The Institutional Risk Analyst

New York | First a safe and happy holiday to all. In this issue of The Institutional Risk Analyst, we ponder past prognostications and future risks in 2019. And we are happy to announce the publication of The IRA Bank Book for Q4 2018. For those of you who were furiously buying copies of the Q3 edition last week, for which we are most grateful, hit the download link again to get the Q4 edition. You’ll want to read about why US bank earnings growth is now 100% correlated to

First we’ve launched the first volume of The IRA Bank Book, a review of the operating and credit performance of the US banking industry written for institutional investors. US banks have the best financial disclosure in the world, down to the portfolio level, a fact that allows analysts to dig deep if they care to spend the time. They don't. We’ve done the digging for you and present a macro level view of key industry trends. And best of all, you get to pay us for our work.

“To exactly solve the problem of corruption, we must hit both flies and tigers” Xi Jinping New York | In December this past year, Chinese lender Citic Bancorp warned that the high-flying HNA Group was having trouble paying its considerable short-term debts. After building a $40 billion pile of investments around the world largely funded with debt, HNA seems to have reached the end of its ability to grow further, both in financial and political terms. Thus western investors