I head to Colorado Springs this morning, the scene of $3,000 mountain bikes in bike racks on top of $500 cars. There are roughly 380 bank branches in the city, including mortgage lender NBH. On the flip side, do you work at a non-depository bank, like a mortgage bank or broker? You should know that the Treasury’s Financial Stability Oversight Council voted unanimously to issue (for public comment) new proposed interpretative guidance on the Council’s procedures for designating nonbank financial companies for Federal Reserve supervision and enhanced prudential standards to replace the Council’s existing guidance and describes the procedural steps the Council would take in considering whether to designate a nonbank financial company. This follows the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) proposal to bring more nonbank financial companies under its direct supervision. (Today’s podcast can be found here and is sponsored by LoanCare, a Fidelity Na
“I got stuck in a conversation with some wealthy people and one woman asked me how my investments were doing. I replied that both avocadoes should be ripe by tomorrow.” Food prices are an everyday reminder of inflation on the spending side of the equation, but on the flip side, plenty of people don’t know where to put their savings these days. One can pick up additional income on savings in places like the perfectly safe TreasuryDirect account and earn over 4 percent on as little as $100. (I would like to think that money won’t change me, but I won $5 on a scratch-off lottery ticket and used it buy name-brand aluminum foil.) The Fed has been, as usual, in the headlines this week by raising the target Fed Funds rate (what banks charge one another for overnight loans). Chris Whalen penned a piece titled, “FOMC Doubles Down on Market Risk.” One picture is worth a thousand words, and here’s a nice chart of Fed Funds to help keep things in pe