MichaelNYC

Auction Rate Securities: Who's To Blame?

Michael Steinberg - I try not to trust anyone (at least theoretically I know that's the correct behavior) still when an employee of Chase is involved it's a bit different. I would not buy these if a street broker offered them to me. At one point I even said “so this is like Chase commercial paper" and he said “yes”. The amounts are well over the FDIC limits so by keeping the money in a Chase MM I had to believe that Chase's credit would be ok and I did. It was a large sum and 97% of the cash on hand in this 501(c) , if this wasn’t a true “money market” just like the Chase MM, shouldn’t a Chase (Securities) employee say something? By the way, the branch didn’t seem to mind that a large sum went out of their account and went into AUS. I assume they were getting earning credits for the AUS also. It’s funny how Chase wants to be seen as a bank, yet make money and shaft their clients like the big boys on Wall Street. It’s really annoying how they behaved on this matter and I wonder if they think the clients won’t remember this in the future and hold it against them. When the Chase folks tried to be “helpful” and offer loans against the AUS, I told them to shove it. I hope they fold soon for their own good because eventually they will, given the other players folding, and they are just hurting themselves by protracting this.

DougM – what that a bank, can you tell me please which institution it was?

hooboy – you know, life’s busy and here’s a Chase employee… I was told the credit was insured munis, as to the liquidity he assured me that it was fine. In hindsight of course I’d act differently. Still this does not excuse their nondisclosure and as I wrote above their intermingling of Chase Bank and Chase Securities.