It’s the Punch You Don’t See Coming that Knocks You Out

It’s the Punch You Don’t See Coming That Knocks You Out The banking crisis has been in the news for better than a month now, but we suspect that the real crisis is ahead of us, not behind us. The ‘disappearing deposits’ problem, that brought down SVB, Signature, and most recently First Republic, could be […]
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Implications of a Fracturing Global Economy

Implications of a Fracturing Global Economy Our comments each week typically revolve around shorter term issues but this week we want to spend some time thinking longer term, much longer term. The catalyst for this shift was a speech given this week by Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), which discusses the […]
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Expert Failure

Expert Failure Quite a few years ago, I had the privilege to hear Malcom Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink, speak about the ramifications of expert failure. His point was simple: If an idiot makes a mistake, it doesn’t matter very much because logically, no one is listening to the idiot. However, if […]
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Deal, or No Deal?

Deal, or No Deal? The banking deposit crisis is receding, but the credit crunch is just starting. After 15 years of investment decisions dominated by the Fed Put (i.e., extremely low interest rates and pumping money into the economy, to rescue markets), the critical question investors currently have is whether the Fed will resume a […]
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Bank Failures Shine Light on Interest Rate Risks

Bank Failures Shine Light on Interest Rate Risks Financial markets reacted turbulently to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on March 10, 2023, followed two days later by the failure of Signature Bank of New York. With $209 billion in assets and $175 billion in deposits, SVB was the nation’s 16th largest bank and […]
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Frayed, but Resilient

Frayed, but Resilient Over the past 3 weeks the economy and the banking system have become more frayed, yet markets have remained resilient. So, this week, we attempt to make sense out of what doesn’t make any sense. Our recession call remains in place as many economic indicators point toward a recession. Here are a […]
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Who’s Swimming Naked?

Who’s Swimming Naked? Most of the talk this week was of the SVB failure, bank runs, and most important… who’s next? We think that’s the wrong question. Last week we called the SVB failure an old-fashioned bank run, which it was. Much like the movie ”It’s a Wonderful Life”, depositors were lining up at SVB’s […]
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