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’Look on the bright side of 2012
With so much pessimism heading into 2012, we thought it would be prudent to discuss the possibility of positive surprises.
That’s the festive spirit of the economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch,
A tale of two stock markets
US equities could be in line for a secular bull market as soon as next year, but European stocks should be handled with care.
That is a synopsis of the latest thinking from Citi. For more details read on:
Another look back at housing and deleveraging
A question we’ve been pondering lately is just why there’s been such a renewed, intense policy focus on the US housing and mortgage markets in particular.
Or rather what we’ve really been wondering is,
Harp II’s lack of ambition
Details of Obama’s allegedly supercharged Home Affordable Refinance Program are here, and the Wall Street Journal had the scoop on Monday morning.
For our part, we’ll focus on this, from the FHFA’s Q&A (our emphasis):
The mystery of US banks’ second mortgage exposure
How big a hit should US banks take on their second mortgage portfolio?
A question that’s been asked again and again (and again and again) by this blog and others. Regulators are worried: Bloomberg reported last month that the Fed and the OCC are checking whether banks have put aside enough reserves to cover losses.
That was the Irish housing boom that was
A big hat-tip to Lorcan for this — the Irish 2011 census, which includes a nice chart of increases in housing stock, 2006-2011:
Over the period, Ireland’s housing stock expanded by 13.3 per cent,
Federal shadow housing inventory is getting bigger
A housing milestone, of sorts.
Federally-backed loans already make up a majority of the mortgages classified as ‘seriously delinquent’ in the US financial system. In other words, there are more soured loans held or backed by the US’s giant GSEs — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — plus the Federal Housing Administration (FHA),
Australia, flowing sideways
Notice anything in the below chart, of five-year CDS for Spain, Japan and Australia?
European shocks have managed to feed through into normally-quiet (CDS) markets like Japan’s (though of course,
Taking the eurozone’s housing temperature
Some graphics from Danske Bank to ponder ahead of the ECB’s Thursday meeting:
Related link:
S&P sees eurozone, UK housing headwinds on swelling rates - FT Alphaville
A proclamation from the Spanish Ministry of Public Works…
Just in case you were wondering…
Spain’s Ministry of Public Works has been busy, undertaking a roadshow last week with the above accompanying PowerPoint presentation, to help inform investors in the UK,
Cembalest changes his mind on the subprime crisis
Here’s something you might have missed during last week’s (UK) holiday.
Michael Cembalest has made a retraction. JPMorgan’s private banking chief investment officer (and reportedly the only JPM-er who refused to do business with Ponzi-schemer Bernard Madoff,
S&P sees eurozone, UK housing headwinds on swelling rates
Here’s a convenient continuation of the rising-European-rates-meets-real-estate theme.
Standard & Poor’s reckon “fresh headwinds are gaining force in Europe’s real estate markets” due to rising interest rates (or at least,
The end of the home ownership “dream”
Government reports don’t normally make for interesting eulogies, but this one is an exception.
The Treasury-HUD report to Congress on the future of the US housing market is out and generating qualified praise (though little surprise).
Open letter to a closed mortgage market
It looks as if his recent experience in the housing market has irked Nouriel Roubini (and friends).
Just making the DC Christmas post deadline Tuesday morning is a letter (H/T Politico) from the economist and a few dozen colleagues asking US regulators to develop national standards for originating,
RE-ally good news?
Readers will have heard the case against real-estate and commercial real-estate investments. But here, courtesy of Patrick Moonen of ING IM, is a more optimistic view on Wednesday:
Real estate outperformance could continue in 2011.
Wanting (and waiting) to sell
If you’re trying to sell a house anywhere between Berwick-upon-Tweed and St. Ives, you could be waiting a rather long time.
That’s what Hometrack, which analyses the UK housing market, has concluded from their monthly housing survey.
Updating the US foreclosure scandal
As the foreclosure scandal in the US continues to expand, it’s becoming more and more clear that it will have ramifications well beyond problems for a few large banks and the so-called robo-signers.
The Washington Post digs a little deeper on Thursday (emphasis ours):
From Robo-Signing to RMBS
Introducing the ‘Robo-Signing’ scandal.
Not to be confused with the flash crash or algorithmic trading, this robotic reproach concerns America’s foreclosure crisis.
It seems some mortgage servicers,
A psy-QE-logical problem
David Rosenberg thoughts on QE v2.0 are complex indeed.
Though he’s detailed at length why quantitative easing will flatten the yield curve — this time — he’s rather dubious of its actual effects on the US economy,
Shadow inventory and the housing market
Following a busy week of housing news, S&P has just posted its second quarter shadow inventory update, and the top line isn’t pretty (our emphasis):
The volume of distressed residential mortgage properties in the U.S.
Moving targets, US housing edition
If at first you don’t succeed . . . move the goal-posts.
In the grand tradition of stimulus policy gone wrong, that seems to be just what the US Treasury has done in relation to its Hamp mortgage modification programme.
Politics by default
Take pity on Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart.
The man in charge of Florida’s 25th congressional district has just been singled out by Deutsche Bank as the US Congressional representative with the hardest-hit constituency in terms of mortgage arrears.
Missing the Housing Bubble 101
Here’s an, erm, brave discussion paper out from the Boston Fed.
In it, authors Kristopher S. Gerardi, Christopher L. Foote, and Paul S. Willen examine “optimism” and “pessimism” about the US housing market before the recent crash.
Hamp – it’s worse than we thought
So the US Treasury’s centrepiece mortgage modification programme — Hamp — is something of a failure. That much we knew already.
But Laurie Goodman over at Amherst Securities brings up another point.
The Great Mortgage Refinancing, by the numbers
Deutsche Bank have returned with some numbers to back up their cost claims when it comes to the Great Mortgage ReFi Rumour of August 2010.
Analyst Steven Abrahams noted last week that “hitting that reset button”
Housing lessons unlearned
The Washington Independent has an excellent story today about an ongoing housing programme in the US that is almost breathtaking in its stupidity.
Known as “Affordable Advantage”, it involves a kind of partnership between Fannie Mae,
Hitting the reset button on US mortgages…
Have you heard the Great Mortgage ReFi Rumour of August 2010?
Now that the US Treasury’s Hamp programme is widely recognised as a failure, attention is turning to new efforts to reinvigorate the lagging American housing market.
UBS ponders the UK’s quiet CPI calibration
Is Britain’s government quietly working on a(nother) CPI/RPI change?
Back in May, the new UK chancellor George Osborne suggested to Mervyn King that he would “welcome” the Bank of England governor’s views “on how we might accelerate the process of including housing costs in the [Consumer Prices Index] inflation target.”
BarCap vs HUD on Hamp
We do enjoy a good calling-out here on FT Alphaville, and on Wednesday, a pair of credit strategists at BarCap provided a neat example of the genre.
In a report headlined “Misleading Reporting of Mod Performance in the June HAMP Scorecard”,
What’s going on with lumber futures?
The Baltic Dry’s losing streak – now into its 28th day – is becoming old hat. But have you heard the one about the lumber futures?
As Bloomberg reported, lumber fell limit-down on the CME on Tuesday,