Article Reprints from S&P Global Market Intelligence

Jeff K. Davis, CFA, Managing Director of Mercer Capital’s Financial Institutions Group, is a regular editorial contributor to S&P Global Market Intelligence, formerly SNL Financial. Recent articles are republished here with permission.

2024

• Tomorrow Never Arrived (November 27, 2024)
• Citibank’s Upstream Dividend Update (October 9, 2024)
• You Mostly Never Know (September 26, 2024)
• Stakeout vs. Rescue Capital (August 27, 2024)
• Citigroup’s Walking-Around Money (August 1, 2024)
• Synthetic Risk Transfers: Not as Risky as Advertised (July 1, 2024)
• Liquidity Rules (May 30, 2024)
• Selling The Silver (May 1, 2024)
• Price Paid Matters (March 18, 2024)
• Too Many Eggs in the Fed Pivot Basket (March 5, 2024)
• Investing in Under-Earning Franchises (January 30, 2024)
• Will the Fed Have a Big Footprint in 2024, Too? (January 3, 2024)

2023

• Banks Ripped in 1995 Too (December 22, 2023)
• Citigroup Bora Bora (November 22, 2023)
• Cashing Out and Swapping Shares  (November 6, 2023)
• Bad News Does Not Age Well (September 28, 2023)
• Some Cuts Matter More Than Others (August 9, 2023)
• Jettison the Losers (July 10, 2023)
• Credit Contraction Virtually Guaranteed (June 12, 2023)
• What’s Troubling Bank Stocks? (May 23, 2023)
• ‘TTI’ – Time to Insolvency (May 4, 2023)
• Scouring Papers For the Next Story (April 17, 2023)
• Commercial Real Estate Can-Kicking Trumps Immediate Loss Recognition (March 29, 2023)
• The Sawhorse, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank (March 15, 2023)
• It Is Never Good to Be a Forced Seller (March 7, 2023)
• Duration is a Favorable Attribute for Leveraged Corporate Borrowers (February 14, 2023)
• 3 Questions for Jamie Dimon (January 10, 2023)

2022

• Musk Can Look to Blackstone’s Playbook on Hilton (December 30, 2022)
• A Strange Year Fades Into Another One (December 12, 2022)
• Butcher, Bank Stocks and FTX (November 17, 2022)
• Times Change (October 24, 2022)
• Friedman Can Forecast (October 3, 2022)
• Eyes on the Deposit Door (August 30, 2022)
• Predictive Programming Returns the Punch Bowl (August 2, 2022)
• Not an Accounting Entry (June 30, 2022)
• Rabbit’s Foot (June 2, 2022)
• Only Bad Bond Prices (May 10, 2022)
• Another Memphis Banking Milestone (April 12, 2022)
• First Horizon Closes the Book on Large Memphis-based Banks (March 18, 2022)
• Grantham’s ‘Superbubble’ and Crazy Town (February 23, 2022)
• Credit Markets, Not Equity Markets (January 19, 2022)
• HEYDUDE, Buybacks and Acquisition Debt (January 4, 2022)

2021

• Is Lending Money at Less Than 3% Worth It? (December 3, 2021)
• Waiting on the Match (October 13, 2021)
• No Constituencies for Higher Rates and Bear Markets
  (September 22, 2021)
• Bouncing Checks (August 11, 2021)
• Dimons Are Investments Too (July 29, 2021)
• Recency Bias (June 16, 2021)
• The New Normal or Just Unsettling? (May 18, 2021)
• Excess Liquidity, Low Rates Leave Banks Between a Rock and M&A (May 6, 2021)
• What To Do With The Cash (April 14, 2021)
• Fraser Gets the Baton at Citigroup (March 9, 2021)
• Crash Memes Everywhere (February 19, 2021)
• Holdco Has a Point About Boston Private (January 28, 2021)

