Despite being geographically very distant from each other, South Korea and Germany are, in reality, more similar economically speaking than everyone thinks. Both countries appear “very safe” considering the very low public debt-to-GDP ratio they both showcase: 46% for South Korea and 62% for Germany. What if we add private...| JustDario
Since last week, while the market was distracted by the geopolitical slapping contest between Israel and Iran, both large banks (#KBE) and regional banks (#KRE) lost 5%, outpacing the S&P500 by more than 2%. JP Morgan, surprisingly, is leading the tumble, down almost 8% since releasing its Q1-24 results. Bank...| JustDario
In about 24 hours, the “Bank Term Funding Programme”, the infamous #BTFP, will be history. There should not have been any surprise about this if it wasn’t for the fact the banking situation today is much worse than it was one year ago when the #BTFP was launched. How dire...| JustDario
Deutsche Bank just reported earnings for its Q2-25 and, of course, everything is awesome! Needless to say, Wall Street expectations have been beaten across the board. As I write, the stock is trading 6% higher on the day. As usual, everyone read the press release, and no one took the...| JustDario
UBS just delivered another earnings expectations beat, what a surprise right? If it wasn’t for the Swiss regulator, who is aware of the bank’s real condition and doesn’t back off from asking UBS bank management to significantly increase their capital to prepare for potential significant losses (“Switzerland’s Finance Sheriff Takes...| JustDario
Bank of America (BAC) just released its Q1 2025 earnings, and if you thought past balance sheet shenanigans were wild, you’re in for another ride. Back in November 2024, in HOW BANK OF AMERICA IS HIDING ITS MOUNTING PROBLEMS BEHIND A MOUNTAIN OF REPURCHASE AGREEMENTS, we discussed how BAC heavily...| JustDario
Almost 10 months ago, I wrote the article “MOUNTING SIGNS OF LIQUIDITY PROBLEMS AMONG LARGE US AND UK BANKS” to highlight several elements pointing toward a buildup of liquidity problems in the banking sector. Three elements were particularly noteworthy at the time: Last week, something very interesting happened again: banks...| JustDario
The Federal Reserve just released the results of its 2025 round of stress testing on 22 major US banks, and personally, I have never come across something more ridiculous and hypocritical. Let’s start with the fact that the FED itself admits how it found it appropriate to make this year’s...| JustDario
Imagine a world where people only spend what they earn or where companies borrow to build new factories and use the additional revenues generated to repay the debt. Imagine a world where you have to plan and save enough money in advance to make an expensive purchase or where governments...| JustDario
More than one year ago in the article “IS THIS HOW BANKS ARE CONCEALING THEIR LOSSES ON SILVER SHORT POSITIONS?” I first tried to bring attention to several anomalies happening in the Silver market that could only be explained by active price manipulation activities on LBMA and COMEX contracts. Why...| JustDario
Two months ago, in FINANCIAL MARKETS REACHED A “SINGULARITY” NO ONE WANTS TO DEAL WITH, I tried to highlight how legacy economic theories—built on assumptions that never fully materialized decades ago—are now ineffective in today’s economic context. In that article, I emphasized five key points: Today, @thesiriusreport posted one of...| JustDario
“Why are central banks cutting rates while yields are going up? How is this possible?” This is the question many people are asking themselves at the moment. Surprisingly, those experiencing the highest degree of confusion and bewilderment appear to be institutional investors rather than retail investors. The reason is that...| JustDario
The past week has been incredibly interesting, to say the least. For the first time since the 2020 COVID crisis, we saw the FED Standing Repo Facility being tapped for a significant size by at least one bank (IF “EVERYTHING IS AWESOME” WHY THERE IS AT LEAST ONE LARGE BANK...| JustDario
Finally, the 10-Q of Bank of America has been filed, and it is now time to check how things look in reality beyond the cheerful and “everything is awesome” press release and management call of a few weeks ago when the bank, as expected, beat market expectations (TODAY “EVERYTHING WILL...| JustDario
If foreign countries and companies are going to have less USD going forward, who is going to buy US debt? These past few days, I have been paying close attention to the narratives and dynamics developing around the tariffs war topic, but somehow nobody has brought attention to the crucial...| JustDario
First of all, who the hell is the latest counterpart added to the #FED Standing Repo Facility: “Norinchukin Bank”? “Officially,” it is a Cooperative Bank owned by Japanese agricultural, fishery, forestry cooperatives in #Japan. Yes, that’s right, an “agricultural” bank from Japan got a seat at the #FED big boys...| JustDario
A notification pops up on my phone about UBS’s latest earnings results and how cheerfully the market reacted, sending the stock up ~3% at the opening. As I always do, I go to the company’s investor relations website, download the latest report, and start reading. It didn’t take me long...| JustDario
“Is it possible for a bank to continue operating while being insolvent? The answer is yes, and Norinchukin Bank is the best example of it at the moment”. This was how I started my last article on Norinchukin Bank 3 months ago. This is why yesterday I wasn’t surprised at...| JustDario
While doing my best to untangle the mess of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), in particular, to figure out which financial institution/s could be in danger after what happened on Monday this week, I stumbled upon something very interesting. Please have a look. This chart represents the Bank of England...| JustDario
During 2023, we have discussed so often how (ridiculously insolvent) banks have made extensive use of “Hold To Maturity” accounting to the point that it is now more appropriate to rename it “Hide Till Maturity” (TwitterX). Dump any asset with a market value implying a steep loss in the HTM...| JustDario
The Q4-2024 banks earnings season officially started with JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, and Citigroup kicking off the “beat expectations” parade: Between one “Kumbaya!” and a “High Five!”, one small detail across all these earnings reports clashes significantly with reality: provisions for expected credit losses. Before diving...| JustDario
