Ken Kapner

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 […]

Last month, we published an article on the Volcker Rule and where to begin to incorporate it from a compliance perspective. The article, written by Lisa Kim Estrada, provided commentary on how to proceed with the task of implementing the rule and how to deal with the six requirements for a compliance program. The Volcker […]

It is difficult to read a paper today or listen to a business news report without reference to interest rates going higher. So I thought I would review the main interest rate risk metric used by fixed income portfolio managers: Duration. Interest Rate Risk Metric: Duration If rates do go up, how much risk is […]

Capital Adequacy is a financial standard which has been developed by financial regulators to ensure banks can absorb a reasonable level of losses before becoming insolvent. This is usually expressed as a ratio of capital to risk weighted assets. Assets are adjusted based on their inherent risk. For example, loans that are secured by a […]

In my role as president and CEO of GFMI, I am fortunate to work with a variety of clients in numerous cities and countries. As you can imagine, in working with and visiting so many different organizations, I get a chance to discuss a variety of industry topics and to pick up on trends. Over […]

Risk reversal is a commonly used term in the FX markets. Specifically, a risk reversal is: An option strategy combining the simultaneous purchase of out-of-the-money calls (puts) with the sale of out-of-the money puts (calls). The options will have the same expiration date and similar deltas. A market view on both the underlying currency and […]