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Patterns—and some implications—of Covid-19 financial sector policy interventions
Patterns—and some implications—of Covid-19 financial sector policy interventions
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Since the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) began in December, more than 1,400 measures have been adopted to support the financial sector by more than 140 different countries. The magnitude of this response reflects the severity of the economic damage caused by measures to halt the pandemic. The goals are to stabilize financial markets, so that credit and liquidity can keep flowing to the most affected and vulnerable sectors—especially small and medium enterprises, as well as households.
Yet, a fundamental trade-off might arise between the positive countercyclical role that credit institutions are called to play now, versus their future resilience, since lenders might exhaust their existing buffers while experiencing deterioration of asset quality.
The World Bank has been tracking and analyzing the financial sector policy measures taken since late February. We have grouped them into four main categories of intervention: injecting liquidity and easing monetary conditions, supporting the banking sector and its borrowers, stabilizing financial markets and supporting Non-Bank Financial Institutions, and underpinning payments systems (see Figure 1, from our dashboard on financial sector measures).
Figure 1. Financial Sector Support Measures in Response to COVID-19
As the figure shows, most countries and regions have enacted emergency measures to provide liquidity and support financial institutions. In the early days of the crisis, a number of countries banned short selling to curtail market volatility. Confronted by massive capital outflows, several emerging markets and developing economies have intervened in foreign exchange markets and established swap lines with other central banks, mostly with the U.S. Federal Reserve. On the other hand, low-income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, have approved measures targeting the payments sector, mainly to encourage the use of digital channels and mitigate the shock to remittance flows. These include waiving charges and fees and simplifying electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) and digital identification procedures.
Overall, more than half of the 1,415 measures approved thus far target the banking sector and, within this category, almost two-thirds are prudential measures taken by regulators and supervisors to help keep lending flowing (Table 1). Over 110 countries have sought to buy time for solvent borrowers to withstand the worst effects of the supply and demand shocks induced by the lockdown.
Table 1. Measures taken by main category and subcategories of intervention (as of April 17)
This prudential line of action operates mostly through a temporary relaxation of certain key regulatory and supervisory requirements, for example on the use of buffers, reporting, or treatment of past-due loans. In most G20 economies, and some non-G20 emerging-market economies with well-developed financial markets, the package also includes clear supervisory guidance and expectations on how banks should effectively and soundly use this new flexibility. The top measures tracked in the prudential category are: credit repayment moratoria (18% of all prudential measures), supporting or facilitating the restructuring of loans (10%), relaxation in the classification and/or provisioning of non-performing assets (NPA), (7% and 6%, respectively), and releasing or deferring existing capital buffers (6%).
The use of buffers and the facilitation of loan restructuring are perfectly aligned with the existing regulatory framework. But other flexibility mechanisms, such as the use of moratoria and the flexibility in the treatment of NPA, might involve regulatory forbearance. This needs to be assessed very carefully and to be aligned with minimum prudential standards. Easing financial conditions and exercising some regulatory forbearance might be necessary as long as conditions remain difficult, though this might have important implications on financial-sector stability in the medium term. These measures need to avoid increasing financial risks, especially in those systems that are already vulnerable. Decisions should be extraordinary, time bound, transparent, and based on rigorous risk assessments. Banks should be expected to produce and disclose reliable, frequent, up-to-date, and comparable information regarding loans that have benefitted from borrower relief measures. Banks must continue to apply the relevant prudential regulatory measures in terms of classification and provisions, especially when the Net Present Value of loans changes as a result of applying relief measures. In countries with pre-existing financial vulnerabilities, including supervisory capacity constraints, reduced buffers and a poor financial safety net, the abuse of regulatory forbearance now can be especially worrying.
The full effect and duration of the COVID-19 crisis is still unknown, and its peak- and second-round effects are still to come in most countries. With indebtedness at record levels, the tight interlinkages between sovereign, financial and corporate sectors may give rise to adverse feedback loops, especially in countries with weaker crisis management and corporate insolvency frameworks.
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Delivering a Real-time Genomics OS to Healthcare
When the opportunity arose to work with population genomics company Helix on a large genomic screening program, Judge was incredibly enthusiastic. With…
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Director of the Cardiovascular Genetics Program and Fellowship Director for Cardiovascular Disease
The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC)
When Daniel Judge, MD, director of the Cardiovascular Genetics program and fellowship director for cardiovascular disease at The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), moved over from John Hopkins a bit over five years ago, the use of genetics in clinical practice was absent in South Carolina.
