Media – Blog
September 11, 2020
The auto industry has been one of the hardest hit sectors since the pandemic began. In April, US auto sales hit a low of 8.6 million vehicles, down from 16.8 million at the end of February. Moody’s expects vehicles sales to fall at least 20% in 2020 and will take
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September 2, 2020
Because credit card asset-backed securities (ABS) are tied directly to the strength or weakness of consumer finances, economic downturns can be perilous to their health. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the high unemployment and low consumer spending in the current economic downturn are putting ABS under scrutiny. So far, however,
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August 25, 2020
Biotech companies have taken center stage during the pandemic of 2020. Between the many vaccine initiatives and even more numerous investments in testing and new Covid-19 therapies, money is flooding into the sector at a record rate. Biotechs raised more than $6 billion in initial public offerings in just the
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August 17, 2020
FOMC Minutes Released The minutes from the FOMC’s July 28-29 meeting were released today. In the committee’s discussion about how to continue to support the flow of credit to consumers, they deemed “it would be appropriate over coming months for the Federal Reserve to increase its holdings of Treasury securities
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July 27, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic has forced firms across industry groups to shore up liquidity in order to weather depressed revenue streams. These conditions, coupled with accommodative economic policies, led to a spur of borrowing during the first half of 2020. Due to this current climate, many companies are having trouble finding
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July 17, 2020
COVID-19 infection rates have fallen dramatically in most industrialized nations, but new cases in the U.S. and in developing countries have surged to record levels in the last few weeks. Despite the serious setbacks, lawmakers in the U.S. continue to grapple with how to most appropriately implement mask requirements to
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July 9, 2020
Here we go again. As if Covid-19 hadn’t given us all enough to worry about, in March it precipitated a short-lived run on prime money market funds. By the end of the month, approximately $100 billion had drained from institutional prime money market funds—more than 30% of their total assets.
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July 3, 2020
States across the U.S. set multiple single day records for new COVID-19 cases this past week. On June 27th, Florida reported 9,500 new cases, breaking its own record for daily new cases, which it set just a day earlier. Driven primarily by Southern and Southwestern states, the surge has forced
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June 18, 2020
The global tech supply chain is about to be turned upside down. Tensions between the U.S. and China, heightened in a two-year-long trade war, were already instigating conversations regarding relocating and reconstructing the supply chain. Now that the coronavirus has further exposed the limited geographic diversity and concentration levels in
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June 15, 2020
FOMC Meeting The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee met last week and Chair Jerome Powell spelled out a bleak outlook for the U.S. economy. The Fed’s year-end median expectation for the unemployment rate is 9.3%, with 2020 GDP growth projected at negative 6.50% and core PCE inflation at 1.0%. At
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