Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin calls Wall Street CEOs about the market turmoil.

[uncharted]

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held calls on Sunday with the heads of the six largest U.S. banks to shore up confidence in the U.S. financial system amid the recent market turmoil.

"The banks all confirmed ample liquidity is available for lending to consumer and business markets," a statement from the Treasury said.

Mnuchin spoke with J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Bank of America's Brian Moynihan, Goldman Sachs' David Solomon, Morgan Stanley's James Gorman, Tim Sloan of Wells Fargo and Michael Corbat of Citigroup.

"We continue to see strong economic growth in the U.S. economy with robust activity from consumers and business," said Secretary Mnuchin in the statement.
Wells Fargo declined to comment on the calls. The other five banks did not immediately return CNBC's requests for comment.

On Monday, a senior Treasury official, who declined to be named, told CNBC that the purpose of the call and putting out the statement, was a "prudent, preemptive measure" following last week's market volatility. Yet while the moves were intended to be reassuring, they triggered confusion among market watchers.

More here

[Zippyjuan]

They don't seem too worried.

"The banks all confirmed ample liquidity is available for lending to consumer and business markets," a statement from the Treasury said.

[devil21]

They don't seem too worried.

"Lehman is well capitalized."

[timosman]

"Lehman is well capitalized."

"Ample liquidity" should give everybody a pause.

[Zippyjuan]

"Ample liquidity" should give everybody a pause.

One report compared the statement of "amble liquidity" to you being on a plane and the pilot saying the plane has "adequate fuel" to reach your destination. Why did they feel it was necessary to say that? It was not something people were even concerned about. Should they be concerned now? Rather than re-assuring markets it added more uncertainty and markets don't like uncertainty.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/marke...130415646.html

Markets are telling Trump: Get your act together

Why is the Treasury Secretary asking banks if they have enough cash? What’s wrong with the Federal Reserve chairman? And how’s the trade war going, anyway?

These are questions investors shouldn’t be asking. Yet President Trump’s chaotic presidency is creating new worries for financial markets beyond typical concerns such as corporate earnings and economic growth. Markets that normally shrug off political shenanigans are now pricing in the possibility that Trump himself is the biggest threat to profits and prosperity.

Trump is obviously distressed about the recent stock-market selloff, with the S&P 500 down 12% for the year, and the NASDAQ in a full-blown bear market. What Trump doesn’t seem to realize is that he is personally becoming a bigger and bigger cause of the selloff. And each reactionary Trump twitch aggravates the problem.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin—probably at Trump’s behest—recently called the CEOs of the nation’s biggest banks to ask how stable their institutions are. Then he tweeted the happy news that the banks have “ample liquidity available.” Nobody was worried about bank liquidity before Mnuchin brought it up. Now people are worried. If the nation’s top financial policymaker thinks he needs to ask banks whether they have enough money, something must be wrong.

Trump has been seething about interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, and asking whether he can fire Fed chair Jerome Powell, whom he appointed in 2017. The Fed isn’t perfect, and some economists think it might make sense for the Fed to slow its pace of hikes. But rates are still well below historical norms and there’s broad agreement that the Fed is generally doing the right thing. Except for Trump, who apparently thinks the Fed should goose the stock market indefinitely, so it boosts his approval rating.

More at link.

[acptulsa]

They don't seem too worried.

Why would they be? Your bosses at the Fed will print all the currency they want, even if the price of a Pepsi winds up at $27.00.

[Zippyjuan]

Why would they be? Your bosses at the Fed will print all the currency they want, even if the price of a Pepsi winds up at $27.00.

Trump is mad because the Fed isn't printing up as much money as he wants.

[acptulsa]

Trump is mad because the Fed isn't printing up as much money as he wants.

No, Trump is mad because they blew bubbles for Dubya, and they blew bubbles for Obama, but they're trying to pop bubbles for him.

But you know what? I don't care why he's being pissy. If Trump being pissy saves lives around the world, and begins a rehabilitation of the U.S.'s mass murdering "moral code", then I'm glad he's pissy.

That said, if Lehman actually begins to feel the pinch, you and I both know the Fed will piss money until they can say...

"Lehman is well capitalized."

Because you may call the Fed " boss", but the Fed counts Lehman among the banks it calls "owner".

[Firestarter]

Member of Skull & Bones, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has previously worked for Goldman Sachs, George Soros and Sir Leonard Blavatnik on Sunday increased the panic by announcing that he spoke with CEO’s of the 6 largest American banks: Brian Moynihan of Bank of America; Michael Corbat, Citi; David Solomon, Goldman Sachs; Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase; James Gorman, Morgan Stanley; and Tim Sloan of Wells Fargo.
Media outlets labelled this as creating the “plunge protection team”.

Predictably on Monday, the Dow Jones lost another 650 points (2.9%); the worst Christmas Eve trading day on record.
The S&P 500 index slid 65.5 points (2.7%), the Nasdaq lost 140.1 points (2.2%), and the Russell 2000 index lost 25.2 points (2%).
Technology stocks, health care companies, and banks took some of the heaviest losses in the sell-off.

The dollar fell from 111.3 yen on Friday to 110.5 yen and the euro rate went from $1.137 to $1.142.
France’s CAC 40 fell 1.5%, while the British FTSE 100 index slid 0.5%. South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.3% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.4%. Australia’s S&P ASX 200 increased with 0.5%.
Germany’s DAX and the markets in Japan and Indonesia were closed.

Donald Trump accused Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell for raising interest rates, threatened to fire him and tweeted: “The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can’t score because he has no touch – he can’t putt!”: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/20...-600-xmas-eve/