Rating Agencies Fail Again
By Kelvin Lee, Alonso Munoz As congress grilled regulators last week on the recent string of bank failures, we want to focus on the role of the rating agencies instead. Moody’s, along with Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings, are all responsible for assessing the creditworthiness of banks and other financial institutions. They provide an […]
The Fed: A Lose-Lose Decision
By Kelvin Lee, Alonso Munoz 1:35PM EST In roughly 20 minutes, we expect the Federal Reserve to raise rates by 25 basis points, bringing the target range to 4.75% – 5%. The decision for the fed to either raise rates or pause will be significantly challenging as bank stability and high inflation are now troubling […]
Opinion – FDIC is Worthless
By Kelvin Lee, Alonso Munoz It’s been 15 years since the Great Financial crisis, and history has repeated itself. U.S. Banks failed, the government stepped in, and everyone is scrambling to assess risk. The last 72 hours have been remarkable, and the fallout is likely far from over. Yet again, it is the American people […]
How to Spend $1.1 Billion
By Kelvin Lee, Alonso Munoz The art world seemed basically unscathed by the torrential economic conditions in 2022. The top ten pieces, each unique in significance and expression, totaled over $1.1 billion in auction sales. From Freud, Warhol, and Seurat, last year’s ticket art pieces set high marks for the international art community. We broke […]
M&A Process by ChatGPT
By ChatGPT The mergers and acquisitions (M&A) process for a company can be a complex and lengthy process that involves various stages. Here is a general overview of the steps involved in the M&A process: 1. Strategic Planning: The first step is strategic planning, where a company identifies potential target companies that fit its strategic […]
The AI Revolution is Underway
By Kelvin Lee, Alonso Munoz Artificial intelligence (AI), Innovation, machine learning, and language models: we certainly have entered a new era of technological advancement and development. Over the past couple of weeks, OpenAI has opened the floodgates into the world of machine learning and AI. Anyone with access to the internet and a pulse has […]
Tesla Stock is Hot
By Kelvin Lee, Alonso Munoz Out of all the names in the S&P500, Tesla stands out as the most controversial. The stock has passionate defenders and equally feverish haters. CEO Elon Musk’s bid over Twitter last year only furthered the divide and fueled critical press. Elon’s public showdown with Twitter led political, financial, and retail media outlets […]
Inflation Cooled, Don’t Expect Fed Cuts
By Kelvin Lee, Alonso Munoz Today’s headline CPI print, which covers the month of December, shows another third straight month of decline in inflation. Investors are likely to be happy as the deflationary number gives the fed conviction to slow their pace of rate hikes; however, we would caution frontrunning a positive reaction to the […]
2022 In Review
By Kelvin Lee, Alonso Munoz On February 2nd, 2022, we wrote the following to our clients: “…we expect continued turbulence as the markets adjust to hawkish monetary policy. In other words, we will keep the “seatbelt sign” on!”. In hindsight, this now seems overly optimistic as we close out a historically brutal year for financial […]
Rushing for the Exits: When Alternatives “Break”!
By Kelvin Lee, Alonso Munoz Earlier this month, Blackstone Inc. restricted withdrawals from its private real estate income trust “BREIT”. The curbs came due to a surge in redemptions that hit the fund’s quarterly 5% withdrawal limit. Now, BRIET investors who want all their money back, can’t, and, arguably worse, investors now know that BREIT […]