The result of the US elections should have rung warning bells everywhere in the world, but apparently, it didn’t. Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea – the list of economies that persist in feeding asset bubbles is long. The US is still part of it, considering the market is forcing (sorry,...| JustDario
Insurance isn’t really an area that I had much interest in, mostly because in the countries where I’ve lived, it has generally been a well-run and stable business. However, the recent Los Angeles wildfires prompted me to look into this sector in California more closely, and what I discovered is...| JustDario
I started the year writing about how in 2024 the practice used by banks of hiding their losses in Hold to Maturity books (hence “hide till maturity”) would have come to an end [Post Below] . However, I was wrong there, because I wrote this: “As I explained in a...| JustDario
#GS Q4-23 was quite a spectacular game of smoke and mirrors that, of course, fooled the mainstream media. CNBC – “Goldman Sachs tops revenue estimates on better-than-expected asset management results” WSJ – “Goldman Scores a Win With Sharply Higher Earnings” Let me show you one of the “tricks” they used....| JustDario
Last week, Warren Buffett officially cut Berkshire Hathaway holdings in Bank of America to less than 10% ownership of the bank. Going forward, he will not be subject to prompt disclosures applied to “insiders”. In other words, he will be able to sell BAC shares at a faster pace without...| JustDario
Yesterday was the end of the third quarter of the year, which means banks (along with brokers and asset managers) were busy “window dressing” their books to make sure they looked as good as possible by the time the quarter-end snapshot of their financials was taken. Bank goals heading toward...| JustDario
Even if everything is “back to normal” and everyone is behaving as if the events from two weeks ago were just a bad nightmare, with the VIX free-falling in a way never seen before (from 66 below 18 in 7 trading days, while every time before it took months to...| JustDario
Dear reader, please accept my apologies, but today’s article is going to be quite short. Why? Because in its latest quarterly release HSBC disclosed pretty much nothing relevant to truly assess its balance sheet’s strength in the 71 pages made available to the public. However, even if you can clearly...| JustDario
This current historical period for markets is one of a kind, isn’t it? Surely when it comes to the dissemination of fake and misleading news. This is the set of policy measures the PBOC announced yesterday in support of the Chinese economy: All the policies above except one were in...| JustDario
How is it possible that Deutsche Bank’s provisions for credit losses related to Commercial Real Estate (CRE) loans DECREASED by 34% compared to Q2-24? No, I am not joking; it is right there hidden in the fine print of the bank’s Q3-24 report as you can see below. Furthermore, “The...| JustDario
A few days ago in “EXPOSING THE ILLUSION: HOW MODERN ECONOMICS FUELS WEALTH INEQUALITY AND ZOMBIE MARKETS,” I discussed how current economic theories, often used to guide market decisions, are being contradicted by the actual results they produce. Right now, many are puzzled by how the USD, US yields, and...| JustDario
I started to cover Norinchukin Bank many months ago already (“WHY IS THE FED PREPARING TO BAIL OUT A JAPANESE BANK? BECAUSE OF THE “NORINCHUKIN” DANGER”) and since then the situation of one of the biggest Japanese banks has become worse and worse: A few weeks ago Norinchukin released its...| JustDario
JP Morgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and State Street will all kick off Q1-24 banks’ earnings season on Friday (or today for those of us based in Asia like me) before US #stocks cash trading opens. As I mentioned in my article earlier this week (link), for Q1-24 banks are already...| JustDario
UBS reported its Q2-24 earnings, and after a brief moment of selling pressure at the open, the stock started soaring, ending the day up more than 5%. Yes, on the surface, UBS reported a net profit more than double what Wall Street analysts expected, and that was enough to feed...| JustDario
On 14 October 2008, the BOJ entered the bailout arena in full force with its “Introduction of Measures regarding Money Market Operations to Ensure Stability in Financial Markets.” Among the four “temporary” initiatives announced, the last one was the most crucial one… and remains the most crucial one today. “Expansion...| JustDario
These days there are a lot of comparisons being made with what happened in previous financial crises that unfolded after times of irrational exuberance and reckless monetary policy, but many are failing to grasp how the current situation is hardly comparable to what happened in the past for many reasons....| JustDario
WITHOUT THE FED BTFP, BANKS WILL NOW HAVE A HARDER TIME TO “HIDE TILL MATURITY” THEIR LOSSES| JustDario
While digging into #BAC‘s Q4-23 financial statements, I couldn’t help but wonder if they had lost their minds during the last three months of 2023. No, I am not referring to the “press release” or the “presentation,” which are usually prepared to “feed” the media rather than provide transparency to...| JustDario
Bank of America (#BAC) published its last quarterly financial earnings on July 16, and from the 17th to the 19th, Warren Buffett sold ~34m shares of BAC, cashing out ~1.5bn USD (Buffett’s Berkshire Sells Bank of America Stock Worth $1.5 Billion). Yes, Uncle Warren still holds almost 1 billion BAC...| JustDario
A few weeks ago Goldman Sachs (#GS) performed poorly in the #FED annual stress tests, and since then, the bank has been fighting against its regulator’s request to increase the capital being held on the balance sheet (Goldman Sachs faces uphill battle in dispute with Federal Reserve over stress test)....| JustDario
In September 2023, I addressed for the first time the (nasty) topic of #banks’ balance sheet health in the “This time is not different” post on X. After that, I expanded the analysis to large US and European banks in “WHICH BANKS ARE AT RISK OF GOING BUST IN A...| JustDario
Today, #Norinchukin Bank is starting to be less of an obscure name compared to more than 7 months ago when the #FED quietly added it to the list of counterparts eligible to access the standing Repo Facility the central bank established with the purpose of dealing with emergency liquidity shortfalls...| JustDario