Faber News Flow

The second largest Swiss bank has been a veritable volcano of bad news in the past month, and today was no different: in the bank's earnings call, Credit Suisse Group announced it was raising $2 billion from investors in the form of convertible notes, while also suspending its share buyback and cut the dividend - news which sent the stock tumbling as much as 7%... ... while also warning of even more pain from the Archegos collapse and cutting the hedge fund unit at the center of that particular fiasco as embattled CEO Thomas Gottstein seeks to recover from one of the most turbulent periods in the bank's recent history. The bank said the convertibles notes were sold to core shareholders, institutional investors and high net worth individuals and will help bring the bank's CET1 ratio nearer its target 13%. That number had dropped to 12.2% at the end of the first quarter. In addition to the enforcement proceedings, Credit Suisse said that the Swiss regulator has told it to hol...

A tsunami is a wall of water that wipes out everything in its path, typically caused by earthquakes. But first, the water actually disappears from the usual shoreline, leaving land where there should be sea. A tsunami is a wall of water that wipes out everything in its path, typically caused by earthquakes. But first, the water actually disappears from the usual shoreline, leaving land where there should be sea. If you are on the shore and see that happen, the correct response is to run for high ground. Tragically, though, people often rush  toward  this new and unusual sight. It's hard to blame them; we humans are drawn to the unknown. This impulse explains much of our progress, but it has costs, too. Right now, the stock market is in the land-where-there-should-be-sea phase. What we don't know is when the wave is coming. Maybe there's time to venture out and see what treasure was hidden beneath the waves... or maybe not. Prudence would suggest that we go searching for tre...

The transition to a global energy system that runs on renewable energy rather than finite and dirty coal, oil, and gas is arguably the number-one topic in the media, sometimes eclipsing even the pandemic.  Yet, for all the enthusiastic talk, it seems that we are nowhere near accomplishing the transition—and it may already be too late to do anything about climate change anyway, according to some climate scientists . "Embedded power structures and support for a dying industry": these are the factors that are keeping oil and gas as the world's main sources of energy, according to the chief executive of one environmental nonprofit organization. Speaking to  CNBC , Carroll Muffett from the Institute for Environmental Law said,  "It is not a matter of the absence of the technology or the inability to do it. If you actually look at what are the cheaper sources of the energy supply right now, it is not really even a matter of economics. It is much more about embedded power s...

There was a remarkable disclosure in the latest JPMorgan earnings report: the largest US bank -  an entity that historically has best been known for making loans to the broader population  - reported that in Q1 its total deposits rose by a  whopping 24% Y/Y  and  up 6%  from Q4, to $2.278 trillion, while the total amount of loans issued by the bank was virtually flat sequentially at $1.011 trillion, and  down   4%  from a year ago. In other words, for the first time in its history,  JPM had 100% more deposits than loans, or inversely, the ratio of loans to deposits dropped below 50% for the third quarter in a row after plunging in the aftermath of the covid pandemic: An even more stunning divergence between total deposits and loans, emerges at Bank of America where deposits similarly hit a new all time high of $1.88 trillion, even as the bank's loans have continued to shrink at an alarming, deleveraging (and  deflationary ) pace and a...