Daily Databite: Banks are preparing for rainy days

Loan loss provisions are steadily increasing. Do banks know something we don't?

Good morning to everyone, but especially you. And welcome to all the new readers. I hope you had a glorious last week of summer, and you didn’t miss me too much.

First, some programming: Random Walk is going to experiment with dividing posts into smaller, more frequent chunks (based on feedback from many people). The content will be basically the same, but we’re going to do:

• Daily Databites in the morning (formerly Scatterplots);

• Twice-weekly miniessays in the evening (formerly Thinks and Great Wall of Text); and

• Good Reads into the weekend (plus a recap email for those who’d prefer to swallow Random Walk whole).

If you hate it or love it, please let me know.

Second, on to the show (which tbh, feels a bit anti-climactic) . . .

Daily Databite

Provisioning for losses

The pain of higher borrowing costs is slowly but surely winding its way through the economy.

Defaults and distress among corporate borrowers creep steadily higher, and borrowers generally report an increasingly hard time to g…