4 ms·
Ok, cabal is a strong word and the election stealing/truth hiding is certainly off the rails in my opinion as well. But here's some perhaps interesting informa
by bplatta 5y ago
Ok, cabal is a strong word and the election stealing/truth hiding is certainly off the rails in my opinion as well.
But here's some perhaps interesting information on top 5 shareholders of largest US banks [1]:
JP Morgan Chase:
Blackrock 6.4
Vanguard 4.7
State Street 4.5
Blackrock 2.7
Blackrock 2.5
Bank of America:
Berkshire 6.9
Blackrock 5.3
Vanguard 4.5
state street 4.3
Fidelity 2.1
Citigroup:
Blackrock 6.1
Vanguard 4.5
State Street 4.2
Fidelity 3.6
Capital world Inv 2.4
Wells Fargo:
Berkshire 8.8
Blackrock 5.4
Vanguard 4.5
State street 4.0
Fidelity 3.5
US Bank:
Blackrock 7.4
Vanguard 4.5
Fidelity 4.4
State Street 4.4
Berkshire 4.3
So although yes this does go off the rails a bit, not unreasonable to question the (possibly perverse) incentives banks face given their ownership. Book by Eric Posner and Glen Weyl called Radical Markets explores those incentives a bit.
[1] Jose Azar et. al. Ultimate ownership and Bank competition https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers/cfm?abstract_id=2710252 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers/cfm?abstract_id=2710252
- kasey_junk 5y agoIt’s worth noting those Black Rock holdings are almost certainly through indexed mutual funds and ETFs. If you calculated the ownership across all banks in the US Blackrock would not own nearly so high a percentage.
- notahacker 5y agoAlso worth noting they have similar ownership stakes in other public companies for the same reason, and somewhat limited leverage over any of them because they can't threaten to pull their investment
- selectodude 5y agoBlackrock also owns over 6 percent of Apple. I wonder if this "great reset" includes buying everybody's iPhones.
- beforeolives 5y agoAren't most of these holdings through funds? It's not Blackrock, Vanguard or Fidelity that's holding those shares, it's people and institutions who are investing in their funds.
- wolverine876 5y agoThat's a necessary point, but who really has the power? What is the chance that the investors will pull out, especially if they are making a profit?
- nilsbunger 5y agoBlackrock Vanguard et al have tremendous influence as shareholders even if it's via an index fund... see what they did to Exxon Mobil a few weeks ago!
- rkimb 5y agoExactly right - BlackRock and other large indexers have no legal obligation to follow the recommendation of an independent adviser (like ISS, Glass Lewis) in a proxy contest, even for a passive fund. In most cases they passively anticipate the index provider's (S&P, Russell, MSCI, etc.) moves for corporate actions, but management elections for the board and executives are much more subjective as they don't influence the position itself (note that the manager can sometimes also be the index provider, like BlackRock = iShares). The smaller index managers almost exclusively follow the proxy adviser's recommendation because they don't have the resources to analyze board decisions for ~8,000 different companies.
- wiredfool 5y agoVanguard in particular is just a bunch of different mutual funds and ETFs. It doesn't do hedge fund type investing.