The IRS Official Will Plead The Fifth Amendment Before Congress Tomorrow

From BI: Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, will invoke her rights under the Fifth Amendment and not answer questions while testifying before a House committee on Wednesday about the IRS' inappropriate targeting of conservative groups.

Lerner is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. In a letter to committee Chairman Darrell Issa  that was obtained by the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, Lerner's attorney, William W. Taylor III, wrote that "she has no choice but to take this course."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/irs-scandal-lois-lerner-plead-fifth-amendment-2013-5#ixzz2U0KlcaWY

Life is a Beach or Betting on a Summer Rally

Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch, writes: “….How did investors and advisers come to believe in a Summer Rally in the first place? I have no idea, but it might have had something to do with the extraordinary rally that occurred in the summer of 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression. The Dow nearly doubled during that year’s summer’s rally.  Without outlier years like that one, the Summer Rally loses even more statistical support.

“Since 1940, for example, the average Dow gain from the end of May to its highest close over the next three months is just 4.0%. Seven of the other 11 months of the calendar sport higher average “rallies” than this.

“Of course, the stock market will rally at some point this summer. But its odds of doing so are not any greater than at any other time of the year. After all, every season of the year sees the stock market at times going up — just as it also witnesses periods of market decline. The widespread belief in a Summer Rally is a good illustration of the tricks our minds can play on us…

Find out more at http://www.marketwatch.com/story/betting-on-a-summer-rally-2013-05-21

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SAC Cap to Stem Withdrawal Requests

 According to Dealbook: About $9 billion of the $15 billion invested at SAC Capital belongs to Steven A. Cohen, who could wind down SAC and manage his fortune separately.The embattled hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors is bracing itself for another round of withdrawal requests from investors after disclosing that it would no longer fully cooperate with the government’s scrutiny of its trading practices.

SAC’s investors have two weeks to decide whether to withdraw money from the $15 billion hedge fund, which is owned by Steven A. Cohen. Earlier this year, SAC investors asked to redeem $1.7 billion, and the firm is scrambling to stanch the outflow of more funds as fears rise that the insider trading investigations could further damage Mr. Cohen and his firm.

In the latest blow, SAC’s largest outside investor, the Blackstone Group, is preparing a request to withdraw a portion of its money before the June 3 deadline, according to people briefed on the matter. Blackstone could take out as much as half of its roughly $550 million investment, these people said.

Wait…wait…there’s even more good stuff at http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/sac-capital-aims-to-stem-investors-withdrawal-requests/?ref=business

JPMorgan's Dimon survives shareholder referendum

            

From the AP: Shareholders at JPMorgan Chase voted to let Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO, keep both his jobs.  At the bank's annual meeting, just 32 percent of shareholders voted for a non-binding measure that would have advised the bank to split the roles. That's less than the 40 percent vote that a similar proposal received last year.

Shareholder groups lobbying for the split gained momentum from a surprise $6 billion trading loss last year, which tarnished the reputation of both JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Dimon. The bank and Dimon had argued that letting Dimon keep both jobs was the most effective form of leadership.

Dimon emerged from the financial crisis heading one of the strongest banks in the country. But his reputation has been hurt over the past year over fallout from the so-called "London whale" trading loss….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20130521/us-jpmorgan-annual-meeting/?utm_hp_ref=business&ir=business

Wall Street's Giants Try 'Flow Monster' Formula

From the WSJ report: “…..Welcome to the new Wall Street, where back-office work trumps backslapping. For all the talk that "Wall Street is back," bad habits and all, from the ravages of the 2008-2009 crisis, there are signs that the financial industry is undergoing a profound transformation.

It has taken half a decade of denial and trial and error, but some of the world's largest banks seem to be close to figuring out how to make money in an environment of tighter rules, less benign markets and more demanding customers….

The new normal still is a work in progress. But the first glimpses suggest that the global banking sector will be less crowded at the top, more boring and generally less profitable for both shareholders and employees. The hope is that it also will be less prone to regular blow-ups.

Read all about it at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323463704578494740076540374.html

A Jamie showdown at the JPM corral today

From tne New York Post: Think of it as the tempest in Tampa.  JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon is bracing for a shareholder brouhaha today in the Sunshine State that could set the tone for the future of the Wall Street firm. Dimon is in an epic struggle at the bank’s annual shareholder meeting to retain his dual roles as chairman and CEO.

It’s likely that the bank honcho will secure enough votes to keep his titles, but the backlash will certainly leave a scar.

“Regardless of the vote tally, it may be untenable for the [JPMorgan] board of directors not to take concrete actions to address the underlying concerns investors have about the firm,” said Mike Garland, assistant comptroller at the New York City Office of the Comptroller, which backs the split…

Hold everything, pardner....there's more down at http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/jamie_showdown_at_the_jpm_corral_xwBgIQl7gQ95orzUfuSsYK

Gupta Challenges U.S. Use of Wiretaps in Insider Appeal

From Bloomberg (not one word has been changed):  Former Goldman director Rajat Gupta is set to ask a federal appeals court in New York today to overturn his insider-trading conviction by arguing the U.S. shouldn’t have been allowed to use evidence from wiretapped phone calls that didn’t involve him.

Gupta has already been handed one victory from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hear today’s arguments. In December, it allowed him to remain free while he fought his conviction. The court had overturned U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff’s ruling ordering Gupta to surrender to prison authorities on Jan. 8 and begin serving his two-year sentence.

Gupta, 64, who was a managing partner at McKinsey & Co., and a director at Procter & Gamble Co., was convicted by a jury in June of one count of conspiracy and three counts of securities fraud. He was accused of passing illegal information about New York-based Goldman Sachs to Galleon Group LLC co-founder Raj Rajaratnam, his friend and business partner.

More?  Check out http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-21/gupta-challenges-u-s-use-of-wiretaps-in-insider-appeal.html