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’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,
US Housing Bubble v2.0, charted
It’s no secret that the US government is trying to prop up house prices.
Its various programmes, Hamp, MHA, tax incentives, etc., have been explicitly linked to higher house prices before — most notably in Sigtarp’s first-quarter report to Congress.
Extend and pretend in US housing is reeeaaally extended
What’s this? A sudden wave of US housing optimism?
From HousingWire:
Serious delinquencies among US Alt-A residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) declined in April for the first time in four years,
Stop the Chinese steamroller, I want to get off
When your economy grows by almost 12 per cent in a quarter compared to a year ago, surely the question to ask is less if it’s overheating — but rather how much.
In which case, let’s have a look at what analysts said on Thursday about how China can tighten before some nasty asset bubbles pop — across investment and lending,
Foreclosure or forgiveness?
Absent a thorough review of HAMP and its goals, the program risks helping few, and for the rest, merely spreading out the foreclosure crisis over the course of several years…
- Neil Barofsky, Sigtarp,
More on that Hamp-lified moral hazard
The below is a very timely — and thought-provoking — data set, given that things are once again heating up in the realm of US mortgage modification post-Bank of America’s principal reduction plan.
Behold,
[Darling: Budget Highlights 2010] Housing
And on to housing. Via Reuters again:
DARLING – RAISES STAMP DUTY EXEMPTION THRESHOLD TO 250,000 STG FOR FIRST-TIME BUYERS
DARLING – STAMP DUTY EXEMPTION WILL APPLY FROM MIDNIGHT FOR THIS YEAR AND NEXT
And take this,
Coming soon: $1,000bn resetting, recasting US ARMs
In 2007, Credit Suisse achieved something of a coup in what was then a much smaller, less mainstream financial blogosphere.
Analysts at the bank produced the following chart, which quickly (and uniquely) went viral,
Hamp-lified, moral hazard outrage du jour
Earlier this week, a US Treasury presentation containing suggested alterations to the department’s Home Affordable Modification Program (Hamp) leaked to the media.
One of the central suggestions of the presentation was that lenders would no longer be able to start foreclosing on a delinquent borrower until they’d been screened and judged ineligible for the Hamp.
Blame the weather? Again?
WHACK! Another slap in the face for the US economy.
From Reuters on Wednesday:
Sales of newly built U.S. single-family homes unexpectedly fell to a record low in January, according to government data on Wednesday that hinted at potential trouble for the fragile housing market recovery. The Commerce Department said sales dropped 11.2 percent to a 309,000 unit annual rate,
Walking away, datapoints du jour
Which would you choose to walk away from? Plastic or property? Cards or cribs?
From a Tuesday statement by the company behind the benchmark US consumer credit score, Fico:
MINNEAPOLIS, Feb 23, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — FICO .
Hamp on steroids
Barry Ritholtz has got his hands on something interesting — Hamp on steroids.
Readers of FT Alphaville may remember that the US Treasury’s Home Affordable Modification Program, which aims to keep borrowers in their houses by reducing interest payments,
Bank of Spain to raise provision requirements?
On Monday, Reuters citied Spanish media on a story that the Bank of Spain was considering raising the minimum amount banks must hold in provisions against potential losses on property assets.
According to the news wire,
FHA says everything is A-OK – but defaults are running at 9%
In February, HousingWire reported on upbeat comments from an official at the Federal Housing Administration, a government agency which insures mortgages:
The 2009 books is solid,” said Margaret Burns,
The second lien sticking-point
Just a datapoint for you, as the debate over the US Treasury’s Hamp programme rages on.
As a reminder, the Home Affordable Modification Plan aims to help keep people in their houses primarily by lowering interest rate payments.
Santander’s prudent provisioning, or not?
From Santander’s 2009 result statement on Thursday:
The chart above shows how Santander’s Spanish NPL ratio rose from 1.95 per cent to 3.41 per cent in 2009 and its coverage ratio (loan loss reserves divided by NPLs) fell from 98 per cent to 73 per cent.
Of vacuums and central bank policies
FT Alphaville noted earlier today the extent to which the US government is propping up the housing market. Programmes such as the Hamp are explicitly aimed at supporting house prices; while the Federal Reserve is due to buy $1.25 trillion worth mortgage-backed securities (MBS).
US Housing Bubble v2.0
Here’s one thing that the Sigtarp’s quarterly report to Congress, released on Saturday, made very clear: propping up house prices is now an explicit goal of the US government.
So explicit in fact, that the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program has knocked up this little chart to show how various policy programmes (Hamp,
(Principal) Forgiveness at JP Morgan
Watch those JPM charge-off numbers, they are very much skewed by various mortgage modification programs. From the fourth-quarter earnings presentation:
Prime and subprime mortgage delinquencies impacted by foreclosure moratorium,
GSE losses could stand at $448bn, Amherst says
Here’s something that struck us in a bit of testimony submitted to the FCIC hearings on Wednesday.
In a document that’s well worth reading for some interesting banking statistics, J Kyle Bass, managing partner at hedge fund Hayman Advisors,
A second (lien) helping of Hamp
So the second lien portion of the US Treasury’s mortgage modification scheme is reportedly “on hold.”
This shouldn’t be a major surprise since the programme, called 2MP, an add-on to the Home Affordable Mortgage Modifaction Plan (Hamp),
Not many new homes
Calculated Risk has a nice rundown of the various government programmes aimed at propping up US housing.
By Calculated’s count there are eight, including the Home Affordable Modification Plan (Hamp),
US ‘shadow housing inventory’ at 1.7m, CoreLogic says
The “shadow” housing inventory in the US rose to 1.7m units in the third quarter of 2009, according to estimates by FirstAmerican CoreLogic, a provider of real estate data.
The data provider defines this pending housing supply,
Citi saves Christmas? Not quite.
Somehow, the PR department at Citi — a bank which, lest you forget, has lost more than 50 per cent of its share price in the year to date and that bungled its attempts to repay Tarp cash — has managed to retain a certain holiday cheer.
Very Hamp-ered
They are here!
Official figures for the number of permanent modifications undertaken as part of the US Treasury’s Home Affordable Modification Plan (Hamp) were published on Thursday.
As a reminder,
Principals, forgiveness and a reborn Hamp?
Tuesday provided a veritable bonanza of info for any one following the US Treasury’s increasingly curious forays into mortgage modification.
The US House Financial Services Committee met to discuss the government’s response to the mortgage foreclosure crisis,
FHA bailout watch, plunging cash reserves edition
Executives at the US Federal Housing Administration (FHA) continue to insist that the mortgage insurer is not in trouble. Available data suggest otherwise.
As the Washington Post reported on Tuesday,