“When you ask a clinician what genetics means, it’s often infants with phenylketonuria (PKU) or inherited disorders of metabolism,” Judge told Inside Precision Medicine. “But for adults with cardiovascular, pulmonary, or renal disease, not everyone uses genetics routinely in practice.”
So when the opportunity arose to work with population genomics company Helix on a large genomic screening program, Judge was incredibly enthusiastic.
“Here’s an opportunity for us and MUSC to stand apart from the large for-profit hospital centers that operate around the state, and for us to provide an academic and improved healthcare approach to things,” said Judge. “This was the opportunity for clinicians who have been doing good clinical work to bring genetics into their practice.”
In 2021, MUSC launched “In Our DNA, SC,” a first-of-its-kind genomics program to drive preventive, precision health care for South Carolinians. The statewide initiative has set out to enroll 100,000 patients in genetic testing over the next four years at no cost to the patients.
Walking the walk
Excluding COVID-19, the top cause of death in South Carolina is heart disease, followed by cancer. In the time that In Our DNA SC has been up and running, the cancer and heart disease rates haven’t yet begun to go down, but that’s the goal. Judge estimates that the program has detected about 175 positive results, which are split across breast cancer, colon cancer, and hyperlipidemia.
“Many of those patients with those results were quite surprised because they don’t have a family history of cancer or heart disease,” said Judge. “It’s nice to diagnose it because we’re seeing the ability to prescribe medications on the clinical side that are available more readily for people with familial hyperlipidemia or hypercholesterolemia.”
Judge is excited about the opportunity to provide an academic and improved healthcare approach. “It’s an opportunity for clinicians who have been doing great clinical work but haven’t integrated genetics into their primary care, or whatever that practice might be,” he said. “I think the use of genetics in clinical practice…is entering that mainstream. The patient benefits, and the family benefits.”
Judge’s experience in clinical genetics started about twenty years ago, and “I’ve always seen this pattern: once people see a successful use of something like this, they want to do more of it,” he said. “I think our clinicians will witness success with their patients and will want to see more.”
Making genomics part of real-time care
Founder, Helix
Behind the scenes of the In Our DNA SC initiative is a population genomics company called Helix that strives to accelerate the integration of genomic data into patient care and public health decision-making. Founder James Lu, MD, PhD, has dreamt of a world where genetic testing will provide a real-time response versus one that takes weeks. He set his sights on offering top-tier provider and patient experiences by making genomics a part of the healthcare fabric.
Lu thinks the best way to deliver genomics as a data stream or operating system within healthcare is to work with health systems. “Most of our partnerships are with large-scale health systems and are focused on large-scale, population-level programs,” said Lu. “Typically, a hundred thousand people plus, where they inevitably believe that this is going to become the standard of care over time.”
Lu believes that health systems will want to do this because it allows them to identify patients who are clearly at risk and are hiding in plain sight, such as carriers of well-established deleterious DNA variants. Helix went the route of whole exome sequencing (WES) rather than looking at an entire genome, as Lu believes that the coding regions contain almost all the relevant genomic data for clinical decision-making.
With its genomics data, Helix is currently narrowly focused on the diseases that are part of the CDC Tier 1 genomic application toolkit. This set addresses the nearly two million people in the United States who are at increased risk for adverse health outcomes because they have genetic mutations that predispose them to one of three conditions: hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome (HBOC), Lynch syndrome (LS), or familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). The healthcare system currently has a poor understanding of these conditions, and many affected people and their families are unaware that they are at risk; however, early detection and intervention could significantly lower morbidity and mortality.
The type of work that Helix is doing enables health systems to create fresh population health and value-based care algorithms to manage the health of larger populations. Over time, health systems want to drive the cost of care down while improving the quality of patient experiences.
From sea to shining sea
In addition to In Our DNA, SC, Helix currently has five other major programs running across the country that represent over 100,000 people in total, representing potentially one of the largest-scale programs across America’s health systems.
VP of primary care, clinic operations, and laboratories HealthPartners
In addition to South Carolina, Helix is located in Minnesota, where it is working with HealthPartners on a program called “myGenetics.” This large-scale community health research program, which launched in May 2022, is a first of its kind in Minnesota. Implementing this requires knowing what information to analyze, interpret, and communicate to patients, which Leslie Dockan, VP of primary care, clinic operations, and laboratories at HealthPartners, said aligns nicely with its and Helix’s core principle of providing clinicians with clear decision support.
