March Activity Comes Into Focus This Week
March Jobs Report Expected to be Strong Without any consequential Fed Speak this week, and little on the legislative calendar that impacts the economy, and with the Treasury taking a hiatus from issuing debt the next two weeks the market can focus on some early tallies on March economic activity. The reports will be headlined…
Consumer Spending is About to Surge
Treasuries have managed to navigate a second straight week absorbing copious coupon supply without too much indigestion. This time it was 2yr, 5yr, and 7yr notes. The 7yr yesterday was particularly of interest because the February auction was the worst ever for that maturity. This time it struggled again but not to the extent last…
Powell and Yellen Face the House
Fed Chair Powell and Treasury Secretary Yellen came before the House Financial Services Committee yesterday afternoon as part of their required quarterly update to Congress on the CARES Act. The questions as you could guess quickly moved along partisan lines with the Republicans more interested in hearing the duos thoughts about Biden’s latest $3…
Understand This One Point For Better Bank Fee Setting
Pick up almost any survey, from Pew to JD Power and you will find that deposit account fees are a significant driver of customer satisfaction. Often it is a major factor in choosing or leaving a bank. Unfortunately, many banks set their fees according to where their competitors are. If your bank does this understand…
Powell and Yellen Travel to Capitol Hill Together
Powell & Yellen To Testify on Capitol Hill Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will appear twice this week on Capitol Hill to deliver a quarterly update on the CARES Act legislation. The Tuesday session will be before the House Financial Services Committee while Wednesday they will be in front of the…
Reasons For Community Banks to Embrace Loan Hedging in 2021
This year may be the right time for your bank to embrace a loan hedging program. With the economy recovering from a pandemic and the possibility of stoking inflation, banks that can offer borrowers more flexible loan structures may be in a better position to win more and better quality loans. While the Federal Reserve…
Fed Emphasizes Patient Stance
The FOMC meeting is now behind us, and while there was not much change to existing monetary policy there is still plenty we learned from the statement, the Summary of Economic Projections, the dot plot of fed funds rates, and the Q&A at the Powell press conference. In fact, we think it was one of…
Market Awaits FOMC Meeting – March 17, 2021
The FOMC meeting today will offer investors the full panoply of Fed resources from which it impacts the market. While there is no change in policy expected, nor any indication that a change is coming in the near future, they will update their rate and economic forecasts and that will provide plenty of fodder to…
Fed to Update Rate Forecast this Week
FOMC Meeting Highlights the Week The FOMC meeting comes at an opportune time with Stimulus 3.0 now passed, and more good news on the virus/vaccine front, yields have pushed to pandemic highs. One thing investors will be looking for is whether the Fed will still express no discomfort from these higher yields? In addition to…
Treasuries Pushing at Yield Highs Once Again
To this point, Treasuries have managed to navigate a week that could have put them up against the rocks of higher yields on several occasions, but instead they’ve mostly avoided any major disasters. First, it was a trio of reopening auctions, especially the $38 billion in additional 10-year notes auctioned on Wednesday and $24 billion…