Bank Deals Blog: Fed / Banking News

The Fed decided to hold off on a rate hike at its fifth FOMC meeting of the year. This was widely expected. Before the meeting, most believed the Fed would keep to its rate forecast with one more rate hike this year. A rate hike at the Fed’s December meeting is thought to be the most likely time. Today’s policy statement didn’t include anything to change these expectations. There had been concerns that the Fed may change its language to acknowledge weaker inflation which could reduce the chance of...

The Fed moved as expected by raising the federal funds rate by 25 basis points. This is the third Fed rate hike in the last six months. It is also the first time since 2006 that the Fed has hiked rates more than once in a calendar year. Here’s that all important paragraph in today’s FOMC statement:

The other thing to note in the statement is the Fed’s view of inflation. The statement did acknowledge the recent declines in inflation, but the Fed doesn’t think this has...

The FDIC and NCUA recently released their reports of the first quarter health of the institutions they insure. They also released the 2017 First Quarter Call Reports of all the insured institutions. We use these reports to derive our financial health grades for each institution. We have finished importing this data, and all of the health grades for banks and credit unions have been updated to reflect the March 31, 2017 reports.

You can view the latest health ratings of your bank or credit union in our Bank...

The Fed decided to hold off on a rate hike at its third FOMC meeting of the year. This was widely expected since the Fed increased rates at the last meeting, and there have been no upside economic surprises to speed up the Fed’s gradual rate-hike plans. There had been new concerns that recent weak economic news may move the Fed back to its position last year when it kept putting off rate hikes. The Fed dampened those concerns in today’s policy statement when it described the slowing of...

At the second FOMC meeting of the year, the Fed raised the federal funds rate by 25 basis points. The move had been widely expected since March 3rd when Fed Chair Janet Yellen gave a speech with strong signals pointing to a rate hike at this meeting. Here’s that all important paragraph in today’s FOMC statement:

The Fed kept its note regarding its expectations for gradual increases in the federal funds rate. However, there was one slight change. They removed the word “only” in the sentence. It now says:

The FDIC and NCUA recently released their reports of the fourth quarter health of the institutions they insure. They also released the 2016 Fourth Quarter Call Reports of all the insured institutions. We use these reports to derive our financial health grades for each institution. We have finished importing this data, and all of the health grades for banks and credit unions have been updated to reflect the December 31, 2016 reports.

You can view the latest health ratings of your bank or credit union in our Bank Health Ratings...

The Fed decided to hold off on a rate hike at its first FOMC meeting of the year. This was widely expected since the Fed increased rates at the last meeting. As can be seen in the following excerpt from today’s FOMC statement, the Fed included its typical wording about keeping rates unchanged:

What’s not clear from today’s policy statement is if the Fed is preparing for a March rate hike. There were a few small signs that the Fed may do another rate hike in March. First, the Fed...

Only five banks failed in 2016. The year looked similar to the years before the 2008 financial crisis when bank failures were rare. Last year continued the trend of a declining numbers of bank failures. This trend started in 2011 when 92 banks failed, which was a big improvement over 2010 when 157 banks failed. The year 2010 had the highest number of bank failures since the 2008 financial crisis. If you were a DA reader back in 2010, you probably remember my Friday bank failure posts. Almost every...

As of today, 88% of the readers who took my Fed Rate Hike Poll anticipate three or fewer Fed rate hikes in 2017. This prediction is inline with what the Fed suggested last month with its dot plot and inline with the current Fed fund futures, which indicate only a 14% chance of more than three rate hikes in 2017 (Please take the poll if you haven’t already).

This is a good reminder that rate hikes this year (and in the next couple of years) will likely to be gradual....

Happy New Year! Will 2017 be the year when savers finally start seeing some relief from these ultra low interest rates?

You can find reasons to be optimistic in the last two months of 2016. First, the markets reacted positively to Trump’s election. Since the election, the 10-year Treasury yield has increased from 1.88% to 2.45%. According to this Wall Street Journal article:

December’s Fed meeting was another reason to be optimistic for rising rates in 2017. In addition to hiking the federal funds rate by 25 basis points, the Fed’s...