dow Jones Industrial Average components closed with gains of more than 2 percent. Those stock were Intel, United Health, Merck, Home Depot, Microsoft and Apple. (Apple actually gained 3.32 percent on the day.)