Press Clips

Press Clips2021-05-24T20:16:05-04:00

American Banker, Wednesday, May 8, 2024

Will Democrats stand by Gruenberg? By Clair Williams Lawmakers — mostly Republicans — let loose almost immediately after the release of an independent review of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s workplace culture, calling for the agency's chairman, Martin Gruenberg, to resign. Those calls, while neither entirely new nor unexpected, were being made by lawmakers farther afield from the usual suspects on the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee who are typically involved in financial policy issues....Those hearings could be critical to Gruenberg's survival at the agency. So far, both the White House and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill haven't asked for his resignation, but that could change in the time between the release of the review and his testimony. Lawmakers are receiving closed-door briefings today on the results of the review, according to multiple committee sources familiar with the matter, which could affect lawmakers' views. I think [...]

May 8th, 2024|Categories: Press Clips|

American Banker, Friday, April 19, 2024

Is the Fed board eroding regional Fed banks' independence? By  Kyle Campbell  The Federal Reserve Board of Governors has a greater say over leadership at the reserve banks than it once did. But whether that benefits the central banking system is an open debate...Karen Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, understands the Board's involvement in presidential approvals to be largely consistent with its historical approach. The only meaningful change, she said, is the Board's insistence that it review candidate pools to ensure they are "broad and diverse." The Board has outlined its policy around its reserve bank presidential search involvement on a frequently asked questions page on its website. According to archived versions of the site, the page has been live and has highlighted the focus on "broad and diverse" candidate pools since at least December 2014. Because the Fed has taken a stance that fostering diversity, equity and [...]

April 19th, 2024|Categories: Press Clips|

Marketplace, Wednesday, April 11, 2024

What do bank earnings tell us about the economy? By Mitchell Hartman It’s the second week of April, which means spring is in the air and daffodils, cherry trees and lilacs are blooming. Here at Marketplace, it also means earnings season is starting. Corporate profit-and-loss reports for the January-to-March quarter kicked off in earnest Wednesday with Delta Air Lines, which did quite well. Revenue rose 6% and earnings per share nearly doubled from a year ago. ..“Banks really are bellwethers of the economy,” said Karen Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics. “Biggest issues for the larger banks: interest rates, which we — at least, I — know are going to be higher for longer. And that helps to improve bank earnings.” That’s because the banks make more money on the interest they charge borrowers. But Petrou said there’s also a downside to interest rates staying high: credit losses. As consumers [...]

April 11th, 2024|Categories: Press Clips|

Marketplace, Friday, April 5, 2024

When is strong hiring too strong? by David Brancaccio Hiring in the month that just ended was quite a bit stronger than expected, with more than 300,000 jobs added to payrolls and the unemployment rate falling slightly to 3.8%. That’s continuing the Fed’s interest rate predicament. We’ll discuss with Karen Petrou, co-founder and managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics. https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/a-lot-of-businesses-want-to-use-ai-to-cut-staff/#When-is-strong-hiring-too-strong?

April 5th, 2024|Categories: Press Clips|

American Banker, Podcast, April 4, 2025

Buy the People: Why everyone loves to hate the Fed By Kyle Campbell Click the link below to listen to Kyle Campbell's podcast on economic  populism.  It’s a terrific survey of Fed history with authoritative insiders including Federal Financial Analytics' managing partner Karen Petrou, and then – my bit – an assessment of why recent monetary  policy has made so many Americans so angry and how that affects the political outlook , especially this November. https://www.americanbanker.com/podcast/buy-the-people-why-everyone-loves-to-hate-the-fed

April 4th, 2024|Categories: Press Clips|

Politico Morning Money, Tuesday, April 2, 2024

By MICHAEL STRATFORD and ZACHARY WARMBRODT First look: A bank merger rethink — MM has a preview of a provocative bank M&A talk that Federal Financial Analytics managing director Karen Petrou will give at a Kansas City Fed workshop today. As banking agencies signal tougher scrutiny of proposed mergers, Petrou makes the case that regulators are failing to use tools they already have to address conflicts of interest, concentration and unfair competition ahead of M&A reviews. “How much of this is necessary in merger review and how much could be accomplished by better prudential regulation along with vigilant supervision and meaningful enforcement?” she says in remarks prepared for her talk, which you can read here. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-money

April 2nd, 2024|Categories: Press Clips|

Time, March 25, 2024

Why Is Trump’s Truth Social Worth Billions? Experts Have Theories By Eric Cortellessa On the cusp of a financial crisis, Donald Trump got help from an unlikely source: His struggling social media platform. Investors approved a plan on Friday to take Truth Social public, increasing his net worth by billions as he’s drowning in legal expenses and owes New York state half a billion dollars in a civil fraud case. The company will start trading on the ​​Nasdaq exchange on Tuesday. But the financial statements of Trump’s firm show scant evidence of a booming business worthy of the $4.7 to $5.6 billion market capitalization reported on Monday. Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, lost money last year, according to regulatory filings....It’s not the first time that markets have embraced social media companies at levels that appear to exceed their value, according to Karen Petrou, managing partner of [...]

March 25th, 2024|Categories: Press Clips|

Barron’s, Sunday, March 17, 2024

The U.S. Economy Is Booming, But Only for a Few By Karen Petrou “Our economy is literally the envy of the world,” President Biden declared in his recent State of the Union address. There’s some truth to this exceptionalism talk. However, the U.S. economy seems to be doing better than other advanced economies thanks also to data badly distorted by U.S. economic inequality. Here, we’re also exceptional, just in the bad way of being less equal than all other advanced democracies. Big-picture numbers show the U.S. economy beating much of the rest of the world. Gross domestic product grew 2.5% in 2023, compared to 1.9% in Japan, 0.5% in the U.K., and negative 0.3%—a mild recession—in Germany. Unemployment numbers are similar. What these apparently favorable comparisons miss, however, is how spending and investing by the few Americans who own so much of American wealth and receive so much of its income [...]

March 17th, 2024|Categories: Press Clips|

American Banker, Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Banks knock FDIC over growing tab for last year's failures By Polo Rocha One year after Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failed in the span of three days, big banks are miffed about their growing tab from last March's wild weekend. The gripes stem from decisions made between March 10-12, 2023, when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. stopped deposit runs by taking over the two banks and declaring a systemic risk exception to ensure that the vast quantities of uninsured deposits at those failed banks were covered....Karen Petrou, the co-founder of the consulting firm Federal Financial Analytics, said the $4 billion difference is a "very significant mistake" that calls into question the FDIC's credibility in gauging the costliness of bank resolutions. "When an agency gets something this wrong, it's not unreasonable for those picking up the tab to ask," Petrou said. The agency has been gradually getting rid of [...]

March 13th, 2024|Categories: Press Clips|

Marketplace, Wednesday, March 6, 2024

How November's election could shape antitrust policy by David Brancaccio It’s the morning after Super Tuesday primaries, and for people making money decisions large and small, the election results are not a paradigm shift. We’ll discuss why with Karen Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics. https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/this-elections-big-trust-issue-maybe-not-the-one-youre-thinking-of/

March 6th, 2024|Categories: Press Clips|
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