Charles Gates

In March of 2020, an anomaly in a relatively obscure part of the U.S. Treasury bond futures market caused a major disruption in that market, which in turn prompted the U.S. Federal Reserve to put forth $5 trillion of liquidity to calm the markets. Yep, that was “trillion”, with a “t”! At the root of […]

Most everyone who has grown up with Walt Disney classic films will recall the valiant Prince on his noble steed slashing his way through the Forest of Thorns to reach Maleficent’s castle and rescue Sleeping Beauty. While the transition from Libor to SOFR (or more generally from IBORs to Risk Free Rates or RFRs) is […]

High fashion and high finance may have an all too apparent connection when it comes to the new season and folks with considerable means go shopping for the latest styles in trendy boutiques. Last season’s finery may well have drifted rapidly out of style and that change may take its toll on one’s liquid assets. […]

It seems that every now and then credit derivatives arise as the public whipping boy among financial products. Most recently, the case of Windstream has been publicized as another example of evil credit derivatives in an article, “What Hedge Funds Consider a Win Is a Disaster for Everyone Else,” by William D. Cohan in the […]

In the historic conversion of the world’s financial markets away from Libor as the most widely used benchmark rate for loans and derivatives, most attention in the United States has been focused on the switch from Libor to SOFR (Secured Overnight Financing Rate). The demise of Libor, of course, arose from the manipulation of that […]

Negative interest rates have been observed many times in various markets, but over the past few years, have occurred more often than can be explained by a mere anomaly. We have no problem imagining why a government or company would want to issue bonds at a negative interest rate, but why on earth would anyone […]

At the end of this past week, headlines on the financial news pages around the United States if not the world, alerted us all to a rare and unsettling event: “Treasury Market Calls Time on Fed Hikes as Curve Finally Inverts” (Bloomberg, 3/22/19) “Stocks, Bond Yields Fall Amid Anxiety Over World Economy” (The Wall Street […]

In an age where the short-hand language of Twitter and texts rules, why is formal credit writing still relevant for structured loans and leases? After all, when I have questioned analysts after reading an analysis that lacked depth, nearly every one could answer my questions and then some. They clearly understood their credits. So why […]

Encountering a New Standard “That did not go too well” said Barry, my investment expert friend as we left the testing center. He was an extremely intelligent financial expert who would later become well-known for uncovering an infamous financial fraud. But on this day, he correctly anticipated that he had failed the Level I CFA […]

The first six months of 2015 saw the emergence of the “Reverse Yankee” bond market. What exactly is a Reverse Yankee, and what makes it of interest? Simply put, a Reverse Yankee is a bond issued by a US company, usually high grade, outside of the US and denominated in a currency other than US […]

As soon as Michael Lewis’s new book Flash Boys hit the Kindles, the debate over high-frequency trading (HFT) – and especially the “maker-taker” pricing prevalent for some time in the high-frequency trading world – hit a new high. So what are they all talking about? Those of you who have attended one of GFMI’s Introduction […]