Media – Blog
October 23, 2018
A growing number of institutional cash investors seeking higher returns are turning to direct investments in commercial paper. Why? In part because prime money market funds no longer deliver an optimum combination of liquidity, safety and yield as they did in the past. Among other things, the SEC reforms two
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September 17, 2018
Corporate cash managers by necessity are amongst the most conservative of investors. Before optimizing yield potential, they must often worry first about ensuring liquidity while reducing risk. That’s why in the aftermath of the 2008 credit crisis, corporations hunkered down almost exclusively in government-issued and government-backed debt. For a time,
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August 15, 2018
Ever since reforms inspired by the financial crisis required prime money market funds to float their net asset values, institutional cash investors have been searching for alternatives that will provide the same type of dollar-in, dollar-out liquidity, safety of principal and yield that the old prime funds offered. And now
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August 14, 2018
Is an inverted yield curve still a reliable predictor of an impending recession? And will the recent flattening yield curve affect bank credit quality? Currently, with the narrowest spread between the 2-Year U.S. Treasury bill and the 10-Year U.S. Treasury note since the 2007 recession, both those questions are on
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July 16, 2018
Regardless of what you might think about cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology represents an undeniable breakthrough in how we manage information. In the last couple of years, interest in the sector has increased materially, with investments by the top 50 VC firms in the field exceeding $600 million in the first half
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June 11, 2018
If you’re a cash investor waiting for bank deposit yields to catch up with the Fed’s interest rate hikes, don’t hold your breath. The so-called “deposit beta,” which measures how fast banks raise their rates as a percentage of the increase in the federal funds rate, has risen at a
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June 11, 2018
In recent years, privately held startups seeking faster growth have increasingly looked beyond their initial equity investments to venture debt financing. Venture debt tends to be less dilutive than equity, and it’s become more available over time: venture banks, specialty finance companies and an ever-expanding roster of non-bank debt funds
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May 10, 2018
Institutional cash investors haven’t had much time to worry about offshore money market funds over the past several years as they’ve been too busy grappling with all the recent changes to US-based institutional funds. But new developments are making offshore funds more difficult to ignore, especially those involving the implementation
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April 13, 2018
In the midst of the recent saber rattling over a potential trade war between the U.S. and China, one salient point has often been overlooked: so far, other than narrowly focused tariffs on steel and aluminum, neither side has taken immediate concrete steps to act on the announcements. The recent
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February 8, 2018
When Jerome Powell emerged as the front-runner to succeed Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve Chair, he was quickly pegged as a moderate “continuity candidate.” A low-profile, but hard-working, member of the Federal Open Market Committee since 2011, he had supported Yellin’s course of slow-but-steady interest-rate increases as the economy gradually
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