Illiquidity + Opacity = Insolvency

What's going on in private markets? As interest rates have gone up, public markets have been marked down much more severely than assets in the private market. Will the chickens come home to roost? And, if so, when? 

Gary Stern was president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from March 1985 to September 2009. Stern, a native of Wisconsin, joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in January 1982 as senior vice president and director of research. Before joining the Minneapolis Fed, Stern was a partner in a New York-based economic consulting firm. Stern's prior experience includes seven years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Stern serves on the board of directors of FINRA, The Dolan Company, The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, Ambac Assurance Corporation, and the Council for Economic Education (CEE), where he served for a time as acting President and Chief Executive Officer. Stern is co-author of Too Big to Fail: The Hazards of Bank Bailouts, published by The Brookings Institution (2004). Stern holds an A.B. in economics from Washington University, St. Louis, and a Ph.D. in economics from Rice University, Houston.

Robert Kowit began a career in investing in 1972, working in International Fixed Income and Foreign Exchange as a Senior Vice President at White Weld, Kidder Peabody, and as a Director of Midland Montagu. Moving to the buy-side in 1990, he was Senior Vice President and Head of International Fixed Income at John Hancock and then at Federated Investors until his retirement. He currently participates on committees of the International Chamber of Commerce and the International Trade and Forfaiting Association on ways to attract more financial investors to trade finance assets.

Robert is a contributor to the IMF World Bank Handbook, “Developing Government Bond Markets" and key speaker at the IMF World Bank Annual General Meeting. He is also lead author of the peer-reviewed paper, “Trade Finance as a Financial Asset: Risks and Risk Management For Non-Bank Investors” and most recently a contributor to Trade Wars Are Class Wars.