Free Republic

Although it sounds too far-fetched to be true, Americans don’t actually own the stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other assets held in common retirement vehicles such as Roth IRA and 401(k) accounts. In reality, Americans own what are called “security entitlements.” Back in the old days, before digitalization fundamentally transformed the mechanics of financial transactions, this was not the case. But that was then. This is now. Most Americans have probably never heard of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), which is “a comprehensive set of laws governing all commercial transactions in the United States.” Even fewer Americans are familiar with...

Bidenflation is a terrible tax on America’s middle-class and working class. But thanks to The Federal Reserve’s war on inflation, and it is now bleeding over to mortgage-backed securities yields. The most recent tightening by the Federal Reserve has pushed the federal funds target rate above mortgage-backed securities yields for the first time in history. Though this poses clear challenges of carry for MBS holders, selective investments in specified pool and collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs) could provide incremental returns. While Biden brags (redundant) about lowering inflation (that his energy policies and massive Federal spending caused), apparently he never learns. Now...

Preet Bharara knew about FBI leaks two years before his office denied them. No one has been punished Preet Bharara is often mentioned as a possible U.S. attorney general in a Joe Biden administration after building a reputation as a hard-charging federal prosecutor and self-proclaimed ethicist teaching law school and dispensing morality on Twitter. But one of the last cases he handled as the chief federal prosecutor in New York City cuts against the grain of his carefully manicured image, exposing widespread leaking by the FBI — and knowledge of it by the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office — during the...

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced Melissa R. Hodgman, currently an Associate Director in the Commission’s Division of Enforcement, has been named Acting Director of the Division of Enforcement. “Melissa’s dedication to investor protection, broad experience in the Division, and proven track record of collaboration and creative problem solving make her ideally suited to this role,” said SEC Acting Chair Allison Herren Lee. “As Associate Director, Melissa has overseen a wide range of complex and programmatically important matters, and has been a leading voice in the Division on critical issues of diversity, hiring, and labor-management relations. She is highly...

On Thursday, knowing that a three-day Easter weekend was coming and the attention of the public would be elsewhere, the Federal Reserve announced that it would allow two of its emergency lending programs to begin buying junk bonds. Those are bonds with less than an investment-grade credit rating, meaning they have a greater likelihood of defaulting. The Fed is not simply accepting junk bonds as collateral for loans, it will actually be buying junk bonds — potentially hundreds of billions of dollars of them. Two of the popular junk bond ETFs, iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (symbol HYG)...

The biggest school admissions scandal ever prosecuted began with a tip from an executive investigators were targeting in an unrelated securities fraud probe, it was revealed today. The unnamed businessman told Boston authorities chasing down the market manipulation scheme that Rudy Meredith, the women’s soccer coach at Yale University, said he would designated the executive’s daughter as a recruit in exchange for cash, the official said. The official was not authorized to discuss the case and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

France’s finance minister unveiled Friday a decree that would make it the first nation in Europe to allow the trading of some non-listed securities using the blockchain technology that underpins cryptocurrencies. The decree, presented by Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire to the government, should enter into force by July at the latest and will apply to non-listed financial securities that EU law doesn’t require to be traded via an intermediary, a market worth potentially more than €3 trillion. In particular, this includes shares in mutual and hedge funds, negotiable debt securities, and unlisted stocks and bonds. Blockchain technology debuted in...

Martin Shkreli, the eccentric former pharmaceutical CEO notorious for a price-gouging scandal and for his snide "Pharma Bro" persona on social media, was convicted Friday on federal charges he deceived investors in a pair of failed hedge funds.

While Hillary Clinton loyal aide Huma Abedin was reportedly sidelined in the final stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign as a result of Abedin’s husband’s child-porn scandal, she was potentially an even greater liability than known. It turns out Anthony Weiner wasn’t the only family member under investigation. In fact, the U.S. Justice Department has been actively prosecuting two other Abedin family members – for conspiracy, wire fraud and securities fraud – and she along with the State Department, where she previously worked for Clinton, are mentioned in the federal case, court records show. Other documents reveal the same allegedly...

With the rules on country-by-country reporting, the EU has created a framework where businesses in the extractive and logging industries have to publish their payments to governments relating to the exploitation of natural resources. This will assist populations of resource-rich countries to hold their governments accountable for these proceeds. In addition, a country-by-country reporting is also required from EU credit institutions (banks). This will ensure that trust in the financial sector is regained. On 12 April 2016, the Commission adopted a proposal for a Directive which imposes on EU and non-EU multinational groups the publication of a yearly report on...

