Bond Investment Mentor®

Chris shares a five-step process to help prepare you and your institution's investment portfolio for 2024.

Chris is joined by guest Darnell Canada from Darling Consulting Group to take a look back at 2023 and discuss how community bankers can position themselves for 2024.

Chris catches up with Bob Newman from Chatham Financial, discussing how community bankers have used derivatives to manage the balance sheet and how they can include them in their strategy toolbox for 2024.

Chris has a conversation with Neil Stanley from The Core Point, taking a look back at 2023 and discussing what's important for community bankers to consider heading into 2024.

Chris announces the launch of a new investment training program designed specifically for community bankers - a one-stop, unbiased source for fixed-income investment and portfolio management knowledge.

Chris welcomes special guest Gretchen Claflin, President of Pacific Coast Banking School, to discuss the school and its education programs for community bankers.

Chris reviews the different types of SBA securities, their benefits, and their risks.

Chris provides an introduction to commercial mortgage-backed securities offered by the Federal agencies, their benefits, and risks.

Chris explores municipal bonds, their benefits and risks, and how they can be used in a community financial institution’s investment portfolio.

Chris explores four levels of risk management you need to consider when managing the investment portfolio for your community financial institution.

Chris shares five tips on things a community banker can do when they're not actively investing to help manage the portfolio effectively.

Chris discusses how to build and manage bond ladders as part of managing the institution's investment portfolio.

Chris has a conversation with guest Neil Stanley, President and CEO of The Core Point. They discuss interest rates in the 1980s, 1990s, and today, as well as their impact on investments, liquidity, and deposits.

Chris answers a listener's question about market and industry information overload and shares his process for keeping things under control, cutting through the noise, and taming the information beast.

Chris discusses this week's failure of Silicon Valley Bank and shares seven takeaways for all community bankers to consider.

Chris shares some suggestions on where to focus your investment efforts to help you, your portfolio, and your institution in 2023.

Chris discusses the importance of community financial institutions having a customized investment strategy and shares five reasons why.

Chris provides updates from the financial markets to wrap up 2022, including stories about the Federal Reserve, unrealized losses and tangible capital, and the mortgage and municipal markets.

Chris shares a conversation with guest Darnell Canada, Managing Director from Darling Consulting Group. They discuss some of the major topics affecting investments this year and how to plan for 2023.

Chris answers a listener's question about hybrid ARMs, what they are, and why an investor might use them in the investment portfolio. He also discusses the latest happenings with interest rates and the bond markets.

Chris shares four investment conversation topics that are good for community bankers to have with their board to provide clarity and help the board understand what's going on with the investment portfolio.

Chris discusses how the Treasury yield curve has shifted recently and become “inverted.” He explores what it means, what it may be signaling, and ways to make investment decisions in such an environment.

Chris discusses how liquidity management has finally returned to the forefront following a brief hiatus. He discusses three factors to managing liquidity successfully and how the investment portfolio can play a role.

Chris explores the concept of option risk, also known as optionality, which is a critical element of managing a financial institution's investments. Chris covers what this risk is and how to manage it in the portfolio.

Chris reviews the information contained in Bloomberg’s yield table for mortgage-backed securities and the layout for each yield table version.

Chris shares five tips for investment portfolio managers to help when market conditions get challenging (like the last few months, for example ;) ).

Chris examines the de minimis tax rule and how it can affect investors in municipal bonds. He also reviews this week’s market data and shares the latest prepayment info for mortgage securities.

Chris discusses Fed funds futures contracts, what they are, and how they can be used to gauge market sentiment regarding interest rate moves by the Federal Reserve. He also shares resources to help analyze the Fed funds futures market.

Chris speaks with Michael Stevens, President of the Graduate School of Banking at Colorado, about the school and its programs for community bankers, including the new GSBC+Invest investment training package.

Chris reviews what’s been happening in the bond markets in the past few weeks and the unrealized losses it’s created for financial institution investment portfolios. He discusses why it’s happening, what it all means, and ways to deal with the challenge of unrealized losses.

Chris discusses the concept of bond convexity, its relationship to duration, and how to utilize it in managing your community financial institution’s investment portfolio.

Chris explores the concept of duration, what it is, the different ways of measuring it, and the factors that drive it. He also discusses how to use duration when analyzing fixed income securities and your institution's investment portfolio.

Chris continues exploring the concept of yield and discusses yield spreads and yield curves, what they are, the factors that influence them, and how to use them as you analyze fixed-income investments for your community financial institution.

Chris explores the basics of bond yield, including what it is, how it works, and the different ways to measure this key investment return metric.

Chris discusses three essential areas to establishing and maintaining effective and productive broker-dealer relationships. He also shares a free resource to help manage your broker-dealer due diligence efforts.

Chris explores six different investment risks to consider as you manage your financial institution's investment portfolio.

Chris wraps up his series on residential mortgage securities, discussing collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs), how they work, and their benefits and risks.

Chris continues his series on residential mortgage securities, discussing prepayment and how to analyze and manage prepayment risk.

Chris catches up on the latest news from the financial markets, including the results from the June Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. He also begins a series on the basics of residential mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs).

In this episode, we review everything that's been going on recently with the economy and markets. I also share four simple questions that can help you navigate these challenging markets.

Hi there, I’m back! In this episode, I share where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to since we last got together. I also wanted to share some exciting decisions, announcements and new developments!

In my early days of portfolio management, I learned an important lesson about the importance of my two investment portfolios. What are your two investment portfolios, and why are they important to being an effective portfolio manager?

What is the first step to developing a sound investment strategy for bond portfolio management? Here’s a hint: it doesn’t involve the Federal Reserve.