The past 2 weeks have seen a great deal of activity in an otherwise very orderly and well structured financial system. As many of you know it’s a bit of a personal crusade to expose useful information that is hidden in plain sight, and expose it in a way that helps normal people gain insight […]
Frequent readers of this Blog know that I have been using a new kind of software to help track hidden aspects of the business cycle, both for our customers and for my own interests. The working theory here is that the data you can get from government and industry reporting agencies are no longer inherently […]
From MarketWatch Alt-A mortgage losses accelerate, study says SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) – Losses on so-called Alt-A home loans are accelerating and could hit the value of lower-rated portions of some mortgage-backed securities, according to a study released on Tuesday. Delinquencies have jumped on Alt-A mortgages originated last year with adjustable interest rates that let borrowers […]
[UPDATED 03/13/07 – 2005 MDT] Apparently, the stock ripples are worldwide: A steep sell-off swept through global stock markets on Tuesday as investor confidence was hit by the escalating woes of the US subprime mortgage market and weak US retail sales data. The S&P 500 ended the day down 2.04 per cent and the Dow Jones […]
Outstanding graphic from a report by Credit Suisse showing the break down of the size of the mortgage business by percentage and estimated absolute value. Of special note is that a majority of the money (51.4%) now comes from outside the Government Sponsored Entities (GSE), and through Wall Street and hedge funds. That means that […]
And the hits just keep on coming: BOSTON (Reuters) — General Electric Co.’s WMC Mortgage unit is laying off 460 staffers across the United States, representing about 20 percent of its work force, spokeswoman Brandie Young said Friday. The mortgage lender has also stopped writing new loans to people who do not make down payments, […]
[UPDATED 03/09/07 — 15:41 MST] GE is cutting staff and ending no-down-payment mortgages. [UPDATED 03/08/07 — 07:41 MST] New Century (#2 sub-prime lender) calls it quits; the question now is how long until WAMU, Wells Fargo and Countrywide start to show signs of the financial pressure they are under, too. The unwinding of the Yen […]
In my latest post, I threw around a few terms at the end that may not be well understood. One of them in particular, Yen Carry Trade, is key to the risk our economy is in. Mark Larson from Money and Markets has an excellent write up A real monster behind the market plunge! Executive […]
What Were We Thinking?
As Webster has mentioned, some time early in 2006 I started tracking several pieces of the financial sector using a new tool I invented that we named “Boomerang”. Suffice to say it was originally conceived as a tool for intelligence fusion for things like the war on terror. Unable to find a vehicle inside the […]
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