From the category archives:
Another driver of today’s carnage is the debt problems at two Generals — General Motors and General Growth Properties. These are two major players in the auto and commercial real estate sectors, respectively, and they’re both in serious debt trouble. We’ll have to see how generous the government and the creditors are in the restructurings [...]
{ 1 comment }
The latest Mortgage Bankers Association figures show that lower interest rates continue to light a fire under the refinance market. Thanks to a drop in the average 30-year mortgage rate to 4.63% from 4.89%, the group’s refinance application index jumped 41.5.% to 6,363.2 in the week of March 20 from 4,497.6 a week earlier. That [...]
{ 1 comment }
Every quarter, the Federal Reserve releases its Flow of Funds report. This always makes for good reading if you’re a numbers/economic wonk. But it’s especially important now because it tells us a great deal about the depth and breadth of the economic downturn.
For starters, the report showed household wealth plunged $5.1 trillion between Q3 and [...]
{ 3 comments }
The Mortgage Bankers Association released data on fourth quarter mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures. This is what the numbers showed:
* The overall mortgage delinquency rate surged to 7.88% in Q4 2008 from 6.99% in Q3 2008 and 5.82% a year earlier. This is yet another record high for the delinquency rate (the MBA data goes back [...]
{ 3 comments }
We just got the existing home sales figures for January. This is what they showed:
* Existing home sales fell 5.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.49 million from 4.74 million in December. That was much worse than the forecast for a reading of 4.79 million and the lowest level on record. Single-family sales [...]
{ 0 comments }
Good Thursday morning. A few things are catching my eye in the early going …
* Retail sales popped 1% in January, and 0.9% if you exclude autos. Those readings were better than expectations for readings of -0.8% and -0.4%, respectively. There was some relative strength in categories like food and clothing, as well as gasoline [...]
{ 0 comments }
It’s another “Fed day” today, with the FOMC’s two-day policy meeting set to wrap up later and the results to be announced at roughly 2:15 eastern. Market betting is that the Fed will cut rates by 50 basis points to a record-low 0.5%. But one has to wonder if that really matters. The “effective” federal [...]
{ 2 comments }
Things keep getting curiouser and curiouser over at the Federal Reserve. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Fed is now considering issuing its OWN debt for the first time ever. As you probably know, the Treasury is the primary institution that issues U.S. government debt. More below on this very odd development …
“The Federal [...]
{ 1 comment }
There was an interesting column at the Wall Street Journal site today about the long-term implications of all this borrowing and spending the country is doing. It talks about how President-Elect Obama will have to balance the demand for bailout money from everyone and anyone against the need to … eventually … get the deficit [...]
{ 1 comment }
The credit virus just keeps spreading, and with each new outbreak of disease,various government agencies are forced to respond. The government is now talking about allowing insurance companies toget their hands on billions in bailout money. Here’s anexcerpt from the Washington Post:
“The Treasury Department is working on ways to broaden its $700 billion bank rescue [...]
{ 1 comment }
