July 2018

You can never go wrong starting off a commentary with a butchered bit from the Bard, right?  “Now is the winter of our discontent” spake Richard III, an unamiable leader perhaps reminding us all today of our unamiable governing class.  Old Gloucester rhymed to presage war and chaos.  Apparently, all that happened because the poor dear couldn’t buy himself a date.  But hey, chaos, war, desolation, burning and pillaging, etc., aren’t all bad, that is, if you are equipped to enjoy the carnage.

And now, back to the market.  What am I rambling on about?  Distressed debt opportunities are coming back.  This is the silver lining, at least for some, in the cracks beginning to develop in our long, Goldilocks credit cycle.  A slowdown is not here yet, to be sure, but it’s time to sharpen the knives and begin to think about our opportunities. 
Continue Reading The Winter of Our Discontent May Be Over (If you are a Distressed Debt Investor)

We published the below commentary, In Defense of Securitization, last week and we are republishing it today as, let’s face it, we’re all getting very French, and many of us took most of last week off.  Enjoy, if that’s the right word.

Returning to the theme of my most recent commentary entitled God Hates Securitization, I want to elaborate on the point I made there (yes, if you stuck with me all the way through to the end, there was a point):  We need to fight the narrative that banking, finance and securitization are evil.  I am afraid that if we don’t do something here soon, we’ll wake up one morning (probably after the next cyclical downturn is underway) and find pitchfork-wielding villagers outside the gates thinking they have found Dr. Frankenstein’s monster.  Populist anger, whipped up by our critics demonizing the financial sector, unfettered from the necessity to defend these positions in the marketplace of ideas and the court of public opinion, is powerful.  That, coupled with our recent embrace of the weaponization of policy disputes enforced by both civil and criminal legal proceeding, should frighten all of us who make our living in the financial sector.  And, to be clear, it should frighten everyone who understands the importance of an efficient and liquid capital market for the continued success of the US economy.
Continue Reading Repost: In Defense of Securitization – Unto the Breach or Close the Wall Up with Our Dead (with Apologies to Mr. Shakespeare)

Returning to the theme of my most recent commentary entitled God Hates Securitization, I want to elaborate on the point I made there (yes, if you stuck with me all the way through to the end, there was a point):  We need to fight the narrative that banking, finance and securitization are evil.  I am afraid that if we don’t do something here soon, we’ll wake up one morning (probably after the next cyclical downturn is underway) and find pitchfork-wielding villagers outside the gates thinking they have found Dr. Frankenstein’s monster.  Populist anger, whipped up by our critics demonizing the financial sector, unfettered from the necessity to defend these positions in the marketplace of ideas and the court of public opinion, is powerful.  That, coupled with our recent embrace of the weaponization of policy disputes enforced by both civil and criminal legal proceeding, should frighten all of us who make our living in the financial sector.  And, to be clear, it should frighten everyone who understands the importance of an efficient and liquid capital market for the continued success of the US economy.
Continue Reading In Defense of Securitization – Unto the Breach or Close the Wall Up with Our Dead (with Apologies to Mr. Shakespeare)