The Institutional Risk Analyst

Many banks, led by the likes of Charles Schwab (SCHW) and Bank of America (BAC), refused to restructure their bond portfolios when interest rates were lower, leaving billions of dollars in potential earnings sitting on the table. As we discuss below, SCHW had a yield on its securities book, which is almost half of the group’s assets, of less than 2% at year-end 2025. Why is this OK?

“Moynihan is trying to demonstrate that the business can grow and hedge funds different investors in stock want price appreciation not just dividend. The decision to host the investor day was made long ago - JPM does it every year. Jamie Dimon has taken away the excuses of big banks that they can’t grow.”

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?

If you believe that the Fed is going to keep interest rates at or above current levels through to 2024, then we have a problem....

April 12, 2017 | Since the November 2016 election, large cap financials have moved sharply higher, in the case of Bank of America (BAC) up almost 60%. This spasmodic upward movement in reaction to the election of Donald Trump reflected both the collective desire of professional managers to increase allocation to financials but also the shared frustration of investors with the chronic under-performance of large banks. Let’s face it; there’s a whole generation of managers