Three Prominent Bankers Found Dead From Apparent Suicides Inside A Week

Three prominent bankers have been found dead in apparent suicides within the span of one week, leading some market watchers to speculate on what it could be that has them spooked.  

Bloomberg reported that former Federal Reserve economist Mike Dueker was found dead, Friday, in an apparent suicide near Tacoma, Washington.

Mike Dueker, the chief economist at Russell Investments, was found dead at the side of a highway that leads to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state, according to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. He was 50.

He may have jumped over a 4-foot (1.2-meter) fence before falling down a 40- to 50-foot embankment, Pierce County Detective Ed Troyer said yesterday. He said the death appeared to be a suicide.

On Tuesday, Jan. 28, Gabriel Magee, 39, vice president at JPMorgan Chase & Co’s  London headquarters, apparently jumped to his death from a building in the Canary Wharf area.

And on Sunday, Jan. 26,  William Broeksmit, 58, former senior manager for Deutsche Bank, was found hanging in his home in another apparent suicide.

Zero Hedge notes that Dueker had also been a research economist at the St. Louis Fed:

He published dozens of research papers over the past two decades, many on monetary policy, according to the St. Louis Fed’s website, which ranks him among the top 5 percent of economists by number of works published. His most-cited work was a 1997 paper titled “Strengthening the case for the yield curve as a predictor of U.S. recessions,” published by the reserve bank while he was a researcher there.

Historically, bankers have been known to commit suicides during stock market crashes, which begs the question, with stocks only 4% off their highs, why are these high ranking, well respected bankers committing suicide? 

Are there more to come?