The Institutional Risk Analyst

New York | People keep asking what we think of the 10-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Our answer is that not much has changed. Lehman once had the best performing bank in the US and then it was gone. Why? Fraud on loans and securities. Fraud in different forms still prevails in the world of investing, but has migrated from banks to non-banks like funds and BDCs, and of course structured securities. Derivatives are the enablers of fraud. That is the c

New York | The failure of Bear Stearns & Co a decade ago illustrates the key lesson of financial markets, namely that non-banks are dependent upon 1) banks and 2) clients for liquidity. And no amount of capital will save a non-bank that has a deficit in terms of confidence. In times of market stress, credibility and character are far more important than capital. Like the Crisis of 1907, when JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) had to rescue the trust banks at the behest of President Teddy