Negative Convexity

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Akash Kanojia

Where do negative self-beliefs about money come from?

One thing I hear often when I talk to people who feel blocked in finances are negative self-beliefs. These usually sound like "I'm not good with money," "I'm not good at math," "I'm not good with numbers." In

Fedwatching: Williams on the Outlook (Jan 11 2024)

New York Fed President John Williams spoke to an economic development group yesterday about the economic outlook. Here are my takeaways: * Williams won't be voting for rate cuts anytime soon. In his view, it won't be appropriate to cut rates until he is "confident that

The Federal Reserve Meeting Minutes, Barkin’s Speech, and the Interest Rate Outlook for 2024

A new year, a new monetary policy update. A lot of people have been asking me “when” interest rates will return to “normal” levels rather than the “high” levels they are currently at (NB: interest rates are not high right now by historical standards). Everyone seems to think it’s

Understanding Business Write-Offs for Solopreneurs

Several people have recently mentioned to me that they don't have a good understanding of how "writing off" or "expensing" something to your business works, so I decided to put together a guide. This note is intended for people who are residents of the

So are electric vehicles a good buy or what?

TL;DR – electric vehicles are already cheaper than comparable gas cars when viewed from a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) perspective. If you are in the market for a new car and have been reluctant to consider an EV because of the price, do the math (or read this post)

How much should home prices fall based on recent changes in interest rates?

I wanted to do a bit of math to see how much home prices need to fall in order to meet affordability criteria in a higher interest rate regime. Partly it’s for personal interest, as I bought a house during the pandemic and I’m curious how much I’

The zombification of Corporate America

Over the past three weeks, there’s been a lot of discussion of duration-related mark-to-market losses, depositor flight, money market strains, and government interventions pertaining to the banking sector. What I haven’t seen a lot of discussion on is the traditional cause of banking crises: people or firms who

Two weeks of bank failures and government interventions: the big picture

In the past two weeks, we’ve seen the closure or rescue of four banks: Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, and Credit Suisse. We’ve also seen large-scale interventions from central banks, in the form of the Fed’s new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) and the

Some thoughts on the failure of Silicon Valley Bank

The tech and finance worlds have been consumed for the last four days by the collapse and closure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a bank serving… Silicon Valley. I’ve been following the developments closely and wanted to organize some my thoughts into a short commentary piece. What is/was

FOMC Preview - February 2023 meeting

TL;DR – I believe the Fed will raise rates by 0.25% at the February 1 meeting. However, recent speeches by DC-based officials sound hawkish to me and I think 0.50% is still possible. Market pricing suggests the Fed will hike twice at the next two meetings—25 and