The Institutional Risk Analyst

Smaller issuers of stable coins will soon be competing with Verizon (VZN) and JPMorgan (JPM), while platforms offering turnkey coin solutions will multiply like Lantern Flies. 

Paying interest on reserves has nothing to do with whether banks lend and everything to do with enabling the Fed to manage the Treasury market. If you don’t want the Treasury market to remain open, then take away the Fed’s power to pay interest on reserves.  

The leading candidate to be the next Fed Chairman believes the balance sheet could safely shrink to around $5.8 trillion, with bank reserves potentially decreasing to $2.7 trillion. Waller argues that a shift towards more short-term Treasury bills would make the balance sheet safer and more flexible, and he is absolutely right.

We all were more than a little amused to learn that in the most recent bank stress tests the Federal Reserve Board decided to ignore the massive financial and reputation risk in private equity and private credit. With cash bids for private assets plummeting, and sponsors in full flight due to prospective litigation by jilted clients, how do the Fed and other bank regulators retain any credibility? Our friend Nom de Plumber had an appropriate observation...

Imagine if the Fed had to tell the public that federal deficits were bad for bank safety and soundness? We haven't had a Fed chairman since Arthur Burns who would speak publicly about the inflationary aspect of federal deficits.

If we told you that large cap financials are outperforming both the S&P 500 and bitcoin over the past month, what would you say? 

The Treasury market/bank industry PR lobbyist angle on the Fed's eSLR proposal is a little fake-out for the financial media. This not about buying more Treasury debt but instead buying back more bank stocks. Sabe?

We have little conviction behind our long positions in AXP and the SPX, thus the defensive recommendation in terms of sell orders.

In simple terms, FLG is not making money and does not seem to have any immediate prospects to pull itself out of a slow downward spiral of balance sheet shrinkage and operating losses.  Whereas before 2024, FLG was a peer performer in most respects, today the bank’s financial performance is significantly below-peer, bottom quartile in many cases.

We noted in the most recent IRA Bank Book that the Q1 2025 banking industry data from the FDIC was showing improvement in certain commercial line items, particularly non-owner occupied real estate. But is this another head fake by desperate banks trying to conceal rancid commercial real estate exposures?

Truth is, it’s hard to see the leadership of either RITM or UWMC combining with another entity, but the cost pressures in the industry today are driving radical change. 

The connection between expanding the balance sheet via open market purchases of Treasury debt and bank reserves is one of the starkest illustrations of how federal budget deficits translate directly into inflation.

The intriguing thing about private coin empires is that they are obviously not a positive for existing payment systems, yet neither are they dependent upon crypto. Larger sponsors may be able to create exclusive coin ecosystems without actually touching crypto assets at all. Fiat to AMZN coin, “ZON,” is really all that the sponsor needs.

Researchers at Apple just released a paper that throws cold water on the "reasoning" capabilities of the latest, most powerful large language AI models. In the paper, a team of machine learning experts makes the case that the AI industry is grossly overstating the ability of its top AI models, including OpenAI's o3, Anthropic's Claude 3.7, and Google's Gemini.

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?

When Ray Dalio says to be afraid of the bond market, he is asking a question that belongs in the mid-1970s, when the dollar still competed with other currencies and US interest rates were actually affected by interest rates in other nations. But today, with many of the other industrial nations led by Japan, China and the EU literally drowning in public debt, the US is still the leader of the parade.

As of yesterday's close, BK was right behind SoFi Technology (SOFI) leading the bank surveillance group higher. BK closed yesterday at 14x forward earnings and 1.6x book value, roughly the same PE multiple as JPM but at a lower book value multiple.

“Our operative assumption is that the strong economy and continued high inflation expectations will mitigate against any interest rate cuts in 2025,” Whalen notes. “We expect to see the FOMC end the shrinkage of the central bank’s balance sheet, which should help to increase the very low growth rates for bank deposits.”

Even a small decrease in prepayments due to higher LT interest rates could significantly impact the fair value of the Bank of America mortgage portfolio, forcing unrealized losses higher. If LT rates continue to rise, one veteran banker told The IRA yesterday, then BAC and several other large banks are going to start to literally shake apart from unrealized losses on COVID era assets.

We expect to see continued consolidation in the world of residential mortgage finance in coming months. The sad fact is that many less competitive businesses in mortgage finance have been waiting for the FOMC to ride to the rescue with lower interest rates. If rate cuts do not materialize in 2025, however, then many of these businesses may not survive.