The Institutional Risk Analyst

In 2019, the FOMC essentially nationalized the US money markets, eliminating private price discovery for a representation of a market.

The market tantrum which began on Friday was largely over by the market close on the following Tuesday.

The WGA Bank Top 50 is, well, the top half of the population, but far better in quality than the bottom quartile.

The rotation away from institutional investors to retail funding source for the $1.7 trillion direct lending market is an ominous sign

Joe Otting does not seem to understand the value of the Flagstar correspondent lending and mortgage servicing business...

Of note, PFSI has been growing share in wholesale, a direct challenge to UWMC

We hear in the channel that banks with festering multifamily exposures are paying north of 10% for similar CRT transactions.

GS saw loss provisions fall slightly in Q2 2024 to $282 million but the number was still $600 million in the first half of the year...

The Basel Accord is one of the single biggest examples of a regulatory agency literally creating a new law from whole cloth.

The first comment to make is that consumer defaults are rising across the board. The only question we need to consider is the rate of change

Notice that the Fed stress test is silent on trillions of dollars in mark-to-market losses facing US banks from COVID-era securities

The larger banks led the way in January and February, but today the top 25 names in terms of total return include many smaller banks.

The Fed bank stress tests are another sign of magical thinking in Washington.

Citigroup leads the pack with a net loss rate of 133 basis points (bp) that is almost five times the average for Peer Group 1 at 27 bp.

BMO arguably has the weakest reserve position among the large Canadian banks....

How much in synthetic CRT transactions will be done in 2024? Our best guess is many hundreds of billions globally...

We remind readers that unrealized losses on securities are still a bigger problem for banks than CRE.

Direct lenders are the pawnbrokers of the 21st Century for subprime commercial borrowers, usually firms financed via leveraged buyouts.

The unrealized losses on COVID era securities remain a huge problem for banks large and small, especially if long-term interest rates rise

With a budget deficit projected to be $1.8 trillion in 2024, the odds of the FOMC actually controlling inflation are pretty low.