The asset cap on Wells Fargo makes no sense and has got to go
BOUND: This is, alas, turning into something of an evergreen headline. Which reminds me. Wells Fargo’s fake-accounts scandal happened eight years and three CEOs ago. The $1.95 trillion…
The bubbles that never should have happened
MASS DELUSION: I like to think the financial markets are highly efficient and that investors, in aggregate, are cold-blooded, no-nonsense seekers of value. Fine. So how the…
Who knew? Fed pauses are good for stocks–especially financials
HIGHER IS BETTER: This isn’t exactly intuitively obvious to me, I admit. LPL Financial’s Jeff Buchbinder notes that during Fed pauses—that is, periods like now, when the Fed has…
Are CRE woes over? Not so fast.
STILL IN THE HOLE: Hmm. Things might be looking marginally better in the office market lately, but that doesn’t mean everybody’s out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot. STARWOOD’S $10 BILLION…
Money managers wake up to CRE woes. But too late?
ALREADY GONE: I take this as a sign that the ongoing problems in the commercial real estate sector are by now extremely well-understood by investors. Portfolio managers…
Private equity funds’ exit dilemma
STILL WAITING: Holy cow. It sure does seem like private equity funds are getting a little antsy. BURDEN OF $3 TRILLION ASSET PILE SPARKS HUNT FOR IPO ALTERNATIVE…
Fun with REIT valuations
TWO DIRECTIONS: Great moments in financial journalism! The New York Times finally gets around to wondering how it can be that the price of Blackstone’s $114 billion private REIT, whose…
On inflation, the money supply tells the tale
IT’S THE MONEY: Why is no one else talking about this? The pundits might lately be saying that inflation is set to surge again, but former Western Asset Management chief economist Scott Grannis points…
New hope for the office market
THE VULTURES HAVE LANDED: Is free market capitalism great, or what? Signs are already emerging that the problems in the office market are starting to fix themselves. [A] new…
Private credit gets a closer look. Good.
WAKING UP AT LAST: It’s a start, I suppose; $2.1 trillion later, and people are starting to catch on: PRIVATE CREDIT ‘WARRANTS CLOSER WATCH’ AMID RAPID GROWTH—IMF The…