Free Republic

Legislators in Republican-led states want to know why Bank of America continues to de-bank Christians and conservative groups. In a letter led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, the dozen some-odd “red” states asked the financial institution to release all documents related to its account cancellation policies. The letter also petitions Bank of America to update its terms of service to prohibit discrimination against clients based on their political or religious affiliation. The issue came to a head after it was revealed that Bank of America sent the FBI and the U.S. Treasury private consumer financial data to help the...

Three US banking giants have just had their ratings downgraded to “negative” by Moody’s. Moody’s Investor Service downgraded JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America to negative ratings after previously classifying them as stable, MarketWatch reports. Analyst Peter E. Nerby of Moody’s said that the worsening outlook on bank debt was due to “the potentially weaker capacity of the government of the United States of America (Aaa negative) to support the U.S.’s systemically important banks.” In particular, JPMorgan’s downgrade was partially because the bank runs a “complex” capital markets business that may post “substantial” risks to its creditors. A...

A 'debanking' row has broken out after an ultra-conservative Christian charity which provides necessities to Ugandan orphans had its account shut down by Bank of America. Memphis-based non-profit Indigenous Advance Ministries has filed a complaint to the Tennessee Attorney-General's office over concerns its accounts were closed because the bank disagrees with its 'religious views.' The organization - which claims to have had a banking relationship with BofA since 2015 - purports pro-life and anti-same sex relationship values on its website. BofA firmly denies it 'debanked' the body over these views, telling DailyMail.com that 'religious beliefs are not a factor in...

@RepThomasMassie FBI Director Wray admits the government has been working in conjunction with financial institutions like Bank of America to mine personal data such as gun purchase records for law abiding citizens, with no warrants or subpoenas involved.

The global debt market is orders of magnitude larger than the stock market, and debt instruments across the globe have nearly reached the breaking point due to the Fed’s steady increase in interest rates this year (combined with seemingly endless money printing and other disastrous fiscal policies). Because bond values have an inverse relationship with interest rates, as interest rates go up, the value of bonds and other debt instruments already issued goes down. With each Fed rate increase, bond values are cratering, leaving debt investors holding substantial losses and leading to a collapse in the number of potential buyers...

A little over a month ago, BofA spooked even the most dovish elements on Wall Street and in the Marriner Eccles building, when the bank said that judging by the explosion of references to surging prices in Q1 earnings calls, the bank concluded that this “pointing to at the very least, “transitory” hyper-inflation ahead.” Yes… really: Fast forward to today when BofA’s economist Alex Lin quantified what his bank qualified to so many shocked gasps one month ago. As Lin writes, with core CPI inflation at 3.8% yoy in May, “we must assess how much of the acceleration in inflation...

B of A: “Transitory” Inflation And Supply Chain Imbalances Are Hitting Autos Hardest The auto industry is already stuck between a rock and a hard place, as dealers struggle to get production up to speed despite an ongoing semiconductor chip shortage that has hamstrung production for some of the world’s biggest manufacturers. At the same time, the U.S. is letting the inflation genie quietly begin to slip out of the bottle. As rising prices take hold amidst supply chain imbalances, focus has turned to automobiles. With new car inventory crunched due to production constraints, used car prices have skyrocketed, as...

It's no secret that BofA's Chief Investment Officer has been warning that 2021 - the year of the vaccine - is one where real inflation (as opposed to financial) will run amok sooner or later, and in his latest Flow Show he repeats his two main contentions about how events will play out in the coming months, namely "the velocity of people will rise" and "the velocity of money will (also) rise". Addressing the first, Hartnett writes that since the core 2021 trends will be "vaccine>virus", and "reopening>lockdown", this means that human mobility will rise & macro data will surge...

Tesla's momentum and back-to-back record highs have divided some of the world's most famous investors. Billionaire venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya praised the stock's gains in a Thursday appearance on CNBC, telling investors the stock could be worth three times its already lofty valuation. "Don't sell a share," he added. Hedge fund manager Michael Burry - whose bet against the housing market was depicted in the novel and 2015 film "The Big Short" - aired his contrasting opinion Thursday night. The investor tweeted that, like his famous 2008 gambit, his short position in Tesla stands to print huge gains. "Well, my...

Judicial Watch reports that the Department of Justice is giving liberal activist groups money from a $16.6 billion settlement with Bank of America. The groups benefitting from the lawsuit, according to Investor’s Business Daily, are the National Council of La Raza, Operation Hope, National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America. The money also went to “delinquent borrowers” in Chicago, Oakland, Detroit, Philadelphia, and other major “Democrat strongholds.” “This is a wealth redistribution scheme disguised as a lawsuit,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told The Daily Caller. “And who benefits from the distribution? Interest groups the administration...

