Bank of America

So I understand that the cost of living crisis.

What I'm sort of confused by is the difference between whether it's the Bank of New Zealand, the Bank of America, the main people that control interest rates and look at that thermostat to say, should we make them, should we turn it up or down? And I love the way that Vic explains it like a seesaw.

If inflation is low, interest rates are high.

So they work in opposite ways.

And so in 1904, he resigned from the board of directors and, with some investors, started his own bank.

He called his new bank the Bank of Italy, and he served those populations that had been previously ignored by banks, in this case, largely Italian American working class immigrants in San Francisco's North Beach community.

He offered this population accounts and loans, and he based his loans not so much on the collateral that they could provide, but on his judgment of their character.

This unheard of approach was an immediate success.

soared.And by 1905, his bank had a respectable $700,000 in deposits.

In 1906, the Great San Francisco Earthquake hit, and much of the city was leveled in the initial earthquake and then the fires that came afterwards.

Giannini's bank, the Bank of Italy, which was housed in a converted saloon building, took real damage in the earthquake.

But before the fires could come, he loaded all the deposits from the vault and the bank records in a wagon and took them out of town to his residence, where they would be safe from the fire.

the Belmont, the Tonopah Mining Company, the Tonopah Divide Mining Company, which is legally distinct.

And he sat on the board of the Bank of Italy down in San Francisco, which meant when he backed a building, other men's money would follow his.

I have a few questions.

First of all, Nixon, any relation to the U.S. president?

Perhaps Nixon was just a popular name at this time.

I'd believe it.

My second question is, the Bank of Italy in San Francisco? Yeah.

Yeah.

lost in the World Series, 23, they had that NLCS, that's brutal.

But yeah, they've got to be on par with the Schmidt, Boa, Carlton, Lazinski's of the 70s, Chase, Jimmy, Ryan, and Cole of that group.

This group's got to win one, and they know it.

Do you think they do it? I mean, are you

One more detail before we leave California.

The Bank of America, how did it come together and why do we call it the Bank of America as opposed to what it started out as?

Oh, my sense of that is that the Bank of America was founded by an Italian-American fruit merchant named Amadeo Giannini, and it was called the Bank of Italy.

And it was sort of a small bank to give credit to fruit merchants to kind of help them do their business.

But as the agricultural power grew in the Central Valley and the concerns got much bigger, This bank basically gets much more involved in cotton farming.

Um, hmm, hmm, hmm.

So this person works at a large wire house, meaning like a Merrill Lynch, a Bank of A-

Yes

... you know, Bank of America-

Yes

...

Merrill Lynch-

One of those

On Friday, detectives from Atlanta and Chicago testified in the criminal case against rapper Lil Durk in Fulton County Court.

They say around 5 in the morning on February 5th, Lil Durk, whose real name is Durk Derrick Banks, and his co-defendant, Devontae Bennett, were seen on camera involved in shooting Alexander Witherspoon, a person police say they knew.

They were hanging out.

They went to a studio to make music.

The rapper and Bennett listened to the evidence against them in court.

Police told the judge later that night the victim, Banks, Bennett and others went to a nightclub, a gas station and ended up in the parking lot of the Varsity.

That's when Weatherspoon said he was robbed and shot.

He said his chain was snatched off his neck and he had $30,000 stolen from him and they stole the vehicle he was driving.

Hello and welcome to Signal That Noise, where strategists and economists from around the globe offer a short take on markets and economic matters as part of global research at BofA.

I'm David Hauner, Head of Global Emerging Market Fixed Income Strategy at BofA Securities, and we're recording this episode on Tuesday, September 9th, 2026.

In our back-to-school report, emerging convictions buyback EM, we remain constructive on emerging market carry, which benefits from high rates and a range-bound dollar.

But we are more cautious on emerging market rates and submarine credit spreads due to persistent inflation and possible equity risk-off.