2020

• Rocket Fuel (December 29, 2020)
• A Potentially Epic M&A Year in the Making (December 2, 2020)
• Revisiting Carl Icahn’s view of CIT (November 11, 2020)
• Buybacks Were Once Illegal for SEC Registrants (October 7, 2020)
• Bank Stocks are Not Yet Buying the Fed’s Expectations Game? (September 3, 2020)
• Is High-Yield Pricing Fundamentals or Liquidity? (August 18, 2020)
• Strangest Quarter  (July 14, 2020)
• Tables turned on Citigroup and Wells Fargo (June 16, 2020)
• PNC’s Position May be Better Than the Street Believes (May 22, 2020)
• Internally Generated Capital is the Cheapest Capital to Raise (April 29, 2020)
• A Slow-Moving Crisis Unfolded 40 Years Ago (April 6, 2020)
• Reset In Motion (March 10, 2020)
• Compounding Cash for Berkshire is a Tough Proposition (February 26, 2020)
• Debt Jubilees May Not be Fake News (February 4, 2020)
• Share Issuance Matters Too for JPMorgan (January 7, 2020)

2019

• A Potentially Great M&A Year (December 16, 2019)
• Boards Sort of Follow Earnings Too (November 12, 2019)
• Underwhelming is Priced into Bank Stocks (October 15, 2019)
• Circular Logic Abounds in the Tech Ecosystem (September 24, 2019)
• Certainty for Banks will Intensify the Need to Merge (August 29, 2019)
• Timing Matters (August 8, 2019)
• Falling Rates May Surprise by Validating Digital Banks, FinTech Asset Gatherers (July 8, 2019)
• Bond Market Administers Rough Justice (June 13, 2019)
• Leveraged Loans Quack Like a Security Duck (May 24, 2019)
• Liquidity — Same Story, Different Rate Cycle (May 6, 2019)
• For Wells Fargo, the Volcano Beckons (April 2, 2019)
• SunTrust’s Corporate and Investment Banking Unit Looks to be a Winner Too (March 15, 2019)
• Market Depth Depends on Price Too (February 27, 2019)
• Scale for Another Reason (February 6, 2019)
• Analyst Protection (January 11, 2019)

2018

• Robinhood’s Chutzpah (December 19, 2018)
• Know What You Own and Own the Numbers (December 3, 3018)
• Change at the Margin (November 14, 2018)
• Value Restoration Underway (October 23, 2018)
• The Boom Rolls on in Nashville and Elsewhere (October 4, 2018)
• Robinhood Will Have to Grow Assets to Make Money, Too (September 25, 2018)
• It’s Not You Invest, It’s Rising Rates (August 27, 2018)
• Selling Georgia Banks Near the Top (August 9, 2018)
• Banks May Spend Corporate Tax Windfall on Deposit Repricing (July 16, 2018)
• Citi’s Corbat Controls Some Timing (June 28, 2018)
• Maybe Santander Consumer Goes Out Cheaper Than It Debuted (June 15, 2018)
• Crushing Private Credit (May 16, 2018)
• Second Derivative Liquidity and Credit (April 26, 2018)
• Wilmington Trust and Calling It Like It Is (March 16, 2018)
• Spreadsheets Never Disappoint (February 27, 2018)
• What if the Inflation Narrative is Not Fake News? (February 13, 2018)
• Zeitgeist Capital (January 29, 2018)
• The Rating Agencies Did Not Get Steinhoff Right Either (January 16, 2018)
• Meredith Whitney Is Still Right (January 2, 2018)

