ThIs is a fight over lender fees, not score quality. For consumers, both scores suffer from the same flaw: measuring not financial responsibility, but how good you are at borrowing and repaying loans. wsj.com/finance/bankin… via The Wall Street Journal

With the latest rate cuts at Ally Bank (savings account APY is now only 3.30%), Ally customers may want to keep more of their cash in a money market fund (at Ally Invest or at another brokerage firm). A popular MMF, $VMFXX, has a 7-day SEC yield of 4.01%. This will likely fall

From Ben Carlson “trend following is a wonderful hedge against severe market downturns. But severe market downturns don’t happen that often. Crashes are rare.”

Here's my list of banks with wilting loan quality in 3Q. The FDIC data is available much faster this quarter. Again, this is bank level for everyone $1B+ in assets. I mention every publicly traded bank with a move of 100+ bps in any of 5 categories: 100 bps is really a lot.

The US personal savings rate was consistently over 10% in the 60s and 70s. It’s now at 4.7%. What changed?

Key Events This Week: 1. ISM Manufacturing PMI data - Monday 2. Palantir, $PLTR, Reports Earnings - Monday 3. AMD, $AMD, Reports Earnings - Tuesday 4. ADP Nonfarm Payrolls data - Wednesday 5. MI Consumer Sentiment data - Friday 6. ~20% of S&P 500 companies report earnings

In addition to Evolve, Jason Mikula’s Fintech Biz Weekly reviews the financial troubles of Varo from the Q3 call reports that the FDIC released on Friday.

Noteworthy fintechs reporting earnings this week: Tues: Upstart Wed: Robinhood

From Ian Salisbury for Barron's “A strong year may be just what 60/40 funds need to win back investors who feel betrayed by recent underperformance.”

1/13 🧵on the stresses in the funding markets, why they are happening, and what it means. Be sure to see the last two posts (12 and 13). Funding rates are rising relative to the Federal Reserve's administered rates (bottom panel arrow). This signals stress in funding markets.

Interesting stats of the 20 largest ETFs. Note to performance chasers: all the ETFs that outperformed the S&P were heavy on tech, especially Nvidia, which had a 76.5% 10-yr annual return.

Investing wisdom from Jason Zweig that's especially relevant for today. "Should You Just Buy Stocks Until You Die? Stocks are never a sure thing, especially when everybody seems to think they are"

Money market madness: Since 2020, investors have poured +$4.5 trillion into cash funds, such as money market funds, the most among major assets. Net inflows to these funds have TRIPLED since 2023. Over the same period, equity funds have seen +$2.7 trillion in inflows, doubling

Review of the FT profile of Fidelity Investments by My Money Blog

On the new deposit insurance reform bill, this WSJ opinion piece by Scott Bessent & Bill Hagerty warns: “A failure to act is a tacit endorsement of a future that looks too much like Europe or Canada, where the six megabanks control more than 90% of the country’s bank assets.”

“In plain terms, the financial system is addicted to reserves, and the Fed has no choice but to keep feeding it.”

Should You Just Buy Stocks Until You Die? | Jason Zweig for The Wall Street Journal Wise commentary on "a newly updated analysis by a team of researchers who find that retirement savers shouldn’t own any bonds at all." (gift link) wsj.com/finance/invest…

US manufacturing production remains under pressure even as inflation eases The ISM's manufacturing index came in below 50 for the eighth straight month, declining 0.4 points to 48.7. The employment subcomponent also remained below the 50 On the price side, the index of prices