Correspondent Blog

We recently spoke to a frustrated banker who was amazed that a regional bank was trying to poach his existing customer by quoting the borrower a credit spread of 1.65%. At such a thin credit spread, how would any bank make a profit, and why was this regional bank so irrational?  In this blog, we…

Stimulus 2.0 and Fed Meeting Highlight the Week If there’s going to be a Stimulus 2.0 before year-end it has to come together this week unless members of Congress want to hang around Capitol Hill for Christmas. Senate Majority Leader McConnell stated late last week that there is no way forward in the negotiations but…

Negotiations over a Stimulus 2.0 Bill have stalled again and that has the risk-off trade gaining this morning and Treasuries rallying. Senate Majority Leader McConnell said late yesterday he didn’t see a path forward to an agreement and that sent stocks sliding. There are three separate packages being floated but all sit around $900 billion…

Treasuries have entered a listless trading period and that’s likely to continue until we get some resolution over: Stimulus 2.0, Senate majority, and clarity on vaccine take-up and virus case counts. Save for the stimulus bill possibly, none of these issues will be resolved this week, or this month frankly. So expect the listless trading…

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us we can turn our attention to the holidays. That means our annual gift guide for bankers. We do this as we not only have a good time putting this together, but it is one of the pieces of content that we produce that drives heavy traffic. At this time,…

Stimulus 2.0 and a Quiet Fed While we get November CPI this week, and are left to ponder the jobs report from last week, the market will be focused on developments surrounding the $908 billion stimulus bill that made some headway last week. With more PPP funds, $300/week of unemployment money, and funds for state…

On October 23, 2020, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) published the Fallback Protocol (Protocol) that allows firms that use LIBOR to transition to SOFR when LIBOR becomes unavailable.  On November 30, 2020, ISDA and IBA announced that it will cease publication of the one-week and two-month US dollar LIBOR settings immediately following the…

This is jobs week and also with a pair of ISM reports we’ll get a pretty good feel for the economic activity in November. That’s all well and good but the market is more interested in the fate and look of a stimulus bill and that has bonds on the back foot as traders bet…

Election Aftermath While the presidential election results are mostly settled, the Senate remains uncertain until Georgia’s twin run-offs on January 5. For now investors are assuming the Senate will stay in Republican hands, and thus in some sort of goldilocks gridlock, and that has the attention returning squarely to the virus. The outlook on case…

In a recent training, the recording of which is below, our Bank participated in an intro class on how to get better at remote selling and coaching put on by Jack Hubbard of St. Meyer & Hubbard. Given the pandemic and the fact that we believe remote selling is here to stay, we found it was…

We have blogged about how low-interest rates, COVID-19 credit strain, and tough competition for quality commercial loans create a challenging environment for community banks. One way that community banks are responding to deterioration in net interest margin (NIM) is by embracing commercial loan hedging programs. These hedging programs can appeal to borrowers in today’s interest rate…

The market is being buffeted this morning by news of a split between Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Fed Chair Powell on the future of several emergency lending programs. Fed Chair Powell wants the programs, namely the corporate credit facility, the muni liquidity program, and Main Street program carried over through year-end; whereas, Mnuchin says the…