2017

• $20B of Storage Assets for Goldman Sachs (December 12, 2017)
• Spread Is Not Necessarily Destiny (November 27, 2017)
• Is BlackRock’s Margin Sustainable? (November 7, 2017)
• POTUS and Bullard on Real and Fake Debt Relief (October 13, 2017)
• Greenhill’s Recap – First Step to Going Private (October 3, 2017)
• Goldman’s Asset Moving Business vs Signature Bank’s Storage Business (September 19, 2017)
• Conspiracy Theories (August 30, 2017)
• BDCs, Tesla Inc. and Quacking Ducks (August 15, 2017)
• First Financial Bancorp Sells-off, Too (July 27, 2017)
• EBITDA and Credit Stretching (July 6, 2017)
• Penland, CCAR and the Vantage of Hindsight (June 21, 2017)
• Falling Bank Valuations a Throwback to the 90s (June 5, 2017)
• Sell-off in Sandy Spring Bancorp Shares Curious (May 19, 2017)
• Citigroup vs. MidSouth Bancorp Corporate Governance (May 8, 2017)
• Cadence Bancorp. Shares Attractive in a Transitioning Market (April 17, 2017)
• GM Trades at 5.6x Earnings for a Reason; Subprime Lenders Can Too (April 4, 2017)
• Reading the Tea Leaves at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Lafayette (March 20, 2017)
• Garbled Game Theory for PrivateBancorp (March 8, 2017)
• Charles Ellis on Indexing (February 8, 2017)
• Clock Still Ticking at First NBC (January 26, 2017)
• Gravity Matters, Especially for Financial Investors (January 4, 2017)

2016

• What Does the ‘Mean’ Mean for Bank Investors? (December 21, 2016)
• At KeyCorp, SunTrust, Corporate Investment Bank Units Make the Cut (November 29, 2016)
• Credit Costs Should be Part of Banking Industry’s Post-Nov. 8 Narrative, Too (November 14, 2016)
• First NBC Provides A Bank Investing Primer (November 8, 2016)
• Flipping the Field…Sort Of (October 18, 2016)
• Quarterly Reports Will Not Always Be Snoozers (October 5, 2016)
• Don Regan on Executive Knowledge (September 14, 2016)
• Growth vs. Value in Nashville’s Pending Bank IPOs (August 31, 2016)
• Is Tangible Book Value Per Share Dilution an Insurmountable Investor Fixation? (August 8, 2016)
• Bank Distributions Play to the Income Zeitgeist Too  (July 19, 2016)
• Income Post-Mortem and Coupon Clipping (July 7, 2016)
• Liquidity Will Still Flow to Income (June 17, 2016)
• Yadkin Financial Corp. May Not Be a Slam Dunk (June 3, 2016)
• Ally Financial may be Thinking Creatively with TradeKing (May 23, 2016)
• Comerica and Agitating for a Sale (May 3, 2016)
• Early-quarter Read Shows Little Change (April 18, 2016)
• John Reed’s LDC and Hancock’s Energy Reserve Build (April 11, 2016)
• One Quibble with Bill Gross Regarding Citigroup (March 21, 2016)
• Activist Investors, Optionality and Comerica (February 16, 2016)
• John Thain, BDCs and Market Timing (February 3, 2016)
• Dimon was Spot on Last Week (January 20, 2016)
• Lion Capital Kind of Has a Point with Ally Financial (January 12, 2016)

