Deutsche Bank is in trouble

Deutsche Bank stocks, the largest bank in Europe, got hammered today.
Taken in isolation that fact doesn't mean anything. However, this is not an isolated event.

Deutsche Bank is still recovering after being hit with billions in fines back in 2015, its chief executive officer John Cryan told CNBC, after the bank posted another year of losses on Friday morning.

The German lender reported a net loss of 2.2 billion euros ($2.75 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2017 — worse than the net loss of 1.25 billion euros that Reuters analysts had forecast.

For the year, the German bank posted a 497 million euro loss ($621 million), compared to a 290 million euro loss that Reuters analysts had estimated. This was the third consecutive annual loss for Deutsche Bank.

The Deutsche Bank CEO didn't have long to worry about it, because he was fired shortly after. Criminality won't get you fired on Wall Street, but quarterly losses will.

Mr. Sewing, 47, is the fourth person in four years to hold the title of chief executive or co-chief executive at Deutsche Bank.

Deutsche Bank is in the process of cutting 7,000 additional positions, but unlike most layoffs, this one isn't limited to low-level staff.

In particular, Sewing is coming for Deutsche's most senior staff: in today's speech he said Deutsche is,"in the process of significantly slimming down the two layers below the Management Board". This means directors and managing directors (MDs): if anyone at Deutsche deserves to be worried by Sewing's statement today, it's those at the top of the hierarchy.

At this point you should be asking, "So what? Why should I care what happens to Deutsche Bank?"
Well, you should care what is happening to the biggest bank in Europe when Steve Eisman, the guy of ‘The Big Short’ fame, recommends shorting the bank.
You should care when you see stories like this.

CEO Christian Sewing announced a bank strategy on Thursday in a bid to give the institution a new momentum and direction but a former analyst has warned employees now "doubt Deutsche Bank will even survive."

But most of all, you should care because of this.

Among the many contributors to 2008’s Great Recession were credit default swaps (CDSs), largely unregulated casino bets banks make with each other about nearly anything you can think of. Fully accounting for them is ridden with black-box difficulty, and ultimately, big banks essentially say “Don’t worry about them. They’re under control. Trust us.”

Perennial too-big-to-fail problem child Deutsche Bank is close to seeing its stock fall into the single digits, sounding alarm bells reminiscent of when Bear Stearns collapsed and was acquired for $2/share, and when Lehman imploded and went out-and-out bankrupt.

The connection? Deutsche’s CDS book runs to approximately $157T, yes trillion, or roughly twice the GDP of the entire world.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

crash. This just might be ‘it’.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

@The Aspie Corner
It wouldn't do a thing about all the bonds and derivatives

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@gjohnsit

That won't help in this case It wouldn't do a thing about all the bonds and derivatives

Re-regulation, however, would.

We're in this stew largely because Ronny Raygun and Bubba Clinton de-regulated and privatized the crap out of what was once a reasonably well-functioning financial system.

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides
They destroyed the FDR era protections and restraints.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@The Aspie Corner

Abolish the stock market.

Better still, nationalize, tax and re-regulate it.

We didn't have this kind of problem during the Presidencies of FDR to Ford.

Ronny Raygun and Bubba Clinton did this to us by deregulating and privatizing everything.

Bad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

gulfgal98's picture

because this is so true of the Wall Street mentality.

The Deutsche Bank CEO didn't have long to worry about it, because he was fired shortly after. Criminality won't get you fired on Wall Street, but quarterly losses will.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Citizen Of Earth's picture

Holy Crap!
Makes one wonder what US Bank's books look like now that Donnie Douchebag rolled back the bank reforms.
Anyone for a quick Game Of Speed Dominos.

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Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

Pluto's Republic's picture

...at such an inconvenient time. Who gets to keep the penalties, I wonder?

Clearly, it's too big to fail. Steps will need to be taken....

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@Pluto's Republic
There must be millions of everyday people with deposits. Surely they must pay.

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

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chuck utzman

TULSI 2020

@chuckutzman

have enough money between them to cover whatever they're getting themselves into.

No more corporate criminal welfare from people/publics having nothing to do with creating the problems they themselves set up, lobbied for and dove into, though.

Let's see some personal responsibility and boot-strap-tugging out of these banksters from here on in.

Maybe the various publics could start repossessing some recklessly run financial institutions for pennies on the billion to nationalize the suckers?

