PennyMac Financial Services: The Next Mortgage Crisis Is Underway

By |

PennyMac Financial Services is in a world of trouble. Its Securities and Exchange Commission filings suggest that its challenge has been navigating prosperity, not peril. Except that everything about PennyMac’s past two and a half years can be categorized as “BT,” short for “before the Federal Reserve began tightening.”

Once the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate increases began in March — propelling conventional 30-year mortgage rates to 6.66 percent from 3.01 percent a year ago — much of PennyMac’s economic opportunity set disappeared.

Financial Services

Freedom Holding: The Red Flag Factory in Belize

By |

Freedom Holding Corp. has some explaining to do. The financial services firm has quite improbably become one of the fastest growing companies on the planet. It lists its shares on the Nasdaq, is incorporated in Las Vegas, but for all intents and purposes runs its operations mostly in Kazakhstan.

Pharma

For Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Failure Is the New Winning

By |

To U.S. oncologists who treat individuals with small cell lung cancer, lurbinectedin’s arrival was a big deal. The Food and Drug Administration permitted its sale in the United States under its accelerated approval program. Then the drug failed to meet the primary endpoint of its clinical trial’s Phase III.

Financial Services
Illustration: Edel Rodriguez

The U5 Loophole

By |

The U5 is one of the most important documents on Wall Street. And negotiations to discuss them can easily become a battleground where employers and employees fight over whether an upcoming exit will be classified as a resignation or a firing — and if problematic behavior is revealed.

Hedge Funds
Illustration: Edel Rodriguez

Fundamental Global Investors: Everyone Loses

By |

After five years of Fundamental Global Investors’ oversight, three public companies have weakened financially and their share prices have collapsed. Many minority investors in these three public companies, as well as the hedge fund’s limited partners, have absorbed steep losses.