2015

• Bank Stocks as Early Cyclicals (December 15, 2015)
• Regions Would Be an Interesting Partner for BB&T or Fifth Third (December 1, 2015)
• Liquidity is Credit’s Handmaiden (November 17, 2015)
• Shared Upside vs. Shared Downside (November 4, 2015)
• NAV: Literal or in the Ballpark Gospel? (October 26, 2015)
• CIT’s Next Chapter (October 9, 2015)
• A Belated High-five for First Niagara’s Board (September 29, 2015)
• TPG Specialty Lending and TICC Capital Prove Price Cures Price for BDCs Too (September 18, 2015)
• August is the Market’s New October, but not for BDCs This Year (September 1, 2015)
• Maybe Warren Buffett Agrees with Bill Gross on Financial Asphyxiation (August 17, 2015)
• BDC Earnings Will Be More Interesting Than the Banks’ Reports (August 4, 2015)
• Carl Icahn and Bob Farrell (July 21, 2015)
• Jimmy Lee, Leverage and Liquidity (July 6, 2015)
• Sidoti Is Broader Than Sidoti (June 23, 2015)
• Prospect Capital’s Altar Call (June 12, 2015)
• Heartland Financial USA Still in the Sweet Spot (May 29, 2015)
• Investors Will Have No One to Blame But Themselves (May 20, 2015)
• Mississippi Merging (April 28, 2015)
• Observations from the Initial Q1’15 Bank Earnings (April 22, 2015)
• National Commerce’s History Rhymes a lot with Alabama National BanCorp.’s (April 7, 2015)
• Howard Lutnick’s Predictions Still Look Prescient (March 20, 2015)
• Revisiting the Aircraft Lessors (March 12, 2015)
• Biased Against Special Dividends? (February 24, 2015)
• Credit Marks, Asset Yields and Dividend Capacity Are Going to Get More Scrutiny (February 10, 2015)
• Nashville’s Next Crop of Bank IPOs (January 26, 2015)
• Support After a Few Gut-Punches for Research (January 6, 2015)

2014

• Credit Spreads, not Fed Funds Basis Points, are the Key for 2015 (December 17, 2014)
• Energy Lending Narrative is Probably a Slow-Moving One (December 2, 2014)
• Hancock Holdings and Expectations (November 25, 2014)
• SNC Exam Nuggets (November 12, 2014)
• A Witty Saying Proves Nothing (October 27, 2014)
• Not Certificates of Confiscation (October 14, 2014)
• CFPB Sets the Stage for the Federalization of Auto Credit (October 6, 2014)
• Chutzpah as Duck Food (September 24, 2014)
• Window on Agribusiness (September 12, 2014)
• Synchrony and Walking Around Money (August 26, 2014)
• Opposites Sometimes Attract in Bank M&A Too (August 4, 2014)
• Making It Up With Volume (July 29, 2014)
• Maybe the Fed’s Decisions in the Late 1920s Haunt its Decision Making Today (July 9, 2014)
• Synchrony Financial – Making Good Money by the Handful and Avoiding the Bucket (June 20, 2014)
• Complacent Investors May Need to Reassess the Earning Power of Some Acquirers (June 5, 2014)
• Investors Will Wield Sizable Pricing Power in the Citizens Financial Group IPO (May 20, 2014)
• Are Branch Deposit Premiums Worth it Even if the Buyer Gets a Bargain? (May 9, 2014)
• The Quarter-End Downgrade (April 23, 2014)
• Not Stressed – Credit Should be the Focus if the Fed Hikes Rates (April 9, 2014)
• The Fixed Income Capital Markets Jam (March 25, 2014)
• Ally’s Proposed IPO – Count Me as Skeptical of the Investment Merits (March 13, 2014)
• Should Jesse Litvak and His Clients Cover Equities? (March 3, 2014)
• The War on Judgment (February 18, 2014)
• KeyCorp and BB&T Offer Differing MOE Paths for VantageSouth (February 4, 2014)
• Signature Bank, Value Stocks that are not a Value and Growth Stocks that do not Grow (January 24, 2014)
• PacWest-CapitalSource May be the Company to Watch in 2014 (January 14, 2014)
• Leverage, Not Home Price Appreciation, May be the Story Buried in Newspapers Today (January 2, 2014)

