Global bank CEOs testify before US Congress in Washington
(Reuters) – Morgan Stanley’s outgoing CEO James Gorman said financial markets will “take off” once investors are sure the Federal Reserve has finished raising interest rates, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
“The shock of the rate increase recently has put a damper on banking deals (and) capital markets deals. And that is (because) everybody doesn’t really know what their cost of financing is,” Gorman told the FT.
“The minute the Federal Reserve has concretely signalled that they’ve stopped raising rates, let alone the point at which they first do a rate cut, these markets will take off,” he said.
Gorman will step down as CEO of the company on Jan. 1, handing the reins to Ted Pick.
New rules since the 2008 financial crisis requiring banks to hold more capital and exit riskier activities has made the system much safer, Gorman told FT, adding that “their own stupidity” is one of the biggest threats banks face.
Gorman also claimed the high-profile failures of three regional U.S. banks this year were “entirely their own doing,” adding that Credit Suisse was an example of operational risk management gone “awry.”
Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic collapsed this year, in the largest U.S. bank failure since the financial crisis.
(Reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Varun H K)
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