Paul J Davies
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pauljdavies.bsky.social
Paul J Davies
@pauljdavies.bsky.social
5.1K followers 1.3K following 6.3K posts
Has views on banking and finance for Bloomberg Opinion.
Just because you “like” something doesn’t mean you *like* something…
Money. Music. Books and Bad like really atrocious Jokes. Also #COYS
Posts Replies Media Videos
pauljdavies.bsky.social
I’m going to stuck on this for days. There is no answer to the question sacred tradition or nostalgic evasion? What can you let go and what more do you lose?
From: On Giving Up by Adam Phillips.
The Crow in fact gave up their Sun Dance around 1875, about a decade before they were moved into their reservation. 'One needs to recognize the destruction,' Lear writes, 'if one is to move beyond it. In the abstract, there is no answer to the question: is the Sun Dance the maintenance of a sacred tradition or is it a nostalgic evasion?' We should consider, as Lear begins to do, what not giving up would have entailed. The options seem stark: mourning the Sun Dance (what Lear, as a psychoanalyst, calls recognizing the destruction in order to move beyond it); or simply maintaining a sacred tradition even though the dance has lost all its practical and sacred function, and therefore runs the risk of degenerating into the self-parody of nostalgia. Why not give it up? If this was a quantitative question, which it isn't, we might ask how much we can bear to lose, or give up. Or, more simply: how can giving up be redescribed, and with a view to what exactly? There is pragmatism - redescription in the service of an appealing or at least viable future - or mourning, a felt relinquishing of the past in the hope of more life emerging. Pragmatism or mourning?
November 8, 2025 at 8:03 PM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
Mel Gibson as William Wallace: "They may take out lives, but they'll never take our footlong"
November 7, 2025 at 10:41 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
UBS Chair Colm Kelleher isn't the only person worried about credit ratings arbitrage and optimization or weak insurance regulators. Marc Rowan of Apollo disagrees. Here's why Kelleher is right. Via @opinion.bloomberg.com >> www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
Change in the share of AuM from insurers in Private Credit funds. In 2021 they provided a 32% share, in 2024 that had grown to 43%. Source: Oliver Wyman.
November 6, 2025 at 11:42 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
Private equity firms still aren’t sending enough cash back to investors and struggling to exit their holdings despite an investment banking boom. But some firms are struggling more than others… #Blackstone #Carlyle #Apollo
Private Equity Must Sell More

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
Private equity capital calls and distributions. Payouts have slumped since 2021 and after a spike to $120bn at the end of 2024 dropped to $50bn in the middle of this year. Private equity disposals by Blackstone and Carlyle. The former has maintained a good run rate in the past couple of years while the latter is selling fewer assets.
November 5, 2025 at 9:00 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
I love the smell of onions and mustard in the mornings!
November 4, 2025 at 4:15 PM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
New financial meme just dropped

www.ft.com/content/4285...
Andrea Orcel on an FT composed image with the logo of Commerzbank floating just above his outstretched hand. I've labelled the CBK logo "butterfly" and along the bottom have written "Is this cross-border M&A?"
November 3, 2025 at 11:07 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
I don't know what else is going on here, but this looks like it could be a reaction of Meta's on balance sheet unsecured bonds to the sale of its monster <cough> off balance sheet debt >>
Yields on a 30-year, 5.4%, AA-minus rated corporate bond from Meta issued last year. It's the company's most liquid bond according to the BBG Terminal. It's fairly volatile, but definitely saw a sharp jump this week.
October 31, 2025 at 9:48 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
They... er... come again?
*The council has also fined people for failing to rent out properties without a licence.* In one instance last year, it imposed penalties of more than £3,000, split between the property owner and letting agent.
October 30, 2025 at 1:24 PM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
Strong, if unorthodox, opening to the BBVA earnings call according to the auto transcription >>
LIVE TRANSCRIPT 2025-10-30 Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (BBVA SM Equity) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Speaker 1 Oh, this is how we dream. Come with me and learn to fly. We can fly together. Sail across the painted sky. Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho. This is how we dream. Come with me and learn to fly. We can fly together. Sail across the painted sky. This is how we dream. Come with me and learn to fly. We can say it together. Sail across the sky. Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho. Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho. This is how we dream. Come with me and learn to fly. We can fly together. Sail across the painted sky. Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho.
October 30, 2025 at 9:54 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
BNP and HSBC are both being vague about a few awkward questions right now, but only one is being punished for it by shareholders. Via @opinion.bloomberg.com
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
Chart showing valuation as a multiple of book value for HSBC, BNP and the Stoxx Europe Banks index. HSBC has recovered from uncertainty over its Hang Seng deal and trades at more than 1.3-times book; BNP has struggled since the Sudan lawsuit decision in early October and trades at 0.6-times book.
October 29, 2025 at 10:27 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
His answers on that are just argh… I swear if that was my kid I’d send them to their room with no phone or computer to think about their behaviour for a while!
October 24, 2025 at 7:30 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
So many of Farage’s responses in here are vacuous, stroppy or elusive. There’s almost no policy area on which he can be pinned down. And then we get there: It’s just about the vibes. Interview with Mishal Husain via @bloomberg.com