2013

• It Pays to Wait Sometimes (December 18, 2013)
• Another Volcker Rule May Loom for Equity Capital Markets Units (December 10, 2013)
• FirstMerit – Cautious, Pessimistic and Opportunistic (December 2, 2013)
• Fed Policy, Pushing on a String? (November 26, 2013)
• Yadkin Financial Could be a Regional Stepping Stone (November 11, 2013)
• Bill Gross, Carl Icahn and Share Repurchase (November 7, 2013)
• Jamie Dimon May Have to Call an Audible (October 21, 2013)
• Loan Yields Continue to Grind Lower (October 14, 2013)
• The Economy Cannot Withstand a Material Drop in Asset Values (October 9, 2013)
• JPMorgan – The Problem with Warehouses (September 30, 2013)
• No One Goes Broke Taking a Profit if They can Sell (September 20, 2013)
• JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley’s Bridge Loan to Verizon May Become a Permanent Loan (September 9, 2013)
• Ally Financial – Price Cures Price (September 4, 2013)
• You Gotta Have Leverage (August 21, 2013)
• Larry Summers Less Than 6 Degrees of Separation from Hootie Johnson (August 5, 2013)
• Did Comerica See it Coming? (July 29, 2013)
• Feds May Face a Prisoner’s Dilemma if it Attempts to Exit Ultra-Loose Monetary Policy (July 22, 2013)
• Unscrambling the Egg (July 15, 2013)
• ILFC’s Year of the Snake May Yet Make a Decent IPO (July 10, 2013)
• What Does Corsair Want to do With its United Community Banks stake? (July 3, 2013)
• Playing Between the 40-Yard Lines (June 24, 2013)
• Dashed Lines to BB&T and Wells Fargo (June 18, 2013)
• Business Bank Bolt-On Could Be Best Play for CIT (June 6, 2013)
• KeyCorp’s Weeden and Huntington’s Kimble Have One Thing in Common Other Than Ohio (May 29, 2013)
• Forcing Humility on JPMorgan’s Dimon Misses the Point (May 17, 2013)
• Old National – Repositioning via M&A While Many Others Sit Still (May 9, 2013)
• Regions and Synovus Typify a Manic Corporate Bond Market (May 3, 2013)
• Praise for Coupon Clipping and Short-Duration Equity (April 26, 2013)
• Cain’t Be (April 16, 2013)
• BB&T – Was It Something That Was Said? (April 9, 2013)
• Haircuts Are a Euphemism for Corporate Reorganization (March 18, 2013)
• Process of Elimination Becomes the Catalyst (March 11, 2013)
• Farm Prices and Ag Lending – Good as Gold (March 6, 2013)
• Crestview Partners a Common Denominator in KeyCorp’s and Comerica’s AM Sales – and Maybe SunTrust’s Too (February 25, 2013)
• Mack Whittle Had It Right (February 20, 2013)
• What to Make of the Bank Stock Rally? (February 15, 2013)
• CIT’s Soft Attempts To Sell? (February 14, 2013)
• Fed Policy – It Is Until It Isn’t (February 1, 2013)
• Banks Face Increasing NIM Pressure (January 22, 2013)
• FASB Change May Move the Goalpost (January 17, 2013)
• Chrysler’s Successful 1980 Bailout May Be Prologue for Banking’s TARP Experience (January 3, 2013)

2012

• Nuclear Escalation Next for the Fed (December 19, 2012)
• Julius Caesar, John Allison and the Federal Reserve (December 11, 2012)
• Rainy Day Liquidity Is a Good Thing (November 29, 2012)
• TruPS Deferrals Set Stage for Many More 363 Reorganizations by 2014 (November 27, 2012)
• KBW Sale Marks the End of an Era (November 6, 2012)
• Closing Another Southern Banking Chapter (November 5, 2012)
• Revisiting Carl Icahn’s CIT Debt and Equity Trades (August 29, 2012)
• Emigrant Branch Sale Points to Parent Capital Structure Initiatives Rathen Than NYC Consolidation (August 7, 2012)
• JP Morgan: Channeling Jeff and Ned Kelly, the Forklift and the Warehouse (July 23, 2012)

To read further articles from Jeff, visit S&P Global Market Intelligence, formerly SNL Financial (subscription required).

The views and opinions expressed in these pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of S&P Global Market Intelligence or Mercer Capital.