The myGenetics program is free to the patient, given that it is a research project and the goal is to further biomedical understanding. “We wanted to create workflows that were easy for patients and weren’t disruptive to patient visits in the clinic, because our primary care clinicians have so many responsibilities and so many things that are happening,” said Dockan. This required HealthPartners to work closely with its electronic medical group and Helix to create a seamless workflow.
A day in the myGenetics life
After signing up and consenting electronically, the patient gets an automatic email to schedule their lab appointment at a pace that suits them. “They can take their time, ask questions, and review the information at a time when they’re comfortable, not feeling pressured to move into this,” said Dockan.
Once the appointment is scheduled, the patient gives a blood sample and receives clear information on what to expect, including how long sample processing takes and the information researchers will be looking for. From the results, HealthPartners shares information with the patient about the genes that it has screened for and what the results mean, in addition to facts about the patient’s ancestry and other genetic insights.
While this is happening, the clinical results for the CDC Tier 1 Genomic Applications Toolkit gets fed into the patient’s clinical record for any positive results. In the case of such a result, a nurse calls the patient and notifies them of the result, and offers a no obligation appointment with a genetic counselor to talk about their risk, what their results mean, and any additional testing that might be needed. Direct referrals get set up with a specialist. “If you need an oncology, cardiac, or a gastroenterology referral, we do that work for them, put the referral in, order any follow-up labs that may be needed, and set them on a clear clinical pathway,” said Dockan.
This information also goes to the primary care physician as part of the patient’s medical record, which impacts their future health maintenance, namely, how often screening occurs. “If they have a genetic variant, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have the disease or will get the disease,” said Dockan. “So, we follow them closely and then have that as a part of their ongoing health maintenance and preventative care.”
Dockan said that genomics will be brought into everyday care, such as with pharmacogenomics. “Physicians will be able to see that there are drug-gene interactions,” said Dockan. “If your physician starts to order a drug that’s not going to be compatible with your genetic makeup and how you metabolize drugs, then we want to be able to alert your clinician at the time of order and have them be able to give you an alternative. Today, we have many people on drugs that just don’t work for them, and no one knows why.”
Outreach in every corner
As of June 2023, myGenetics has had 25,000 people consent, which is about the annual number its organizers are shooting for. “We’re starting to see positive results and have more people who are benefiting from this work in a positive way and learning things about themselves,” said Dockan. “We just identified our first early cancer—someone who was underage and not yet even at screening age came back positive for BRCA2. We ended up doing follow-up screening and an MRI, and we found cancer. She’s crediting the program with potentially saving her life.”
Dockan would like to see the next step of the program’s outreach be to everyone who’s due for their annual physical or a preventative exam. “We want to offer it with all of our mammography screenings,” said Dockan. “We have amazing screening rates for mammography, and this is just another layer that takes it even further.”
Dockan also wants to make sure that myGenetics is reaching underserved communities. She tells a story about a black woman in her fifties who has a long history of breast cancer in her family and found out that she was positive for one of the gene variants that put her at higher risk. Dockan thinks that this story can have a major influence on the communities of black women in Minnesota. Not only is there a benefit in getting the word out so that people get better immediate treatment, but the myGenetics team knows that patients of color are underrepresented in a lot of research databases and wants to help fuel new therapies and other ways of fighting disease in local underserved populations.
Judge laments that the program wasn’t in place several years earlier so that it could have worked in time for a famous South Carolina resident, Chadwick Bozeman. The actor developed metastatic colon cancer in his late thirties, well before colon cancer screening was done. Part of the plan for In Our DNA SC is to become one of the top-enrolled genomic screening programs for non-white participants. “We are in the southeast U.S., and while we are in the 15–16% range, we want to be like 30% of our participants who are non-white, predominantly black, representing our state,” said Judge. “When we look at what our goal is for inclusion in this program, we want the demographics in our publications to look like the state of South Carolina. We’re not there yet.”
Jonathan D. Grinstein’s wonder for the human mind and body led him to an undergraduate education in Neural Science and Philosophy and a doctorate in Biomedical science. He has 10 years of experience in experimental and computational research, during which he was a co-author on research articles in journals such as Nature and Cell. Since then, Jonathan hung up his lab coat and has explored positions in science writing and editing. Jonathan’s science writing work has been featured in Scientific American, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News (GEN), and NEO.LIFE.
