Charles Gasparino, who’s been around the financial block more than once, isn’t mincing words. According to him, the rot’s already deep. Banks made reckless bets when rates were low, and now that the tide’s gone out, it’s clear who’s been skinny dipping. He warns that up to two dozen banks could be on the chopping block—echoing the collapses of SVB and Signature like a bad remix no one asked for.
Meanwhile, Danielle DiMartino Booth of Quill Intelligence is pointing fingers at the regulators who she says are boxed into a corner. After bailing out SVB and Signature’s uninsured depositors, the Fed, Treasury, and FDIC can’t exactly pretend they haven’t picked favorites. The problem? There’s no plan for the next domino to fall. Booth says we’re already in a crisis, just no one wants to admit it out loud.
And here’s the kicker—according to a recent NYU study, U.S. banks were sitting on $1.7 trillion in unrealized losses last year. That’s before rates kept climbing. Let that sink in.
Gasparino’s recent op-ed in the New York Post skewered the delusion outright, likening the current stock market rally to a junkie lighting up at the mere whiff of a rate cut. It’s all high fives and hopium, while the foundations quietly buckle.
The big banks? They’re playing it safe in the shadows. The smaller ones? They’re stuck in purgatory—underwater, overexposed, and largely ignored.
But sure, keep buying the dip. What could go wrong?