I have a brokerage account. A person with the same name as me passed away and the broker transferred all of my shares to his heirs. What legal actions can I take? What rights do I have? Anybody in the financial industry that can weigh in...it would be appreciated. Thanks

Bill Clinton’s alleged mistress Julie McMahon was donating to Hillary Clinton while she was having an affair. She also worked for a controversial securities firm. The Daily Mail reported that McMahon dubbed the “Energizer” by Secret Service met Clinton in 1998 while he was still in the White House. The Mail also stated that McMahon was seeing Clinton sexually for 13 years in 2014. McMahon, the daughter of a wealthy Democratic donor, donated to Hillary in 2000 and 2002. ... McMahon was listed as unemployed for most of her political donations but we found that she’s a director at Energy...

The world's two largest custody banks, BNY Mellon Corp and State Street Corp, are loading up on engineers to crunch mountains of data into juicy chunks of information that they can use to win more customers and generate more fees. The shift in hiring strategy comes as the cost of computing power, data storage and bandwidth plunges, giving the U.S. banks more opportunities to capitalize on information about customers that include the world's largest hedge, mutual and pension funds. "At State Street this year, we've hired more engineers than MBAs," said John Klinck, the bank's head of global strategy and...

t is the never ending bubble. Federal Reserve official, Daniel Tarullo, stated in a speech late last week that the Federal Reserve should begin to purchase long term mortgage backed securities as a way of driving down the interest rates, which are already at historic lows, even further. He said that it would have the added benefit of...

The Treasury Department sold $32 billion in 3-year notes Tuesday at a yield of 0.5%, the lowest yield ever for the maturity. Bidders offered to buy 3.29 times the amount of debt sold...

Ron Paul's recent idea on how to ease the national debt is hardly original but none the less worthy of consideration. He has proposed what leftist critics of the status quo monetary system have been proposing for decades: that money printing should be used to fund the government. To give Ron due credit, he is not proposing exactly that. More precisely, he is proposing that the Fed should tear up a bundle of its Treasury securities, which would lower our overall debt total bringing us below the current debt ceiling. Still, the mechanics are identical, if not in reverse order....

Federal regulators are investigating whether California violated securities laws and failed to provide adequate disclosure about its giant public pension fund, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation. The Securities and Exchange Commission normally polices companies, but last year it brought its first enforcement action ever against a state, accusing New Jersey of securities fraud for misleading bond investors about the condition of its pension fund. The commission signaled, in its settlement with New Jersey, that it was going to look more broadly at the pension disclosures of states and cities. The fund, the California Public Employees’ Retirement...

NEW YORK -- The Federal Reserve on Wednesday reluctantly opened the books on its monumental campaign to save the financial system in the midst of the recent crisis, revealing how it distributed some $3.3 trillion in relief. The data revealed that the Fed's aid was scattered much more widely than previously understood. Two European megabanks -- Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse -- were the largest beneficiaries of the Fed's purchase of mortgage-backed securities. The Fed's dollars also flowed to major American companies that are not financial players, including McDonald's and Harley-Davidson, through unsecured short-term loans. The measure, initiated in Jan....

Why The Lowest 30-Yr Fixed Mortgage Rate In History Is A Bullish Sign Scott Grannis, Calafia Beach Pundit Sep. 22, 2010, 3:51 PM Thanks to 2.5% yields on 10-yr Treasuries and the ongoing improvement in the efficiency and liquidity of the mortgage-backed securities market (which has resulted in a tightening of the spread between conforming and jumbo rates), homebuyers today can take advantage of the lowest 30-yr fixed-rate mortgages in history, whether for a conforming or a jumbo loan. One reason rates are so low is that demand for mortgage loans is also relatively low, as reflected in the above...

WASHINGTON — The chairman and CEO of investment titan Goldman Sachs acknowledged Wednesday that his company had engaged in "improper" behavior when it made financial bets against $40 billion in securities backed by risky U.S. home loans that it was selling to investors as safe products. Lloyd Blankfein made the shocking acknowledgement before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission , a 10-member panel that Congress created to look into the causes of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. During that inaugural hearing, the CEOs of the nation's most prominent banks acknowledged serious flaws in their models and business practices...