From your link:

http://wallstreetonparade.com/2018/05/wall-street-banks-tank-yesterday-a...

...The Federal Reserve, the primary regulator of these Wall Street bank holding companies, is not just missing in action in terms of stemming the potential for contagion like that which occurred in 2008, it’s actually making matters worse. Reuters reports that today the Fed will begin to propose rules to water down the Volcker Rule – the part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010 that was meant to curtail Wall Street’s use of Federally insured deposits to make risky bets for the house. The rule provided so many loopholes that it has never been a serious threat to Wall Street.

The Fed also provided a windfall last June to these Wall Street banks. Following the Fed’s Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review stress tests (CCAR), it allowed these Wall Street behemoths to erode their capital through enormous share buybacks and increases in their cash dividends to shareholders. The Fed’s actions ignored the massive concentration of derivatives held by these handful of firms. ...

...Potential contagion from European bank losses, Deutsche Bank’s woes and interlinkages between Wall Street banks are not the only sources of concern. Another alarm bell that sounded yesterday was that MetLife, a large insurer, appeared to be trading with the Wall Street herd. It lost 5.27 percent of its market cap. In January, the Trump administration dropped its court fight to keep the designation of MetLife as a SIFI (systemically important financial institution). Prudential Financial, another large insurance company that retains its SIFI designation, lost 5.05 percent of its market value yesterday.

It should be remembered that the SIFI designation of large insurance companies grew out of the fact that the U.S. taxpayer had to bailout another giant insurer, AIG, to the tune of $182 billion during the height of the financial crisis. Almost half of that sum went out the backdoor of AIG to the coffers of Wall Street banks and their global cousins who had made AIG a counterparty to pay off on their credit default swap derivative trades. Despite the epic financial crisis of 2008, the worst since the Great Depression, neither the public nor the Federal regulators know exactly who’s on the hook for Wall Street’s over-the-counter credit default swaps today and how much of a threat that poses to financial stability in the U.S. This is a Congressional, regulatory and leadership failure that is unprecedented in U.S. history.

Well, the American taxpayer didn't do this and, even if they were in business to do so, as they are not, would never have indemnified such bad risks without adequate regulation to prevent precisely such as this, together with the removal and trial of those responsible; therefore the government representatives of Wall St., who clearly do not represent American citizens, ought also to be held personally liable.

Even if it's not possible for the American people to sue those responsible or to have the lot held liable or even bunged out as incompetents, outrage and a demand for all of the above and/or anything the better-informed can think of ought to be blasted all over the internet and newspapers.

At the least, make the buggers nervous, as that seems to be the only negative consequence any of them might potentially suffer.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Azazello's picture

Deutsche Bank is the only bank that will still lend to Deadbeat Donnie Trump ?

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

@Azazello
it only lends him Russian deposits.

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Mark from Queens's picture

...against money laundering, terrorist financing and sanctions, according to confidential findings by the UK's financial watchdog, which had already put the lender in supervisory "special measures".

Class action lawsuit against Deutsche Bank Press Release:

...on May 1, 2016, The Financial Times published an article entitled "FCA warns Deutsche on 'serious' financial crime control issues", stating that the United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA") sent a letter to Deutsche Bank on March 2, 2015, accusing it of having "serious" and "systemic" failings in its controls against financing terrorism, money laundering, aiding against international sanctions, and committing financial crimes. The FCA stated that its investigation uncovered, among other things, incomplete documentations, lack of monitoring, and influencing staff to take actions related to specific clients, which all amounted to a "serious" and "systemic" controls failure. On May 1, 2016, Bloomberg published a similar article entitled "Deutsche Bank Said to Be Faulted by FCA Over Lax Client Vetting", stating that the FCA faulted the Company for "serious" lapses in efforts to thwart money laundering and criticized the Company's ability to verify client's abilities and goals, or ensure that it wasn't aiding organizations subject to international sanctions.

Deutsche Bank fined $630m over Russia money laundering claims: Authorities in US and UK issue fine after saying bank used offices in Moscow and London to move $10bn out of country

How many more times can these TBTF Banks be accused of aiding and abetting terrorist organizations, laundering money for oligarchs and drug dealers and when faced with potential prosecution, just pay a fine and admit no guilt and get back to business as usual? While tens of thousands wallow in jail for marijuana possession and low level offenses.

