Correspondent Blog

It’s Friday the 13th in the year 2020, so what can possibly go wrong today? Just giving you fare warning to keep your eyes open and your head up.   From the market’s perspective it’s become somewhat bi-polar in trading around positive vaccine news one day with a risk-on rally only to be reminded of record-breaking…

Election Aftermath Positive news from Pfizer on a vaccine that could treat 90% of virus cases has global stocks rallying and bonds on the back foot. A piece too on 60 Minutes about the government’s military-led effort to manage distribution has also helped the risk-on mood this morning. The 10-year Treasury has backed up to…

Being able to adapt and pivot is the hallmark of success in 2020. There are many new skills that we picked up, how to work various video conferencing applications, how to do remote check-ins, and, of course, how to run your entire bank from your home dining room table. One skill that still can use…

It may seem counter-intuitive, but many banks are loosening CRE underwriting standards instead of continuing to tighten them. With a new presidential administration, it is likely that we will face more stringent pandemic mitigations in the near future. While this is likely good for public health, it increases the short-term risk for commercial real estate…

  Economic News The October Employment Report is out  and it beat the headline expectation, along with a notable decline in the unemployment rate. For the month,  638 thousand jobs were created versus the 580 thousand median estimate. Private sector gains were even larger at 906 thousand as government jobs fell by 268  thousand as…

to win) but the make or break states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania remain out with Arizona flipping to Biden and Georgia still counting and close. Tabulating absentees could take a couple days and given the closeness in those states it could be tomorrow Friday before a victor is called. Meanwhile, Biden has just moved…

The Election and Other Stuff We’ve finally arrived at election week and tomorrow’s results will certainly have an impact on trading not only this week but for some time to come. The one scenario that probably is prone to generate the most volatility would be an inconclusive result on election night. If that were to…

In the last five years, one of the new disciplines in banking that has emerged is the combination of machine learning and satellite imagery to gather bank intelligence on fraud, credit, and bank marketing. While this sounds daunting, in this article, we will show you some relatively simple applications of both artificial intelligence (A.I.) and…

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 if LIBOR becomes unavailable in the future. CenterState Bank’s ARC program allows community banks to offer up to 20-year fixed-rate loans to customers, but retain an adjustable asset priced at…

Halloween is upon us and we mark time until the Tuesday elections and wonder what else 2020 will throw at us?  It has been a year of many more tricks than treats so we wait to see what the year will throw at us next. Speaking of the recent risk-off move, some point to the…

Will Treasury Yields Continue Higher? While this week brings some heavy hitting reports like the first look at third quarter GDP and September Personal Income and Spending the biggest question will be whether Treasury yields continue to drift higher settling into a slightly higher plane of the well-worn range that we’ve seen since March.  Some…

With Stimulus 2.0 now a decidedly after-election event, if even then, the market has turned squarely to virus trends and those haven’t been good.  Combine that with no stimulus anytime soon and that has led to a decent bout of risk-off action this week. As case counts and hospitalization rates continue to increase, combined with…