We promised last week that we would be paying close attention to consumer debt this year, and what better time to begin. The Federal Reserve conveniently just released its Consumer Credit statistics report for last November. This latest release shows…
Taking a look back at the year that just ended can sometimes give us a glimpse at what’s to come. We’re not sure that’s a good thing this time around but as they say, “forewarned is forearmed”. The first warnings…
Happy New Year! The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee voted this week to increase the target Fed Funds rate by 25 basis points. This marks the ninth such increase since beginning the gradual rate rise campaign in December of 2015…
New Credit Union Star-Ratings This Week Total assets at the nation’s federally-insured credit unions rose 5.6% ($77 billion) during the 12 months ended September 30, 2018 ending up at $1.44 trillion. The loan portion of those assets was up 9.5%…
Banks Get Bigger, Stronger… at a Price As promised, we have more details of third quarter bank data this week. We mentioned last week that total assets of $17.7 trillion were up 2.5% from a year earlier and the $10…
The banking industry in the U.S. continues making strides; over 90% of the industry is recommended by Bauer (rated 5-Stars or 4-Stars) and there are fewer banks on Bauer’s Troubled and Problematic Bank Report than we have seen since 2007…
We are quickly approaching the one year anniversary of the last U.S. bank failure (December 15th). The last time we went this long between bank failures was the 31 month stretch from July 2004 through January 2007. We only wish…
At this time every year, we look forward to the annual survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) to tell us how much we should be paying for Thanksgiving Dinner. While this is an informal survey of price trends,…
The Federal Reserve held rates steady at its Open Market Committee Meeting last week, but we don’t believe that will be the case next month. We expect a nice little Holiday gift of another 25 basis point increase when they…
Results of the FDIC’s biennial National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households (released October 23rd) revealed good news and bad. The good news is that more American households now have a banking relationship than ever before with only 6.5% of…