Capital markets

Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook said in a speech Monday the central bank is monitoring record highs in the stock market to see if it proves to be a bubble.

A trio of Republican Congressmen stated they will investigate how the program got fast-tracked by the Biden Administration.

Investing in Main Street Act has passed the House three times with overwhelming majorities but has failed to gain traction in the Senate. Backers, including banks that invest in the funds, hope to flip the script with a third version.

Peapack-Gladstone's wealth unit is pursuing an ambitious de novo expansion in New York and perhaps elsewhere because M&A has become expensive as private equity money has inflated seller expectations.

Here's how the former regulator thinks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could exit conservatorship and where he sees the residential market headed this year and next.

Former Trump administration officials Steven Mnuchin and Joseph Otting are headlining an investment group that's seeking to rescue the troubled Long Island lender. Otting is expected to serve as CEO, and Mnuchin will have a board seat.

Contenders see plenty of room for the market of EFTS investing in CLOs to grow. The question is if they can potentially usurp some of banks' dominance in AAA-tranche investing.

The bank has also hired some analysts to its infrastructure group over the past several weeks as it plans to beef up its muni team.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said he'd like to see the central bank's holdings of mortgage-backed securities go to zero. 

The changes made to the schedule of bringing advanced credit metrics to major mortgage investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac affect bi-merged reports and Vantagescore 4.0's implementation.

The proposed capital rule risks driving borrowers away from the traditional banking industry and into the arms of shadow banks, whose support during stressful times can be fleeting.

A group of former FTX and Alameda Research employees plan to use the venture money to build out a cryptocurrency exchange called Backpack. It's one of the startups seeking to fill a gap left by the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire. 

The company was able release credit reserves because of actual and forecasted prices that boosted net income, CEO Priscilla Almodovar said.

The government-sponsored enterprise financed 955,000 mortgages last year, down from the 1.8 million loans it backed in 2022.

The senior vice president for capital markets at the Housing Policy Council died Saturday after sustaining critical injuries a week prior.

"Someone somewhere has not taken a victory lap for the work that has been done to rehabilitate the enterprises." Priscilla Almodovar said in a Bloomberg interview.

The fintech revolution has been more successful at working with banks than at trying to replace them, points out Gene Ludwig, former Comptroller of the Currency, chair of the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, and co-founder of Canapi Ventures. Those with "must have" products will fare far better in 2024 than those with "nice to have" tools, he says.

Citizens' SVP and director of mortgage secondary and capital markets reflects on what her experience with past cycles suggests about where this one may be headed.

The muni market finances the "fabric of our nation, and now, because of Citi's exit, the cost of financing for state and local governments is going to go up," a sell-side source said.

Anne Marie Pippin, associate director in the Federal Housing Finance Agency's Office of Financial Technology, weighs the forces shaping the industry's future.