The Institutional Risk Analyst

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

Big banks have big CRE exposures, too. So what drives this marvelous progression up the wall of worry?

Q: What do Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic Bank, Signature Bank and New York Community Bank have in common? Auditor, KPMG.

Net interest income at USB was down again for the fourth consecutive quarter, confirming a trend across the banking industry

As reflected in the valuations for JPM, WFC and BXMT, institutional investors are still not that concerned about commercial real est losses

Look for falling rates sooner rather than later as the Fed and other agencies prepare to resolve more bank failures in 2024.

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

Citigroup picked up almost 10 points of book value since the end of Q3 2023.

If you conduct a fire sale analysis of BAC's balance sheet as of Q3 2023, the result more than wipes out the bank's tangible equity

Large universal banks that ply the capital markets and use essentially infinite leverage in the derivatives markets face challenges

Bank earnings can be best described as cautiously mediocre, but as usual the Street proclaimed that three banks "beat the estimates"

JPM has an impressive lead in earnings and growth over WFC and C, neither one of which is positioned to catch up with Jamie Dimon in 2023.

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

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....

Given that the US Treasury is paying 4% for 90-day T-bills, you can see how far banks have to go to become competitive on rates

The Fed by definition cannot make a profit and is always an expense to the Treasury, thus operating losses are a expense to the taxpayer

Our view is that the BKI purchase is a horrible deal for ICE shareholders, a value killer of epic proportions

We suspect that the IMBs will be sellers of conventional assets to defend their Ginnie Mae MSRs. Banks may be buyers of conventional assets

We hear in the channel that regulators are making their views of future loss probabilities very clear in guidance to the top banks

But nothing lasts forever in mortgage land or in financials. Stay tuned and pay attention to LT rates and spreads...