Economy

Tariff Pause Brings the Market Some Relief

Tariff Pause Brings the Market Some Relief

3 min readYesterday, President Trump announced via Truth Social that he would be suspending reciprocal tariffs on nearly all countries for a 90-day period – marking a significant de-escalation in U.S. tariff policy. While not entirely clear from the President’s post, the indication is that countries previously in line to face tariffs above 10% will now be…

White House Tariff Announcement: Initial Reaction

White House Tariff Announcement: Initial Reaction

4 min readYesterday, President Trump announced a broad array of tariffs in what is arguably the most consequential trade action since the establishment of the WTO in 1995. Invoking national security interests, the President announced the imposition of a 10% minimum global tariff effective April 5th. Canada and Mexico were the only notable exceptions, with USMCA-compliant goods…

Republic First Bank Resolution: Minimal Disruption Expected

Republic First Bank Resolution: Minimal Disruption Expected

2 min readOn Friday afternoon, the FDIC took the failed Republic First Bank into receivership and the majority of the bank’s assets and liabilities were sold to Fulton Bank on the same day. We do not expect this bank failure to create systemwide turmoil similar to what we experienced in March of 2023 due to Republic First…

Coming to Terms with Banking System Liquidity

Coming to Terms with Banking System Liquidity

10 min readDuring the weekend following Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, it became apparent that the bank run which drove SVB to insolvency was spreading, placing extreme liquidity pressures on a few regional lenders. Bank balance sheets remained fundamentally stable, although, the volume and speed of deposit outflows at some banks was overwhelming available liquid resources. Many banks…

What Dwindling Excess Savings Means for The Consumer

What Dwindling Excess Savings Means for The Consumer

7 min readWhen will “revenge spending” exhaust consumers’ pandemic-era savings? What does this mean for consumption and growth? Introduction Excess savings have become a marque piece of economic outlooks, attempting to estimate when consumers’ “revenge spending” will exhaust bank accounts leading to a drop in consumption. However, Q3 2023’s 4.9% annualized GDP growth, most of which was…

Rates, Commodities and Consumer Finance: Three Themes to Watch in 2023

Rates, Commodities and Consumer Finance: Three Themes to Watch in 2023

11 min readIntroduction By Lance Pan, CFA Since we started publishing the annual “themes to watch” series in 2008, this edition marks our 16th anniversary of looking at key market-moving trends for institutional cash investors. To shake off our Covid-induced autophobia (fear of being alone), I enlisted members of my credit research team to co-author last year’s…