Last year marked the start of the housing downturn in several markets. The clearest indicator was the ballooning levels of existing home inventory for sale, and the fact that these homes largely stayed on the market until Thanksgiving without moving in an appreciable way. In some markets, at the sales flow rate at the time, […]
Tetrapod Zoology has become one of my favorite blogs. It’s written by Darren Naish, who describes himself thusly: Darren Naish – me – is, or was, a vertebrate palaeontologist, formerly based at the University of Portsmouth, UK. They still host my homepage, but have usefully deleted all the links to the pdfs I so lovingly […]
It should come as no surprise that divining and quantifying what is happening to the housing market and the connected financial systems is a topic of significant interest for me. While there is an excellent and growing suite of web sites and Blogs around that document elements of what is happening, one piece of information […]
Jules Crittenden — himself no stranger to war — talks with Vietnam vet John Eade about Thermopylae: John Eade hasn’t seen a war movie in more than 40 years, but he’s thinking about seeing “300.†I kind of get that. There is something about the Spartans’ simple illogical willingness to die at Thermopylae that I […]
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 […]
I am a child of the Space Age (or, to use Robert Heinlein’s phrase from his ‘Future History‘ timeline, the False Dawn of Space Travel). I had just turned 8 years old when President Kennedy in May 1961 issued his famous challenge: “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this […]
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, […]
Go tell the Spartans
[Welcome to those coming over from Winds of Change! — additional comments at the end of this post] I haven’t seen 300 (the movie), though I own and have read Frank Miller’s graphic novel, as well as Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. More importantly, I also own and have read all of Herodotus’s The […]
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