In the fourth quarter of last year, the number of Americans paying $1,000 a month or more for a vehicle hit a record high of 15.7%. Today roughly two out of 13 people have committed themselves to these payments. And many of them are doing it after trading in cars they’re underwater on – owing more on them than they’re worth. That negative equity gets rolled into the purchase of the new vehicle.

Treasury payments towards the interest on the debt represent the federal government’s largest spending increase so far this year. As the Wall Street Journal reports, it’s contributing to a deficit for the first four months of this fiscal year that has widened to $460 billion, up 78% from $259 billion in the same four months of last fiscal year.

“If I were advising, I would think that it would be unwise for South Africa to conduct this exercise, especially in the vicinity of the anniversary.” That’s University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business William E. Mayer Chair Professor of Finance, Lemma Senbet reacting to South Africa’s participation in naval exercises with Russia and China.

The Federal Reserve Board has engaged six of the biggest U.S. banks in a pilot Climate Scenario Analysis (CSA) to assess and “advance the ability of supervisors and banks to analyze and manage emerging climate-related financial risks.”

Fourteen faculty teams at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business have been awarded three-year grants from the school for research projects that address the world’s grand challenges and reimagine learning in support of the University of Maryland’s vision and the Smith School’s strategic plan.

The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business will offer a new track in climate finance to students in the Master of Finance degree program, starting in spring 2024. 

Wall Street Journal reporter Justin Lahart has coined the term “richcession” to explain what might happen should a recession occur this year. According to him, the well-heeled would take a bigger hit than usual, even if we manage to narrowly escape an economic downturn.

FTX postmortems have included Axios describing the cryptocurrency exchange as a “house of cards” comparable to Enron, Theranos, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Madoff Investment Securities. Plus, Moody’s writes the collapse “will radically transform the crypto ecosystem, further shaking trust and raising doubts around its ongoing prospects.”

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, multinational companies didn’t have to think twice about increasingly moving toward firm globalization. But the crisis amplified the vulnerabilities of doing business across borders. And now, new research from Maryland Smith is contextualizing the numbers to show the potential dark side of globalization.

Supply chain risks from weather and climate, financing infrastructure risk reduction, and how measurement affects management when it comes to climate reporting were among the topics discussed at the Smith School on October 27 and 28, 2022. Roughly 30 participants, including University of Maryland professors, students, and representatives from financial institutions like the World Bank, T. Rowe Price, and PricewaterhouseCoopers were in attendance.