The Institutional Risk Analyst

New York | With the end of Q2 2019 earnings in sight, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that the rate of change in US bank funding costs is slowing, from 50-60% year-over-year rates of increase to 30-40% or so this past quarter. Indeed, even though the middle of the Treasury yield curve has essentially collapsed, there is no indication that funding costs are following suit. Interest rates in the US remain buoyant outside of the government bond market. Across

Writing this week in Barron’s, Harvard economist Martin Feldstein nails the proverbial issue of excessive debt square on when he notes that European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi has run out of runway when it comes to policy prescriptions. He writes: “One of the goals of large-scale bond purchases—so-called quantitative easing— was to drive down long-term interest rates in order to stimulate business investment and housing construction. But with long-term interest rates no