Treasury Says ‘No Basis’ to Report on Bank Testing (Update1)
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By Vincent Del Giudice and Nick Baker
April 20 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. Treasury spokesman said there’s no basis to a blog posting that buffeted financial stocks by saying that most of the nation’s largest banks are insolvent.
Andrew Williams, a Treasury spokesman, dismissed the report from Hal Turner of North Bergen, New Jersey, “particularly given we don’t have stress test results yet.” Turner has advocated violence against blacks, Jews and immigrants on his Web site and Internet radio show, according to the Anti- Defamation League, created in 1913 to monitor anti-Semitism.
The Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund, an exchange-traded fund tracking banks, brokerages and insurers, fell to $10.62 from $10.75 in six minutes after FlyOnTheWall.com cited Turner’s blog post at 8:14 a.m. in New York. At 8:30 a.m., FlyOnTheWall advised readers to disregard the earlier story.
The XLF, as the financial ETF is known, sank as low as $10.26 at 12:48 p.m. in New York after JPMorgan Chase & Co. said banks worldwide are likely to realize about $400 billion more in losses on soured assets, requiring further injections of government capital.
In his blog posting, Turner said 16 of the banks are “already technically insolvent.” He mentioned HSBC Holdings Plc as one of the lenders. HSBC isn’t among the 19 banks being examined, according to the government.
Reached by telephone, Turner declined to say who would have given him the government’s so-called stress test of the 19 biggest U.S. banks. The Federal Reserve has said it plans to release results on May 4.
Turner, when asked if one of the quotes on the ADL Web site sounded like something he once said, replied that “it certainly fits the niche of the radio show at the time.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Vincent Del Giudice in Washington vdelgiudice@bloomberg.net; Nick Baker in New York at nbaker7@bloomberg.net.
Commentary: I would not be surprised at all if Turner's information is either true or has a strong relation to the truth. Roubini has mentioned numerous times that many banks are technically insolvent. Just from the high leverage ratios alone and the fall in house prices it takes little conjecture to reach that conclusion.
What is much more interesting is the defamation of character against the blogger in question. This is a typical reaction of the political correctness crowd of Post Modernists. I have no idea whether Mr. Turner is anti-Semitic or not. It really is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Is the Treasury (and the media) trying to distract the public from the nature and magnitude of the problem?
My suspicion is that this bunch of spin-meisters will say and do almost anything to steer the public away from the truth. If the public was more aware of the problems, they could take steps to insulate themselves from the consequences of the actions of government and central bankers including selling much of their stock portfolio and converting it to cash.
We will look at more indicators of where the economy is trending in the next post.
Share Email Print A A A
By Vincent Del Giudice and Nick Baker
April 20 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. Treasury spokesman said there’s no basis to a blog posting that buffeted financial stocks by saying that most of the nation’s largest banks are insolvent.
Andrew Williams, a Treasury spokesman, dismissed the report from Hal Turner of North Bergen, New Jersey, “particularly given we don’t have stress test results yet.” Turner has advocated violence against blacks, Jews and immigrants on his Web site and Internet radio show, according to the Anti- Defamation League, created in 1913 to monitor anti-Semitism.
The Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund, an exchange-traded fund tracking banks, brokerages and insurers, fell to $10.62 from $10.75 in six minutes after FlyOnTheWall.com cited Turner’s blog post at 8:14 a.m. in New York. At 8:30 a.m., FlyOnTheWall advised readers to disregard the earlier story.
The XLF, as the financial ETF is known, sank as low as $10.26 at 12:48 p.m. in New York after JPMorgan Chase & Co. said banks worldwide are likely to realize about $400 billion more in losses on soured assets, requiring further injections of government capital.
In his blog posting, Turner said 16 of the banks are “already technically insolvent.” He mentioned HSBC Holdings Plc as one of the lenders. HSBC isn’t among the 19 banks being examined, according to the government.
Reached by telephone, Turner declined to say who would have given him the government’s so-called stress test of the 19 biggest U.S. banks. The Federal Reserve has said it plans to release results on May 4.
Turner, when asked if one of the quotes on the ADL Web site sounded like something he once said, replied that “it certainly fits the niche of the radio show at the time.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Vincent Del Giudice in Washington vdelgiudice@bloomberg.net; Nick Baker in New York at nbaker7@bloomberg.net.
Commentary: I would not be surprised at all if Turner's information is either true or has a strong relation to the truth. Roubini has mentioned numerous times that many banks are technically insolvent. Just from the high leverage ratios alone and the fall in house prices it takes little conjecture to reach that conclusion.
What is much more interesting is the defamation of character against the blogger in question. This is a typical reaction of the political correctness crowd of Post Modernists. I have no idea whether Mr. Turner is anti-Semitic or not. It really is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Is the Treasury (and the media) trying to distract the public from the nature and magnitude of the problem?
My suspicion is that this bunch of spin-meisters will say and do almost anything to steer the public away from the truth. If the public was more aware of the problems, they could take steps to insulate themselves from the consequences of the actions of government and central bankers including selling much of their stock portfolio and converting it to cash.
We will look at more indicators of where the economy is trending in the next post.
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