The Economist (April 10)
“For a good few hours on April 9th, disaster beckoned. Share prices had been falling for weeks. Then the market for American Treasury bonds—normally among the safest assets available—started convulsing, too. The yield on ten-year Treasuries leapt to 4.5%…. That meant bond prices, which move inversely to yields, had cratered. The failure of both risky and supposedly safe assets at once threatened to destabilise the financial system itself.”
Tags: April 9, Bonds, Convulsing, Cratered, Destabilise, Disaster, Failure, Financial system, Market, Risky, Safe assets, Share prices, Threatened, Treasuries, U.S., Yield
Wall Street Journal (April 22)
Giant investment companies like Blackstone, Franklin Templeton, BlackRock and KKR “are taking over the financial system.” They now “control sums rivaling the economies of many large countries. They are pushing into new businesses, blurring the lines that define who does what on Wall Street and nudging once-dominant banks toward the sidelines.” Their outsize roles are, according to investors, creating “risks markets have never encountered before.”
Tags: Banks, BlackRock. KKR, Blackstone, Blurring lines, Countries, Financial system, Franklin Templeton, Investment, Investors, Markets, Risks, Sidelines, Wall Street
American Banker (March 20)
“After bank merger-and-acquisition activity slowed substantially in 2022, it could reach a standstill following the failures of Silicon Valley Bank in California and Signature Bank in New York.” Their “sudden demise… injected hefty doses of uncertainty into the financial system and raised doubts about the veracity of regulatory oversight.” Because they missed vulnerabilities, “bank supervisors are likely to further ramp up reviews of banks’ potential weaknesses,” which is likely to “extend to bank M&A.”
Tags: 2022, Bank, California, Doubts, Financial system, M&A, New York, Regulatory oversight, Signature Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, Standstill, Sudden, Uncertainty, Veracity
Barron’s (July 24)
“China’s property slump and suffering economy is leading some to wonder if China could be on the brink of its own Lehman-style crisis. While the troubles facing China’s economy are substantial, it’s unlikely to push China into the type of meltdown that sends the country’s financial system into a tailspin.”
Tags: China, Crisis, Economy, Financial system, Lehman-style, Meltdown, Property, Slump, Suffering, Tailspin, Troubles
Wall Street Journal (May 13)
“Well, the party was fun while it lasted. But now the liquidity tidal wave is crashing as it always does when credit conditions tighten. This week’s crypto-currency crash is the first body exposed on the beach, and let’s hope the damage doesn’t spread too far into the financial system and broader economy.”
Tags: Broader economy, Crash, Credit, Crypto-currency, Damage, Financial system, Liquidity, Party, Spread, Tidal wave, Tighten
Claims Journal (October 26)
The “COP26 climate talks in Glasgow starting next Sunday may be the world’s best last chance to cap global warming at the 1.5-2 degrees Celsius upper limit set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The stakes for the planet are huge – among them the impact on economic livelihoods the world over and the future stability of the global financial system.”
Tags: 1.5-2 degrees, Cap, Climate, COP26, Economic livelihoods, Financial system, Glasgow, Global warming, Last chance, Paris Agreement, Planet, Stability, Stakes
Bloomberg (October 13)
“The vital question for many investors has been whether the problems for speculative real estate will cause broader contagion, either through cascading losses in the financial system or through economic weakness.” The former remains unlikely, but “the second — an economic slowdown of which Evergrande is both a cause and a symptom — grows more likely with time.”
Tags: Cascading, Contagion, Economic weakness, Evergrande, Financial system, Investors, Losses, Real estate, Slowdown, Speculative, Vital
New York Times (April 17)
A new front is opening “in the war over how cryptocurrency will — or will not — be regulated.” Although “Cryptocurrencies are still mostly held as speculative assets,” they could “become fundamental parts of the financial system. To many, Coinbase’s successful debut, which valued the company at $86 billion, far more than operators of stock and bond exchanges, is a signal that this transformation is already well underway.” The success of that IPO could “invite more attention from regulators.”
Tags: Bond, Coinbase, Cryptocurrency, Exchanges, Financial system, IPO, Regulated, Signal, Speculative assets, Stock, Successful, Transformation, War
The Economist (January 18)
“America is weaponising its currency and financial system” like never before, but the “use of sanctions could endanger the dollar in the long term!” Other countries, both allies and enemies, increasingly view the Trump administration’s aggressive use of the dollar-based financial system “as an abuse of power.” Ultimately, this “may eventually lead to the demise of America’s financial hegemony, as other countries seek to dethrone its mighty currency.”
Tags: Abuse, Allies, Currency, Dollar, Enemies, Financial system, Hegemony, Sanctions, Trump, U.S., Weaponising
Wall Street Journal (September 5)
“A decade after fueling a crisis that nearly brought down the global financial system, America’s banks are ruling it. They earned 62% of global investment-banking fees last year, up from 53% in 2011.” In 2018, “U.S. banks took home $7 of every $10 in merger fees, $6 of every $10 in stock commissions, and $6 of every $10 paid to hold and move corporate cash.”
Tags: Banks, Crisis, Financial system, Investment-banking fees, Merger fees, Stock commissions, U.S.