The public has been conditioned to think of criminals as those who either wear Middle Eastern scarves or have baggy pants or wear hoodies. Reframing that picture - that the real terrorists almost exclusively wear 3-piece suits - is the job we need to do. The image of a slick businessman in an expensive suit is the image of who the real enemy is.

One of my favorite things at Occupy was a corner of Zuccotti Park onto which there were plastered the faces of the top bank CEO's as mugshots with all their crimes listed underneath. We need to see who these fuckers are, not let them remain faceless and anonymous, and start aggressively hounding (or at least mocking) these pampered, privileged scumbags everywhere they go. Any ideas?

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Anja Geitz's picture

@Mark from Queens

And what I loved most about them is the idea that the secretaries, the IT staff, and the guys in the mailroom who worked for those banks and who walked past the mugshots every morning, created a whispering campaign at work that made its way up to the bankers on the floor.

The greatest insult of Occupy Wall Street to TPTB, is that the movement began right on their front lawn. I'm only sorry I was not working for Goldman Sachs at that time, for I'm sure I would've been fired by what I would've felt compelled to say out loud to anyone within earshot.

The only idea I have is to create the same kind of mugshots, enlarge them to poster size and show up near the subway exits down there during morning rush hour holding them up, day after day, after day. Hell, if I still lived in New York, I'd do it.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Anja Geitz @Anja Geitz

(Edit: as suggested above by Mark from Queens.)

What about some creative people here doing cartoons featuring the perps and posting them all over the internet? Make them funny and they ought to spread like wild-fire.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Anja Geitz's picture

@Ellen North

Although the trick to that is finding a way to compete with every other meme out there. I suspect they'd have to be fairly remarkable in some way.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Anja Geitz

everybody hates criminal banksters and fears another crash which most people probably know they're going to cause, because of course they'll want to bleed the public.

And I dunno if the corporate media is going to carry a whole lot of detail on the individuals responsible, so this might help inform more than might otherwise become aware of these.

Whatever's done, there has to be something done, ideally a bunch of things.

There needs to be a big public outcry to at least register disapproval, and it needs to be personally directed at the perps for a change; would be nice if they decided that the public wouldn't stand for any more criminal banksters deliberately crashing and burning them.

From their viewpoint: no public fuss over the muss? No need to bother even faking any sort of a fix. Same old, same old rinse cycle, with the public taken to the cleaners every time until they're wrung dry.

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0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Anja Geitz's picture

@Ellen North

The question is how?

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@Anja Geitz

excited about someone else's suggestion, requiring talents I lack, hoping that some of the creative people here will pick up on this, because I don't know what to do or how. And something must be done.

So, I hope that among the knowledgeable and creative people here, brainstorming will occur and various feasible suggestions be attempted to raise awareness among at least some who might not hear much of this through the corporate media; the idea of cartoons identifying the culprits, with some pertinent fact regarding their crimes seems to me to be a potential attention-getter that might get spread around.

Frankly, I'm not doing very well and some weird computer problems (affecting more than one computer, while my computer worked fine elsewhere; at the moment still fixable by simply re-starting the router, said to be fine by the provider,) have returned and I'd (admittedly selfishly) like to have some hope that there's a potential for at least others to see some chance of improvement, or at least to avert the worst, so I'm probably pushing too much in case I don't get to see anything of whatever might happen.

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Mark from Queens
Their raison d'etre?

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

@Mark from Queens

...How many more times can these TBTF Banks be accused of aiding and abetting terrorist organizations, laundering money for oligarchs and drug dealers and when faced with potential prosecution, just pay a fine and admit no guilt and get back to business as usual? While tens of thousands wallow in jail for marijuana possession and low level offenses.

The public has been conditioned to think of criminals as those who either wear Middle Eastern scarves or have baggy pants or wear hoodies. Reframing that picture - that the real terrorists almost exclusively wear 3-piece suits - is the job we need to do. The image of a slick businessman in an expensive suit is the image of who the real enemy is.

One of my favorite things at Occupy was a corner of Zuccotti Park onto which there were plastered the faces of the top bank CEO's as mugshots with all their crimes listed underneath. We need to see who these fuckers are, not let them remain faceless and anonymous, and start aggressively hounding (or at least mocking) these pampered, privileged scumbags everywhere they go. Any ideas?

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Steven D's picture

Nearly led to a fascist takeover in the US in the 30's, and did contribute to Nazi's gaining power. At some point the system is unsustainable.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott