The Institutional Risk Analyst

Q: What is the duration of a security with a negative yield? Hold that thought. Noted financial author Nassim Nicholas Taleb has little patience for economists. “Charlatans & economists use logical flaw: because a pilot is expert, they are experts,” notes Taleb in a recent tweet. “But pilots are selected via skin-in-the-game mechanisms. Plumbers, dancers, dentists, mathematicians, snipers, pastry chefs are experts. Economists BS for a living.” Nowhere is this obvious distinc

New York | This week in The Institutional Risk Analyst, we return to the activities of funds operating in the world of distressed real estate and corporate debt. We noted a few months back that some of the biggest players in the distressed debt industry were preparing for a comeuppance in the market for collateralized loan obligations or “CLOs.” New funds were be created to absorb and profit by busted CLOs and distressed financial institutions such as Deutsche Bank AG (DB).

Washington | Consider the irony of the American housing sector. In the District of Columbia, various pundits, market retreads and spin-meisters (many employed by hedge funds) obsessively focus on "reforming" the government sponsored enterprises known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, together the “GSEs.” The third and largest GSE, the Federal Home Loan Banks, along with the fourth, the Government National Mortgage Association or Ginnie Mae, are also included in the prospective

New York | In his new book, “Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government,” by Paul Volcker (1979-1987) with Christine Harper, the former Fed Chairman delivers a sound rebuke to Chairmen Ben Bernanke (2006-2014) and Janet Yellen (2014-2018), and other Fed governors and economists, for fretting overmuch about deflation. He argues that the true danger is that loose monetary policy leads to inflation and market contagion caused by the manipulation of risk prefer

“Across the globe, investors have one thing in mind. How far will interest rates rise and is the great bull market in bonds finally over?” Lawrence MacDonald Henry Ford's missing punch bowl New York | The proverbial punch bowl has been spilled all over the floor. Not surprisingly, the departure of Janet Yellen as Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is bad news in many quarters. The speculative policies that helped gun assets prices around the world

New York | With the global punditry assembled in Davos this week, the topic of the dollar seems to have bubbled to the surface again. Down more that 10% from the December 2016 peak, the greenback has started to sag at just the time when Treasury deficits are climbing and the Fed is paring back its purchases of US government debt and agency mortgage bonds, as shown in Chart 1 below. With the 10-year Treasury back over 2.6% yield, gravity seems to have been restored to the gl

Tyler Durden, "Fight Club" (1999) Punta del Este | Last week our comrade at Zero Hedge astutely noted that, in the October 2012 FOMC minutes, Fed governor and soon to be Chairman Jerome Powell opined that the Fed has a “short” position in volatility. Powell said: “[W]hen it is time for us to sell, or even to stop buying, the response could be quite strong; there is every reason to expect a strong response. So there are a couple of ways to look at it. It is about $1.2 trillio

New York | The term “Greenspan Put” was coined after the stock market crash of 1987 and the subsequent bailout of Long Term Capital Management in 1998. The Fed under Chairman Alan Greenspan lowered interest rates following the fabled event of default and life continued. The idea of the Greenspan Put was that lower interest rates would cure the market’s woes. Unfortunately, the FOMC has since fallen into a pattern whereby longer periods of low or even zero interest rates are u

New York | We start the week in downtown Manhattan with a presentation to the International Association of Credit Portfolio Managers in New York (click here to download slides). We’ll refer to some of the slides in the comments below. And we appreciate the feedback about last week’s comment about the role of Equifax and the other consumer credit agencies in the mortgage market. Of note to one reader’s question, lenders do not need a FICO score to submit a mortgage to the fe

“Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." Irving Fisher October 1929 This Thursday The IRA’s Christopher Whalen will be in Washington to participate in an event at Cato Institute, “Financial Crisis and Reform," We'll talk with Cato's Ike Brannon about whether enough has been done to “fix” the problem, real or imagined, with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The question posed by the title of the Cato Institute panel suggests that Washington has the sl

JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) boss Jamie Dimon says there’s something wrong with the US economy and he is obviously right. Here’s our short list: * too much public and private debt * too little income and growth * monopolies in banking and other industries * oppressive regulation for all businesses * political muddle and lack of national purpose * confused, irrational monetary policy A couple of weeks before Mr. Dimon was waxing effusive on the state of the American political economy,