Bank Stocks Rally: Bernanke, Dimon Chatter Caused Bounce?
The stock market has been pretty ooky lately, even if Americans are kind of inured by financial drama. (At this point, Wall Street could probably be wiped out by a surprise stream of molten hot lava, and the only people who might shed a tear would already have been consumed by the wave of lava.)
However, bank stocks like Bank of America rallied a bit late in the day ahead of the closing bell, and the Wall Street Journal credits news of Ben Bernanke’s alleged agreement with JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon (played in HBO’s financial collapse drama by Bill Pullman) with sparking the bump:
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has told people that he agrees with J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon on over-regulation and the Dodd-Frank rules being not clearly written, Fox Business Network’s Charlie Gasparino reported Monday.
Dimon made his criticisms last Tuesday after Bernanke’s assessment of the U.S. economy, given at a conference of international bankers in Atlanta.
“Bernanke believes that there is a lack of clarity on those rules and the lack of clarity on the rules in terms of capital and those other things the banks have to do is hindering economic growth,” Gasparino said, citing sources close to J.P. Morgan.
He said Bernanke believes a lot of what Dimon said was accurate.
The Fed wouldn’t deny those are Bernanke’s sentiments, according to Gasparino.
Dimon grilled Bernanke at an international banking conference in Atlanta earlier this month about new regulations proposed to prevent future economic calamities:
“Do you have a fear, like I do, that when we look back and look at them all [financial rules], that they will be a reason it took so long that our banks, our credit, our businesses and most importantly job creation started going again?” Dimon asked Bernanke. “Is this holding us back at this point?”
Still, it’s difficult to believe continued lack of oversight of too-big-to-fail bank maneuvers will please a fiscally traumatized American populace. Does this kind of chatter unnerve any other non-stock-holding Americans?
