Simply Put

Wildfires swept through parts of southern California last month, causing indescribable human suffering and property destruction. The rising frequency and magnitude of these events, along with the unintended consequences of some well-intentioned regulations, are also placing unique pressure on the insurance market. In this episode, we talk with Matt Palazola, Senior Analyst for Property and Casualt...

Over the last few years, the technological promise of artificial intelligence (AI) has propelled stock market gains, driven fears of widespread labor market displacement, and helped turn microchip production into a matter of national security. Generative AI models are still in their infancy, but investors and economists are already debating whether its impact will rival that of electricity or the...

The US Treasury has once again started to use “extraordinary measures” to honor its debt service obligations and avoid breaching the debt ceiling. With these measures expected to run out sometime this summer, any efforts to increase or suspend the debt ceiling will run concurrently with Republican priorities to renew tax cuts and cut government spending. President Trump has voiced support in elimi...

With slim majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans hope to narrow the fiscal deficit and extend many of the tax cuts from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). A handful of fiscal hawks and the Senate’s legislative rules could limit the GOP’s ability to accomplish renewal of the TCJA’s biggest provisions. President-elect Trump also campaigned extensively on raising tariffs to increase reve...

The US economic recovery continued through 2024, but inflation progress has stalled above 2% and the labor market has significantly cooled. Despite the FOMC lowering interest rates by 100bp this year, Fed officials and financial markets head into 2025 uncertain about the pace and magnitude of any future rate cuts. Republicans won back control of the White House and majorities in both halls of Cong...

During the last two years, aggressive monetary policy tightening compressed banks’ net interest margins, placed tremendous strain on banks’ balance sheets, and demonstrated the vulnerabilities from exposure to CRE. The banking sector is hoping that additional Fed easing and less restrictive federal regulations next year will create more favorable conditions for profitability, M&A, and operational...

The rising frequency of extreme weather events has put elevated pressure on municipal budgets to pay for relief efforts and prepare for future disasters. Public costs have also increased because the areas seeing the highest population growth can be the most vulnerable to such events. In this episode, we talk with Tom Doe, CEO and Founder of Municipal Market Analytics, about the scope of extreme we...

Treasuries function as the benchmark asset in bond markets, underscoring their importance in borrowing rates and global financial conditions. As fears of higher future Treasury supply loom large, bond investors look to certain metrics to help understand how well the market is absorbing increasing levels of public debt. Changes in Treasury yields reflect underlying macroeconomic fundamentals, but t...

The economy has consistently defied expectations since 2020, prompting important questions about the soundness of the models used by the Fed and most economists. High inflation persisted much longer than the Fed predicted, inflation fell substantially without significant labor market weakening, and the economy weathered aggressive Fed tightening by growing above its estimated long-run potential. I...

With control of the White House and House looking up for grabs, the post-election policy landscape looks highly uncertain only weeks before November 5. The priorities of the new president will run up against an unpredictable amount of Congressional and judicial pushback, creating a wide range of estimates for growth, inflation, federal deficits, and subsequent Fed policy. In this episode, we talk...

Unlike the markets for Treasury securities and MBS, the market for loans can be opaque and illiquid, making it difficult for financial institutions to optimize their loan portfolios and find appropriate counterparties with which to buy and sell loans. Periods of macroeconomic and interest rate volatility can also complicate the ability to accurately price loans for assets like commercial real esta...

Tourism has bounced back after significantly suffering during early pandemic shutdowns. Households across the income spectrum continue to spend on discretionary travel despite economic pessimism and depleted savings. Tourism’s recovery and strength offer insight into how the overall economy has managed to weather high inflation and aggressive Fed tightening without tipping into a recession. In thi...

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model is followed closely by financial market participants as an estimate for economic growth. Rather than looking at a long-term horizon, the model focuses only on the current quarter and updates its estimate after important monthly data reports, giving a real-time ability to check the pulse of the economy instead of waiting for each quarterly GDP release. In this episode...

In his 1986 PhD thesis, Campbell Harvey identified the predictive power of the inverted yield curve through four business cycles. With curve inversion correctly foretelling three more recessions since then, investors this cycle have been anticipating an impending downturn ever since the yield curve inverted nearly two years ago. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Campbell Harvey, Professor of Finan...

Although the Fed appears to be on the cusp of finally lowering interest rates, the rapid monetary tightening of the last two years has caused significant distress within commercial real estate (CRE). The bleakest doomsday predictions have not come to pass, but property owners have still experienced real losses as people shift to new post-pandemic ways of working and living. In this episode, we tal...

Almost every state and local government worker in the US participates in a public pension system, creating a strong bond between the fiscal health of states and municipalities and their employees’ retirement systems. These smaller systems have faced the same demographic challenges driving concerns over Social Security’s funding, but they’ve also had to deal with rapid migration flows, fluctuating...

China’s booming real estate sector helped propel the country’s tremendous growth over the last few decades. This rapid increase in property valuations contributed to a speculative frenzy that led to overindebted firms, unfinished houses, and a collapse in consumer confidence for homeownership. In this episode, we talk with Kristy Hung, Senior Analyst for China Real Estate with Bloomberg Intelligen...

Oil prices have remained relatively steady during the last couple of years despite robust global demand and ongoing geopolitical risks from multiple foreign wars. The ability of domestic producers to increase production has played a large part in keeping prices in check, a notable contrast to only 20 years ago when the US was significantly more dependent on buying energy commodities from abroad. I...

As the Fed continues to fight high inflation, some analysts have argued that structural forces are making the ideal inflation target higher than 2% in the post-pandemic economy. Factors out of the Fed’s control are making it particularly difficult this cycle to fully restore price stability without tipping the economy into a recession. Although the current regime has a relatively short history, fi...

Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) nearly 50 years ago to encourage lending within financial institutions’ local communities. Since its passage, regulators have tried to modernize the CRA in order to keep up with broad changes in the financial system. Today, banks and bank examiners are preparing for possible reforms in the coming years that would significantly alter how they com...

Loans issued by the Small Business Administration are pooled into securities that are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, have a quarterly adjusting feature, and have no floating rate cap. The SBA market is big and liquid enough to function smoothly through shocks like legislative risk and the 2023 regional banking crisis. In this episode, we talk with Matt Peterman and Ruben...

Recent research from the Congressional Budget Office suggests that an initial undercounting of undocumented migrants may help explain the surprisingly resilient US economy during the last two years. From a macroeconomic perspective, the future path of migration flows will significantly affect longer-term estimates of potential economic growth and public budget trajectories. In this episode, we tal...

The Federal Home Loan Bank system started as a Great Depression-era effort to support homeownership across the United States. Ever since, it has transformed into a vital source of liquidity for its member banks in good times and bad. In this episode, we talk with James Hotchkiss, Senior Director of Strategies and Solutions at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, about the FHLB system’s history,...

The labor market is at the center of overall economic activity and how the Federal Reserve understands inflation. It can be difficult to gauge underlying trends for employment and compensation, however, when some data series appear to be telling different stories. In this episode, we talk with Preston Mui, Senior Economist at Employ America, about how to understand the most important labor market...

The use of derivatives has evolved since the global financial crisis, giving banks opportunities to protect against the risks and uncertainty that stem from aggressive Fed tightening. Now that the Fed is poised to begin policy easing later this year, these tools can also help banks weather falling interest rates to support financial system stability. In this episode, we talk with Brian Matochik an...