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The $3 trillion hidden exposure behind the Archegos blowup

30 April 2021Banks, Risk Commentaryequity financing, hedge funds, prime brokerage, repo lendingNick Dunbar

How the push for growth turned equity financing into a hotbed of regulatory arbitrage

Italian derivatives opera

10 February 2021Articles, Risk Commentaryinterest rate swaps, litigation, sovereign debt, swaptionsNick Dunbar

Italian courts are prosecuting former officials involved in derivatives terminated by Morgan Stanley nine years ago. But the US bank actually did Italy a favour, unlike the country’s other sovereign counterparties.

How Covid forbearance gave banks a three trillion dollar boost

3 November 2020Banks, Risk CommentaryBasel rules, CECL, Covid-19, Dodd-Frank Act, investment banking, tradingNick Dunbar

To keep banks operating smoothly during the pandemic, regulators eased capital requirements and boosted trading profits by underpinning financial markets. Did they go too far?

The adventures of CECL in banking land

27 May 2020Banks, Risk CommentaryAccounting, CECL, corporate loans, IFRS 9, loan loss provisions, retail loansNick Dunbar

Should accounting be independent of bank supervision? The arrival of IFRS 9 provisioning at the height of the Covid-19 crisis has exposed a three way tussle between auditors, regulators and bank management.

How Covid-19 infected the corporate bond market

20 March 2020Credit, Risk Commentaryairlines, central banks, coronavirus, Covid-19, high yield bondsNick Dunbar

The coronavirus outbreak has infected the corporate bond market as economies grind to a halt. Can trillions of emergency central bank measures keep borrowers alive?

How JP Morgan broke the repo market

17 December 2019Banks, Risk CommentaryFederal Reserve, JP Morgan, money market funds, repo lendingNick Dunbar

The Fed relied on JP Morgan to lend out cash into the repo market. But that was before the too-big-to-fail giant made a pivot out of cash into securities.