The Federal Reserve’s Financial Stability Report, released Thursday, followed an unusual six months for markets. Over that period, stocks climbed steadily as the U.S. economic outlook rebounded, and stories of excess began to crop up, such as the frothy markets around so-called “meme stocks” such as GameStop and huge losses at a number of banks tied to problems at a hedge fund, Archegos Capital Management.
“While broader market spillovers appeared limited, the episode highlights the potential for material distress” at financial companies that aren’t banks “to affect the broader financial system,” the Fed said in its report. It said hedge fund opacity had also raised questions during the meme stock episode: Some funds that were betting against the stocks in question took losses as chat board vigilantes poured into them.
The answer to both episodes, the Fed seemed to suggest, starts with better data, Jeanna Smialek reports for The New York Times.
Gary Gensler, the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said at a House Committee on Financial Services hearing that the S.E.C.’s staff has been working on a report addressing the issues raised by the GameStop episode that will be released this summer. He also said new rules may be needed for brokerage apps that turn stock trading into a game or contest, a method called gamification, Matthew Goldstein reports.
the collapse of Archegos pushed regulators to consider whether traders should be required to disclose derivatives. Archegos’s losses were mostly attributed to the firm investing heavily in total return swaps, a type of highly leveraged derivative that can give a trader exposure to a stock without actual ownership.