The post Delivering a Real-time Genomics OS to Healthcare appeared first on Inside Precision Medicine.
fed cdc treatment testing genetic dna mortality covid-19Spread & Containment
As Mortgage Rates Hit 8%, US Housing Affordability At Lowest Level Since The ’80s
As Mortgage Rates Hit 8%, US Housing Affordability At Lowest Level Since The ’80s
Update (1320ET): The average rate on the popular 30-year…
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Update (1320ET): The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit 8% Wednesday morning, according to Mortgage News Daily.
That is the highest level since mid-2000.
“Here’s another milestone that seemed extreme several short months ago,” said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer of Mortgage News Daily.
“The fact is that many borrowers have already seen rates over 8%. That said, many borrowers are still seeing rates in the 7s due to buydowns and discount points.”
As CNBC reports, to put it in perspective, a buyer purchasing a $400,000 home with a 20% down payment would have a monthly payment today of nearly $1,000 more than it would have been two years ago.
* * *
As Andrew Moran detailed earlier via The Epoch Times, the U.S. housing market has witnessed a slowdown in activity this year due to tighter supply, says Thomas Barkin, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
Speaking at a Real Estate Roundtable event in Washington, D.C., Mr. Barkin explained that home prices have remained strong in an environment of higher interest rates and slowing sales volumes.
But the industry has been pining for lower rates, he noted.
"You may know that the last time the Fed tackled high inflation, in the ’80s, homebuilders sent Paul Volcker two-by-fours inscribed with the message: Lower interest rates," he said.
In a letter to Fed Chair Jerome Powell by the National Association of Home Builders, the Mortgage Bankers Association, and the National Association of Realtors, the central bank was urged not to pull the trigger on more rate hikes.
"Further rate increases and a persistently wide spread pose broader risks to economic growth, heightening the likelihood and magnitude of a recession," the letter stated.
A treasure trove of data and research shows that further Fed tightening could exacerbate current conditions in the real estate sector, especially regarding affordability.
Housing Affordability Challenges
With supply failing to keep up with demand and mortgage rates marching toward 8 percent, housing affordability deteriorated to a fresh all-time low in August, new industry data show.
The NAR Housing Affordability Index clocked in at 91.7 in August, down from 93.9 in July - anything below 100 indicates a household with a median income does not earn enough to be approved for a mortgage on a median-priced home. This was the lowest reading since at least the early 1980s.
NAR figures highlighted that the typical family needed to earn $107,232 in August to qualify for a mortgage, based on a 20 percent downpayment. It was the third consecutive month of a six-figure headline number.
Meanwhile, the organization reported that the average family spent more than one-quarter (27 percent) of their income on annual mortgage payments.
Housing inventories have worsened over the past year. Existing home sales have declined in 13 of the last 15 months, including a 0.7 percent drop in August.
The challenge faced by the U.S. real estate market today is that homeowners are not erecting for-sale signs on their front lawns.
When the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to nearly zero during the coronavirus pandemic, mortgage rates crashed to their lowest levels on record.
According to the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS), the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage collapsed to 2.77 percent in August 2021. For the week ending Oct. 12, 2023, it is close to a 23-year high of 7.6 percent.
Home prices have also surged since the public health crisis, rising nearly 30 percent to a median sales price of $416,100.
The mix of high mortgages and prices has prevented the new generation of homebuyers from achieving the American dream of homeownership. However, anyone who purchased a home before the U.S. central bank launched its quantitative tightening cycle is in good shape: a 2 to 4 percent 30-year mortgage rate and a residential property that has accumulated plenty of equity.
This past summer, a Redfin analysis revealed that 92 percent of homeowners enjoyed a mortgage rate below 6 percent, offering minimal incentive for owners to sell their properties and move to another home with a higher rate. Nearly one-quarter (24 percent) maintain a rate below 3 percent, close to a record high achieved in the first quarter of 2022.
Ultimately, it could be a tale of two housing market participants.
Andy Walden, the ICE vice president of enterprise research, warned that incomes would have to spike 55 percent or home prices would have to collapse 35 percent to restore affordability.
"Those are massive movements we're talking about, and none of them are going to happen in a vacuum, and none of those one single factors are going to make the move," Mr. Walden told CNBC earlier this month.
Mortgage Rates Now and Beyond
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) found that builder confidence in the real estate market for newly constructed single-family homes slumped for the third consecutive month in October. They are seeing lower levels of buyer traffic as some buyers, including the younger families, are "priced out of the market because of higher interest rates," says NAHB Chairman Alicia Huey, a custom home builder and developer.
