Sen. Elizabeth Warren has spent almost 20 years asking Wall Street hard questions. She has called private-equity takeovers legal “looting.” One of her bills would make it easier to send executives to jail. Now, the Journal's Corrie Driebusch and Dylan Tokar report, she is set to chair the Senate Banking Committee, with new subpoena powers. Bank stocks fell Thursday, Nov. 5, with the rest of the market. The KBW Bank index lost 3.57%.
Here is the early list, as people close to her described it to the Journal. Private equity, through her Stop Wall Street Looting Act. Alleged insider trading at prediction markets. Consumer protections at cryptocurrency companies. Oversight of the administration and its regulators, starting in January. Her staff says her first moves will match the past two years, when she and her team sent companies hundreds of letters with thousands of questions. A 41-page letter this week named companies from Capital One to Skydance over what it called conflicts of interest with the administration. The title isn't locked in. Her claim rests on seniority, and some lobbyists ask whether Sen.-elect Sherrod Brown might seek the job. Most watchers think a competing bid is unlikely.
What could reach your wallet
Two items cross party lines, and both touch households. The first is credit cards. The paper reports that she and President Trump spoke by phone about a possible cap on credit-card interest rates, and that the two have found common ground on card fees. The second is deposit insurance. The paper reports she has pushed for a higher limit alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and some Republican lawmakers. Neither has become law, and the paper names no figure for either. A third item is private equity. If you've been offered a private-equity fund in your own account, her bill on that industry is the one to watch. The paper says private equity is the part of Wall Street with the most revenue at stake.
The two sides, as the paper quotes them. Former Sen. Pat Toomey, once the committee's Republican ranking member, says it's hard to imagine good news for these industries. He worries that populist overlap between the parties could produce laws he'd call anti-free-market. Brian Gardner of Stifel expects contentious relationships with the largest firms to continue, but says, “I don't think she wants to be seen as simply anti-bank.” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said the president is willing to work with anyone delivering for working Americans, and called the alternative a choice to work against them. Warren, in a Time opinion piece Thursday, wrote that working people are counting on Democrats to deliver.
Our read
Insurance/Consumer Protection · M11, and Investments/Risk · IN04. Treat this as a schedule of hearings and nothing more yet. Hearings make headlines. Laws change your money. Right now, nothing has changed for a card balance, a crypto account or a bank deposit. The banks we hold stay held at weight, JPMorgan (JPM) in 26 books, Goldman Sachs (GS) in 19, Morgan Stanley (MS) in 16 and Bank of America (BAC) in 11. Nothing changed. Expect more letters and hearings aimed at banks and private equity. That's worth watching, not acting on.
Here's what to check this week. Pull your credit-card statement and find the interest rate you're paying. If a cap ever comes, that's the number it would touch. If it never comes, that's the number you're paying today. Then look at where your cash sits. If what you hold at one bank is above the insured limit, a higher limit is only a hope. A second bank is a fix you can make on Monday. If you're not sure how your cash is spread, that's a quick question for a review.