Courtesy of Pam Martens.
For more than two decades, financial columnist John Crudele has been hypothesizing on whether the Federal Reserve has its fingers in the stock market – directly or indirectly. Tampering with stocks is off limits to the Federal Reserve, as far as the public is aware. Its stated function is to serve as the central bank of the United States, focusing on achieving monetary policy through its open market activities in the bond markets and foreign exchange area.
But the New York Fed itself is helping to fuel suspicions about what’s going on within its cloistered walls at 33 Liberty Street in lower Manhattan. Of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, the New York Fed is the only institution with a trading floor and highly sophisticated trading platforms. But despite multiple requests, the New York Fed will not provide a photo of the full trading area. Photos of its gold vault and currency vault are on line, but photos of the trading area is off limits, for unspecified reasons.
The resume of Kathleen Margaret (Katie) Kolchin is also noteworthy. On Saturday, September 17, 2011, Kolchin spoke at the annual Lehigh University Financial Services Forum. According to the handout given to participants, she works for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, “performing equity research on the large cap US and European banks. Throughout her career as an Equity Research Analyst, Katie has covered various sectors, including Global Consumer Products, Global Real Estate, and Metals and Mining, at UBS Securities and also at a boutique investment bank.”
Even more curious is the resume Kolchin has posted at LinkedIn. The resume states that the New York Fed has an “internal equity research team,” of which she is the Senior Analyst. The team’s coverage includes Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Wells Fargo.
Kolchin more curiously states that she has “Developed a sell-side style research platform, including work product branding, distribution strategy, and internal client marketing presentations…” Kolchin adds that she uses her “capital markets experience and contacts” to garner insights into the market’s reaction to “stock and bond prices.”
“Branding”? “Distribution”? “Marketing”? Stock prices? What’s going on here. There are famous, long-tenured bank analysts all over Wall Street. It’s their job to deliver unbiased reports on the prospects for the stock performance (equity) of the big banks so that investors can make appropriate buy, sell and hold decisions. How is this the job of the New York Fed?
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