"Higher rates are also increasing the cost and availability of builder development and construction loans, which harms supply and contributes to lower housing affordability," Ms. Huey added.
A construction worker carries materials as he works on a home under construction at a housing development in Petaluma, Calif., on March 23, 2022. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz noted that one of the primary tools available to solve the housing affordability crisis is contributing "attainable, affordably supply."
"Boosting housing production would help reduce the shelter inflation component that was responsible for more than half of the overall Consumer Price Index increase in September and aid the Fed’s mission to bring inflation back down to 2%," he said. "However, uncertainty regarding monetary policy is contributing to affordability challenges in the market.”
The September consumer price index (CPI) shelter index is up 7.2 percent compared to a year ago.
While the futures market is pricing in the Fed, keeping rates unchanged at the November and December Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) policy meetings, the central bank’s Summary of Economic Projections suggests officials are planning one more rate hike this year.
In addition, Treasury yields have been accelerating, with the 2-, 10-, and 30-year yields touching their highest levels in 16 years. The volatility in the bond market has played a critical role in the housing market because mortgage lenders tie their interest rates closely to Treasury bond rates.
As a result, Fannie Mae projects that mortgage rates will hover in the 7 percent range for most of next year before sliding to 6.7 percent by the end of 2024.
"In many ways, the housing market experienced four years of business in a two-year period between mid-2020 and mid-2022," said Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae Senior Vice President and Chief Economist.
"With ongoing affordability constraints and rising mortgage rates, much of that activity has essentially been given back. We expect the higher mortgage rate environment to continue to dampen housing activity and further complicate housing affordability into 2024."
The FOMC will hold its next two-day policy meeting on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.
Spread & Containment
Backlash forces Goldman Sachs CEO to give up side gig he absolutely loves
It was the day the music died at Goldman Sachs as the CEO reportedly packs in his side hustle.
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Hey, Mr D.J.--get back to work!
Everyone knows that party can't get started until the DJ shows up.
Weddings, private parties, holiday bashes, you need somebody to spin records, get people dancing and to make sure that nobody's car is blocking the driveway.
Related: Elon Musk takes a shot at Tesla's most prominent U.S. electric vehicle rival
Just think of some the legendary DJs, such as Grandmaster Flash, Frankie Knuckles, David Guetta, and, of course, DJ D-Sol.
Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Casamigos
Wait, what? Who was that last guy?
Proceeds go to charities
DJ D-Sol is the nom de disc of David Solomon, whose day job is chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs (GS) - Get Free Report.
Solomon, 61, has performed a variety of high-profile gigs in recent years, including a performance last summer at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago.
However, the top executive has changed his tune and pulled the plug on his musical side hustle, according to the Financial Times.
His hobby reportedly hit a sour note in some circles within the company, who felt that his DJ schtick created a distraction from his work leading the Wall Street firm, the publication reported, citing people with knowledge of the decision.
Some folks were uneasy about his decision in 2019 to perform at Tomorrowland, a Belgian music festival known for heavy drug taking.
Solomon, who was named chief executive in 2018, also apologized to Goldman’s board in 2020 after he DJed at a 2020 event in the Hamptons resort area of New York that was criticized for blowing off social distancing rules during the Covid-19 pandemic.
His interest in DJing started more than a decade ago when he was working on a financing deal for a Las Vegas casino. He has said that proceeds from his performance have gone towards charities combating addiction.
'Music not a distraction'
Few colleagues remarked on his hobby before he became CEO, but his decision to keep it up after taking over the top spot was controversial for some employees who felt it brought unwelcome attention.
Amid all this, Solomon has been under fire from some investors over the bank's lackluster profits.
In the second quarter, Goldman posted its lowest quarterly profit in three years, as a costly retreat from consumer banking was compounded by the industry-wide slowdown in deals and trading
The investment bank posted better-than-expected third quarter earnings on Oct. 17, but booked more than $800 million in write downs linked to its real estate and home improvement lending divisions.
Goldman Sachs maintains that any controversy about Solomon's deejaying is just so much chin music.
"This is not news," spokesman Tony Fratto told the Financial Times. "David hasn’t publicly DJed an event in well over a year, which we have confirmed multiple times in the past."
"Music was not a distraction from David’s work," Fratto added. "The media attention became a distraction."
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