banks

In my last post, I argued that enforced separation of investment banking and commercial banking would not eliminate the need to provide central bank support to investment banks and other non-banks in the event of another Lehman-type…

Glass-Steagall is dead. Rather like Soviet-era Communist leaders, it has been officially dead since 1999, and actually dead for much longer. Though there was no state funeral, the body was not embalmed or put on display and few people…

The Eurozone's banks are continuing to deleverage, with total loan balances to euro area residents now at the lowest level in 5 years. What makes the situation even more troubling is that many Eurozone banks banks are repeating the Japanese…

Banks appear not to have heard the old Wall Street saying, “A position is a trade that didn’t work out.” I suspect they are going to be long their REO for a more protracted period than they anticipate. Stay tuned.

US equity markets are continuing to price in higher premiums for bank shares relative to the overall market. The increased steepness of the yield curve will mean higher net interest income, as banks borrow at historically low rates from…

The treasury curve has steepened materially over the past few weeks, driven by Bernanke's seemingly hawkish statements. One group of companies that will benefit from this adjustment is the banking sector.

Spain and Italy reported today that the share of bad loans have continued to rise. There is nothing to suggest that this is the peak. In fact, further deterioration is likely.

In spite of the divergence in the chart, the "loans create deposits" axiom still stands - deposits are still created through bank credit. Two key developments explain much of this divergence without violating these principles.

In the links today, the biggest threads outside of the NSA scandal were on Greece and Europe. I believe the economy there is bottoming and I want to discuss some of the news flow. There was also a rate decision by the Japanese central bank…

Europe has been postponing the recapitalisation of its banking sector. This column argues that it has been doing so for far too long. Without such a recapitalisation, the danger is that economic stagnation will continue for a long period,…