The Institutional Risk Analyst

We have published the latest edition of The IRA Bank Book for Q4 2025. Entitled "Defaults Fall, Market Risk Grows," the report details how indicators of consumer credit risk are falling even as risk to financial markets from institutional and commercial credit, crypto tokens and market exposures grow. Bank income has reached record levels in Q3 2025, but what happens in Q4 2025 and 2026?

So the $200 billion asset Fifth-Third Bank (FITB) is buying $80 billion asset Comerica Incorporated (CMA)? Is this the start of a wave of similar transactions among regional banks? Hopefully not. This deal neither creates great value nor promises significant synergies, but it does make for a bigger regional bank with so-so financial metrics. Essentially FITB is rescuing CMA shareholders.

You take the GSEs out of conservatorship, the big banks led by JPMorgan and U.S. Bancorp will own the conventional loan market

Sad to say, the business at NYCB is doing better than you'd think reading the bank's absurd disclosure.

The “winners” in the mortgage sector will be those larger players with equally large servicing books that can access bank funding

JPM is really a large mutual fund with a bank attached, as shown in the table below.

If the FOMC raises the target rate for fed funds further, then banks like CMA are likely to come under renewed selling pressure.

With inflation fears moderating, look for Buy Side managers to buy bank stocks – even if earnings remain constrained...