Insights: Financials

Financials, Housing

GSEs Exiting Conservatorship

Over the last week, President Trump has made two notable statements regarding a GSE exit from conservatorship. Last week, he posted that he is giving “serious consideration to bringing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public.” This week, he posted that the government “will keep its implicit guarantees.” Separately, Secretary Bessent reiterated prior...

Bank Capital/Liquidity (SLR)

Multiple press reports (stories here and here) indicate that the Trump administration is potentially within weeks of issuing revisions to the Supplementary Leverage Ratio (SLR). This is consistent with Secretary Bessent’s recent comments that implied SLR changes are on a fairly fast track, whereas Basel III/other capital reforms are not in as...

Bank Capital/Stress Tests

The Fed has issued a proposed rule to reform the stress testing framework for banks. The proposal would average the results of the stress tests over two years to reduce the volatility of banks’ capital requirements. Furthermore, the proposal would also give banks three more months to come into compliance with the capital requirements that are...

While President Trump last week said that he’s not considering firing Fed Chair Powell, there are lingering questions about whether he has the authority to do so, and whether he may eventually choose to re-shape the Fed Board’s makeup by firing other governors (or potentially change his mind about firing Powell). Courts have already clarified...

Student Lending

Recent/upcoming events… Republicans on the House Education Committee & Workforce (E&W) Committee have passed – on a party-line 21-14 vote – their portion of the party’s reconciliation (tax/spending) legislation. E&W had been given a minimum spending reduction goal of $330b, but preliminary estimates from the...

Energy, Financials, Healthcare, Macro, Tech / Media / Telecom

In the coming weeks, House Republicans are planning to take the first steps on their “reconciliation” (tax/spending) legislation, with different committees voting on the individual components of the bill for which they are each responsible. Speaker Johnson continues to say he wants to have the reconciliation bill enacted into law by the end of...