#Archegos

28 03, 2022

Karen Petrou: Why the Fed Might Bail Out the Commodity Market

2023-03-27T15:57:01-04:00March 28th, 2022|The Vault|

In the midst of chaos, volatility always makes matters worse and this is very much the case with the commodities sector.  This has led to growing speculation that central banks will step in should unprecedented price swings show signs of systemic impact.  As we noted, we don’t know a central banker that wants to bail out commodities.  But none of them wanted to bail out anyone else either.  If market stress turns systemic, then central banks will step in.  Indeed, they may intervene even if stress seems manageable if they also believe that public welfare is at risk when core commodities go from pricey to prohibitive.

In the U.S., the Fed will resist calls to backstop commodities companies or traders for as long as it can by citing what it believes to be its limited mandate even as it argues that its anti-inflation policies will stabilize markets – just you wait.  However, whatever the Fed is able to do about inflation will take time and whatever it does about its portfolio to address inflation will exacerbate commodity-market stress.

Three possible sources of extreme volatility are already on the horizon.

First, there’s the liquidity stress sparked by CCP margin demands.  This was the culprit in the letter from energy traders to the European Central Bank and it’s at least as much of a factor in the U.S.  The more commodity-market volatility, the higher clearinghouse initial and variation margin demands and the harder it is to post eligible assets already scarce …

20 12, 2021

Karen Petrou: For the Next Vice Chair: Stringent Enforcement and Meaningful Supervision

2023-05-22T15:43:38-04:00December 20th, 2021|The Vault|

As we noted last week, the Fed decided to issue some post-Archegos guidance telling big banks to watch their counterparty credit-risk exposures.  As a banker with all too much experience dodging risk bullets told me, this guidance followed lots of prior guidance saying the same thing after each big boo-boo – think Long-Term Capital Management more than two decades ago and follow the trail of Fed statements thereafter.  Each time, the Fed looks stern and banks say they’re sorry but soon go back to following the money, not the risk.  And, over and over, examiners fail to notice anything amiss until the amount of realized risk is impossible to ignore.  Interestingly, the Bank of England acted with the Fed but with far more force.  Unlike the Fed’s renewed “you better watch out” guidance, the BoE demanded an immediate review of prime-brokering, reports back to regulators, and senior-management pay cuts if flaws go unrepaired.  Thus, unlike the Fed, the Bank of England’s response to costly and thoroughly avoidable lapses has teeth.  Whether the British then bite anyone is another question – the record is not replete with supervisory success – but the difference should nonetheless be instructive to the Fed’s next supervisory vice chair.

This difference is just like that between telling a child that she’ll be sorry next time and ensuring that the kid immediately knows that bad actions have tangible, actual consequences.  One doesn’t have to beat the kid silly – indeed, of course one more than shouldn’t.  But, …

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