Ken Kapner

The financial crisis has brought about many changes to the global financial system. One of these changes are the clearing requirements implemented by the Dodd-Frank Act for over the counter (OTC) derivatives such as interest rate swaps. These complex requirements have also increased interest in interest rate swap futures as an alternative hedging instrument. Although […]

Since shortening the US equity cycle in 1995 from T+5 to T+3, there has been a continued analysis and positioning to further shortening the number of business days from trade to settlement. In October 2014, a total of 29 countries, including France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, the UK and Ireland shortened their settlement cycle […]

Winter may have been late in arriving for many of us, but we are already looking forward to Spring. With 20-25 inches of snow from #Snowzilla2016, it was a tremendous storm, but it was not tremendous enough to overwhelm our efforts to bring forth some new insights and courses for 2016. As developments continue to […]

As President and CEO of GFMI, I travel often and have the opportunity to hear questions from a variety of sources: asset managers, institutional investors, regulators, and bankers. One of the more frequent questions I hear is, “What’s the difference between CCAR and DFAST?” To help answer this question, one of GFMI’s regulatory experts, Rob […]

Here at Global Financial Markets Institute (GFMI) we’ve wrapped up the third quarter already and are preparing for the end-run of 2015. Already, our clients are planning budgets for 2016 and, in response, the team at GFMI are preparing our subject matter experts’ calendars for next year’s financial learning requests. In fact, we are seeing […]

In GFMI’s latest article, The Federal Reserve Tools: Past and Present, I touch upon a topic that might be familiar to some, yet still a mystery to others. It seemed a timely topic, since the Fed said in March 2015: “Economic growth moderated (some); there are improvements in the labor market (job growth, and lower […]

It’s natural at this time of year to pause and take a moment to reflect on what we’ve seen, experienced, and accomplished over the past 12 months. As I think back on all that’s occurred with GFMI this year, I keep coming back to the concept of “relationship.” When we started this company 17 years […]

A glance at some of the financial markets headlines over the past two months will tell you why we’re featuring our second article on municipal bonds within the past two years: Detroit Bankruptcy is Marked by Speed Fed Will Consider Adding Municipal Debt as Quality Asset World Trade Center Tower Rides Muni-Bond Revival Schumer Pushes […]

It is no secret that the Fed’s, or more specifically, the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC),  asset purchases have created an enormous amount of money in the financial system. Traditionally, pre-crisis, the Fed would simply execute an overnight reverse repo transaction (ON RRP), sometimes known as matched sales, in order to drain money out of […]

With the Fed meeting this week, attention has turned to the impact on the economy, and the stock and bond markets. One area that seems to be missing is the impact on the federal budget. The government has been able to borrow at historically low rates for quite a prolonged time. We know tapering is […]

For some time now, investors have been reaching for yield as interest rates remain low. Trying to cope with this low yield environment, investors are taking on more risk by seeking high yield bonds and structured products among others. In the case of structured products, I often wonder whether investors fully understand the underlying instruments. […]

Financial Statement Analysis holds the key to understanding your clients’ businesses, identifying attractive loan and other financial transaction opportunities, reducing credit losses, and increasing profits. We’re all too familiar with opportunities that are overlooked, mainly because bank relationship managers don’t understand the nuances of their clients’ financial statements and don’t know where to find the […]