The Institutional Risk Analyst

The proliferation of low- or no-cost coin systems is ultimately negative for established players in nonbank finance and payments, including the major card issuers, as we discuss below.  Still worried about interchange fees?

At one point last year, HOOD was up several hundred percent, but has given back much of those gains. Yet the leaders of our finance group have outperformed the broad market.

When will Disney decide to sell some or all of its streaming operations to keep the lights on at its theme parks?

Now let’s take a look at how some members of the banking and fintech sector are doing in the first month of 2024.

Is AFRM maturing from a hot new fintech entrant to a familiar face headed for a bank license?? Yikes.

The key term for risk managers and investors in 2024 remains unchanged from this year: Volatility.

When you are in a big crowd, nothing else matters.

S&P was the first to call out the growing lack of fiscal discipline in Washington, downgrading Uncle Sam in 2011

If it’s artificial, then it’s not intelligent.

Banks that do not aggressively reprice liabilities and assets as OZK did in Q1 2023 may be left behind.

CEO Patrick Collison is guiding investors and the media to a $200 million profit in 2023. Selective disclosure??

Despite all the hyperbole, the great crypto fraud was a small game, like the party poker that many crypto enthusiasts share in common

With the Fed doubling down on rate increases, the pressure on all manner of nonbank finance companies and fintech platforms is growing.

Given the demand for safe assets, the true risk free rate today is probably less than zero. Ponder that Chairman Powell

If investors and partner banks don’t want to buy UPST loans at current market rates, then the game is over in an originate to sell model

UPST has seen its valuation cut by 60% since March of last year, when its common equity traded at a mere 31x book value.

Bottom line, when a bank seems to be doing much better than other banks, there is usually a reason and that reason is almost always bad

Is SQ really, REALLY worth 25x book value? Our respectful answer to that question is no.

Is BLND worth more than RKT, or entrenched data monopolies and solution providers such as BKI or even CLGX?

While the progress in machine learning is impressive, horsepower in terms of computational capacity does not translate into intelligence.