QABA News and Press, First Trust NASDAQ ABA Community Bank Index Fund From 05/21/23

2023-05-21 08:54:00 ET Summary While the Fed is able to obscure its capital losses by valuing its assets at cost, there’s one item the Fed isn’t able to completely bury in its balance sheet accounting. Regardless of the level of valuations, an improvement in the unif...

2023-05-19 02:45:00 ET Summary Banks have been tightening their lending standards, and they plan to keep doing it throughout the rest of the year. The Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Lending Practices found that bankers expect a deteriorating economic picture in 2023, both f...

2023-05-17 00:00:00 ET Summary Markets are being shaped by disparate trends from falling energy prices to rising interest rates. During first-quarter earnings season, company reports indicated that these crosscurrents are intensifying business challenges—and making it harde...

2023-05-16 23:05:00 ET Summary The Federal Reserve’s latest 0.25% interest rate hike has likely capped one of its most aggressive policy-tightening cycles in 40 years. Core inflation, which excludes the more volatile energy and food prices, remains historically high, but ha...

2023-05-16 16:30:00 ET Summary Federal Reserve tightening cycles, without exception, have been associated with financial crises. Tightening lending standards, which has historically led to an economic downturn, is raising the likelihood of a recession. The bank failures may ma...

2023-05-16 15:00:00 ET Summary Last week, April’s year-over-year export and import prices showed unusually large declines. Export prices declined by 5.9%, on top of another large 4.8% decline in March. Import prices declined 4.8%, matching the March decline. L...

2023-05-16 14:15:00 ET Summary Lipper Financial Services ETFs recorded their largest weekly outflow of the year over the past fund flows week (-$1.4 billion). On top of the bank failures, market participants are worried about the largest U.S. banks gaining an increasing market sha...

2023-05-16 13:30:00 ET Summary We continue to view risks to financial markets as being elevated. We prefer companies that are able to generate strong cash flows through the economic cycle and have strong competitive positions in their respective industries. While we have start...

2023-05-16 13:16:00 ET Summary We have had now, officially, 4 U.S. Bank failures with First Republic, Silicon Valley, Silvergate and Signature Bank. We have PacWest, Western Alliance and Zions are the next banks that are in discussion to be on the brink. During the pandemic, b...

2023-05-16 02:35:00 ET Summary The current economic and investing environment remains one of the most challenging and difficult to navigate in recent times. With inflation and wage growth at current levels, we likely require a material amount of pain to be felt within the equity a...