There are a couple of interesting stories worth mentioning this morning. The first is from Bloomberg, which talks about the possibility of Congress pressuring the Federal Reserve to continue its housing and mortgage market support next year.
My take? The idea that the Fed will pull back proactively, or will stand up to political pressure, is [...]
From the category archives:
Banking
Just a thought, but maybe we should call our Federal Reserve Chairman the “Bernanke-nator.” As Kyle Reese said in the original Terminator movie … “Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not [...]
There’s an interesting debate going on in D.C. right now over the FHA loan program. FHA was a non-player during the housing boom because private lenders were falling all over themselves to offer crappy loans to crappy borrowers. Now they’re out of the business … and all those crappy borrowers are going to FHA instead. [...]
There are some good stories at the Washington Post today about how the Fed is fueling fresh carry trades/bubbles by keeping interest rates pegged around zero. I covered this exact same topic a few days ago. The Fed seems to have no other solution for burst bubbles than easy money … which then fuels new [...]
The American Bankers Association just released its latest look at quarterly delinquencies for a wide variety of consumer credit products. Here’s a peek at what the group’s numbers showed:
* The composite index that tracks delinquencies on all products rose to 3.23% in Q1 2009. That was up ever so slightly from 3.22% a quarter earlier, [...]
Fed keeps rates unchanged, doesn’t change debt purchase targets, gives no clarity on “exit strategy”
The Federal Open Market Committee left its interest rate target unchanged at 0% to 0.25%. Also, the Fed left its targets for purchases of Treasury debt, GSE debt, and mortgage backed securities unchanged. The complete statement is as follows:
“Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in April suggests that the pace of economic [...]
The official results of the banking sector stress test have not yet been released. But the Wall Street Journal is reporting today that two potential casualties will be Citigroup and Bank of America. Specifically, the Journal says the feds want both institutions to raise billions of dollars more in capital, though the banks are reportedly [...]
While there have been some “green shoots” emerging in the residential real estate market in select areas, there is nothing of the sort happening in the commercial real estate (CRE) market. Commercial lags residential during declines and recoveries, and I believe we are still deeply mired in a CRE cesspool. Of course, some of us [...]
The International Monetary Fund just released its latest Global Financial Stability Report. You can download the entire, mammoth 237-page PDF here if you’re so inclined. But the headline is that the IMF has increased its estimate of the ultimate cost of the credit crisis. The organization now says the crisis could ultimately cost $4.1 trillion [...]
The combination of the expiration of temporary foreclosure moratoriums, rising unemployment, and falling home prices all combined to drive foreclosure filings to a record high in March, according to RealtyTrac (see chart above). Filings surged 17.4% from 290,631 in February to 341,180 in March. On a year-over-year basis, filings are up a hefty 46.4%.