Once again, our Chicago-style Attorney General has proven that corruption is the basic foundation upon which the modern Democrat Party is built. Eric Holder, the nationÂ’s top extortionist officer, has been running around the financial sector suing banks for anything (and everything) he can get away with. Ally Bank paid millions for alleged racist lending practices (an allegation the DOJ made without ever looking at loan portfolios), JP Morgan has shelled out billions for various anti-Obama comments regulatory infractions, and Bank of America just paid a $16.6 billion fine for their government-mandated role in the financial crises of 2008.Aside from...

Tyler Durden 08/26/2014 After spending time in Argentina, BofA's Marcos Buscaglia is concerned... The perception of many locals is that the risks of an economic/currency crisis before year-end have increased significantly. This compares to a view they had before of a muddle-through till the 2015 presidential elections. Policy decision-making is ever more concentrated, and the administration has radicalized, but the severe economic downturn will change political incentives in 2015, in BofA's view. With the official peso rate at record lows once again, the black-market Dolar-Blue tumbled to over 14/USD - a record low indicating dramatic devaluation ahead (which of course,...

Bank of America is paying $6.3 billion to settle a lawsuit arising out of troubled mortgage-backed securities it cobbled together and sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the run-up to the financial crisis. Including this latest settlement, the housing finance agency has recouped $16 billion in cash payments from banks and financial firms that sold mortgage-backed securities. The regulator, which filed 18 lawsuits, still has claims pending against seven banks and financial institutions.

Dow Jones says a goal of the 30-stock index is to capture the pulse of the broader economy. So why replace a rebounding Bank of America with Goldman Sachs? In the biggest change of the 30-stock index in nearly a decade, three companies will be replaced on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Alcoa, Bank of America, and Hewlett-Packard are out, Nike, Goldman Sachs, and Visa (V) are in. The shake-up partly reflects declining fortunes and share prices, but the timing and reasons are nonetheless curious when we look at the departure of Bank of America (BAC). Like other big banks,...

A 21-year-old intern who worked grueling hours at Bank of America's London office died just a week before his internship was to conclude. Moritz Erhardt, who studied at the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany, reportedly had worked until 6 a.m. for three days straight and was found dead in his flat.

BofA: 'Buy America... The American Dream Is Back' Matthew BoeslerMarch 17, 2013, 9:10 AMLast week, JPMorgan said we're not that far from a "picture perfect world." Morgan Stanley said the U.S. economy was approaching an "inflection point" in mid-2013 from which growth would really start taking off. Now, BofA Merrill Lynch is out with a new report, titled "Buy America: The American dream is back." BAML strategists Ralph Preusser and Athanasios Vamvakidis write (emphasis added): Markets have fallen in love with the US. This is a significant change from spending the last five years wondering which economy was the worst,...

BofA: 'Don't Lose Sight Of The Bigger Picture ... Stay Bearish' Matthew BoeslerMarch 3, 2013, 12:13 PMBofA Merrill Lynch technical strategist MacNeil Curry is out with a pretty pessimistic note to begin the week. Curry's message to the bank's clients is that a coming bounce in the stock market following the first real sell-off of the year will probably prove to be only temporary. He notes that other risky assets, like European stocks and peripheral government debt, have already taken a turn down. Below are the key paragraphs from Curry's note: While the evidence warns of the potential for new...

FBI: Man Attempted To Bomb Bank, Trying To Set Off US Civil War By Pete Williams, NBC NewsFebruary 8, 2013 The FBI, ending a sting, says it has arrested a California man after he tried to set off what he thought was a car bomb at a bank in Oakland. Matthew Aaron Llaneza, 28, of San Jose, was arrested Friday morning, capping a months-long undercover investigation, the Justice Department said. Agents say he met last November with someone he thought was connected with the Taliban but who was actually an FBI agent. Prosecutors say Llaneza proposed car-bombing a bank in...

Bank of America has reportedly frozen the account of gun manufacturer American Spirit Arms, according to its owner, Joe Sirochman. In a Facebook post dated December 29, Sirochman wrote the following:“My name is Joe Sirochman owner of American Spirit Arms. . . our Web site orders have jumped 500 percent causing our Web site e-commerce processing larger deposits to Bank of America. So they decided to hold the deposits for further review.“After countless hours on the phone with Bank of America, I finally got a manager in the right department that told me the reason that the deposits were on...

BofA Makes The Case For $3,000 Gold Matthew BoeslerSeptember 25,2012Everyone loves gold these days. Deutsche Bank sees $2000 gold soon. And Citi says it could go to $2500 in six months. BofA, too: the firm recently initiated a $2,400 target price for the shiny yellow metal since the Fed's announcement of open-ended bond buying. However, BofA analyst Stephen Suttmeier thinks there's a case to be made that gold goes even higher than the bank's official call. In a note to clients today, Suttmeier writes: The secular bull case for Gold $3000 We remain secular bulls on gold. Key chart and...