www.bloomberg.com/features/202...
What happens if you are elected to government and you can’t find the savings you want? You had all kinds of tax-cutting plans, which are now having to be rethought. Is that because they were unworkable? No, I’m not rethinking them. I suspect what we come [up with] will be a lot more radical than what you saw there. More radical in which way? More tax cuts or more austerity? We need an attitudinal change towards success, towards money, towards business, towards tax and incentives. This is stuff that you can’t necessarily write in a manifesto. Well, you’re going to have to though, aren’t you? No, you can’t. I’m talking about attitudinal change within society. You can’t put any of that in manifestos. It’s about a buzz. It’s about a vibe. It’s about how a country feels. But if you don’t succeed as prime minister, it’s not the same as your personal success. The fortunes of the country are riding on that. Yes. So you are going to need more than a vibe. Well I think the two are the same thing. We’re in that much trouble. You as one man, and the vibe you create, will save the country? Well, it’s not just me, is it? There’s a whole movement here now. I don’t do many interviews these days. I allow others to go and do it.
October 24, 2025 at 7:17 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
Jane Fraser faced skepticism inside and outside Citigroup when she took the giant bank's helm, but she's earned her new beefed up title. via @opinion.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
Citi stock versus JPM, Wells Fargo and BofA. Citi has outperformed over 12 months by a fair bit. Projected returns for the same four banks. Citi is still a long way behind.
October 23, 2025 at 1:50 PM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
the norms...
Norm Peterson stares with resignation at a very badly poured glass of beer which is about 70% froth.
October 22, 2025 at 4:25 PM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
Barclays took the Tricolor hits of US peers, but had misses on big IPOs and stock trading - it's investment bank is lagging, again. There is progress at the group this year. Higher return targets are coming but the margin for error is slim. @opinion.bloomberg.com
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
Revenue gains in Q3 year-on-year: Barclays IB versus US average. Barclays is waaaay behind on everything apart from FICC trading. On equity raising fees - US average was 44% growth, Barclays was sub-16%; on M&A US average of 31% beats Barclays's 9%; and on stock trading the US 21% beats Barclays's 3%.
October 22, 2025 at 1:43 PM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
What?

Pardons (and commutations)
A chart showing the number of pardons and commutations made by recent US presidents. Biden smahed records with more than 4000 in his four years; Trump has already done more than 1600 in nine months...
October 22, 2025 at 12:20 PM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
For breakfast on a Monday tho?!
An old advert for Guinness: "Guinness is good for you. Gives you strength." amie Dimon was sitting on the 13th floor of his new headquarters on a Monday morning, sipping a Guinness and looking out at the Manhattan skyline. It was the first day that JPMorgan Chase’s massive skyscraper at 270 Park Avenue was opening to employees; the CEO had arrived with his architect to toast the building, a $3 billion monument to work.
October 20, 2025 at 1:38 PM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
My take on what he's doing is more like keeping the rest of his people paranoid as his eventual retirement approaches. But also that there are troubling things to keep an eye on. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has adopted the role of Wall Street’s wary old warrior in recent years, regularly warning about the troubles he’s watching even as the bank has turned in strong profits and few unusual losses.
October 20, 2025 at 12:05 PM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
Kids, never let almost complete ignorance stand in your way of achieving your dreams!
"Prometheus is kind of the patron saint of what it means to be American," Calvin says. "The West is the thing where original things happen, and that's a very rare mineral in human history, and we have to preserve the social structures that make it possible."
October 18, 2025 at 5:42 PM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
This is objectively very funny.
The most powerful figure pushing to build new statues is Trump himself. His administration's tax and spending bill that became law in July allocated $40 million to build a National Garden of American Heroes - location TBD - depicting 250 luminaries in a neoclassical style, including George Washington, Billy Graham and Elvis Presley. In private contexts, it's common for the ultrarich to commission statues. Mark Zuckerberg had a 7-foot-tall statue of his wife, Priscilla Chan, made, saying he was "bringing back the Roman tradition of making sculptures of your wife." Lonsdale commissioned a sculpture by Scottish sculptor Alexander Stoddart representing the three Greek goddesses known as the Three Graces in honor of his daughters, says Cook, also a friend of his. Lonsdale also commissioned a neoclassical bust of Bari Weiss, the conservative media executive recently named editor-in-chief at CBS News, for the University of Austin, which Weiss and Lonsdale co-founded with British historian Niall Ferguson.
October 18, 2025 at 5:33 PM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
Everyone hates cockroaches. Especially bank investors! It's been quite a week. #Jefferies's sad letter, Jamie #Dimon's thoughts on vermin and good bank earnings with a #privatecredit sting. Why I think people are worrying about #fraud via @opinion.bloomberg.com >> www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
A rocky lurching week for bank and private credit stocks, including JPMorgan, Jefferies, Western Alliance, Zions Bancorp, Apollo and Blue Owl
October 18, 2025 at 10:33 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
BBVA bid for Sabadell fails and to the surprise of absolutely no one this is the result >>
Sab shares tumbling, BBVA shares jump!
October 17, 2025 at 7:48 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
Bubbles are good, actually…

on.ft.com/476jUkn ‘Of course it’s a bubble’: AI start-up valuations soar in investor frenzy
“Of course there’s a bubble,” said Hemant Taneja, chief executive of venture capital firm General Catalyst, which raised an $8bn fund last year and has backed Anthropic and Mistral. “Bubbles are good. Bubbles align capital and talent in a new trend, and that creates some carnage but it also creates enduring, new businesses that change the world.”
October 16, 2025 at 6:22 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
Morgan Stanley retakes lead in equities trading revenue from Goldman Sachs. Yes, some people will *really* care!
October 15, 2025 at 11:44 AM
pauljdavies.bsky.social
Bank of America looks like it turned in its best ever quarter for equities and it has just edged Q1 2021 for record trading and investment banking revenue combined!
Chart of quarterly Ficc, equities and IB revenue at BofA going back to the start of 2017. Q3 2025 is thhe highest bar, incl: $3.1bn ficc, $2.3bn equities and $2.01bn IB fees.
October 15, 2025 at 11:12 AM