The political posturing continues regarding the bailout bill. Now the Senate may vote on the bailout package Wednesday to keep things moving forward following a House defeat of the proposal Monday. According to the AP: In a surprise move to resurrect President Bush’s $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan, Senate leaders slated a vote on
September 2008
Who says investment banking is deal. The new deal brokers on The Street are the Fed, Treasury and, increasingly, the FDIC. Under Sheila Bair, the FDIC’s role in the credit crunch is getting larger and larger. When Indymac went down, it caused great concern that the FDIC’s industry-funded deposit insurance fund would quickly be depleted
The S&P Case Shiller July 2008 report of existing home sales showed record year-over-year 16.3% price declines averaged across 20 major cities, following last month’s year-over-record of -15.9% (see table below). In July, seven of the 20 cities were up month-to-month compared with nine in June and seven in May. Nevertheless, not one market is
For anyone who has a hankering to keep up on the mortgage news that is out there, one free service they should consider is MortgageNewsClips. One has to be careful about what is out there in the web. I received this urgent notice yesterday: Email Warning! If you get an e-mail with “Nude Photos of
Fixed and ARM rates are down about .375% in the three weeks since my last report. Since then Fannie/Freddie were taken over by Treasury; AIG was bailed out by the Fed; WAMU was taken over by JP Morgan Chase; Wachovia was taken over by Citigroup; Lehman Brothers went bankrupt; Merrill Lynch was acquired by Bank
With a vote of 228 Nay to 205 Yea, the House of Representatives voted against the Treasury’s proposed financial market bailout plan—see below for unprecedented drops in markets. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said that they will see how markets play, and reconvene this Thursday October 2. Partisan bickering took precedence over the
Here’s a note from the US Economic Research team at Goldman Sachs following the failure of the House to pass the bailout bill: BOTTOM LINE: House vote on TARP failed 205-228. We expect legislation to reemerge in the near future, but the extent of the modications that will be necessary is unclear. There still appears
Morgan Stanley, fresh off its announcement last week to convert from pure investment bank to commercial bank (Goldman Sachs did the same), has reached an agreement to sell a 21% stake of the company to Mitsubishi Financial for $9b. Earlier this year, Mitsubishi did the biggest bank deal of the year (at the time) by
In an effort to buy some time for teetering credit markets awaiting the $700b Treasury MBS purchase proposal to be approved by Congress, the Fed has added about $620b in liquidity to the system and also increased its short-term Term Auction Facility, which enables banks to get 28 or 84 day loans. This comes after
Overall Personal Consumption Expenditures, the Fed’s favorite measure of consumer inflation, were unchanged for August and +4.4% year over year through August (July overall PCE was 0.5%/mo and +4.5%). Overall means that the number includes prices for food and gas. The Core PCE, which excludes food and energy, was +0.2% for August and +2.4% year
Forget all the news about the bailout, and about Citi/Wachovia! More importantly, Heather Locklear was arrested! Rumors of thousands of men lined up to post bail are probably exaggerated. Obviously this mortgage crisis is proving too much for her. Decent listing of current links Are you preparing for a presentation, or being asked by clients
UPDATE 1: Citi beat Wells on Wachovia, will acquire them for $2.16b. UPDATE 2: Morgan/Mitsubishi deal is done for $9b. The week opens with Wachovia a bit closer to a deal. There were a few suitors for Wachovia which is troubled by a $110b option ARM loan portfolio, including Citigroup, but Wells Fargo has emerged
The White House and leaders from the House and Senate have agreed to basic terms of Treasury’s proposed $700b financial sector bailout plan—the bill’s working title is The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. The House will review the plan tomorrow (Monday) with the goal of voting on it and getting it to the Senate
We’ve said before that Gretchen Morgenson of the NY Times is perhaps the only major journalist covering credit default swaps with any level of detail. She’s been covering this issue and this weekend, she continues with a large piece on how AIG got so wound up in the derivatives mess. Worth a read. For some
The $700b government bailout package for the financial sector has taken center stage, but it was only two weeks ago that AIG was hogging headlines as they were poised to topple. The Fed’s $85b subprime-like loan to AIG saved them…or at least bought them time to raise money. The big talk two weeks ago was
On July 31, 2Q GDP was reported at 1.9%. Then on August 28, 2Q GDP was revised up to 3.3%. And today we have the final 2Q GDP which was revised down to 2.8%. For the past three quarters the final GDP growth figures are as follows: 4Q2007: -0.2% 1Q2008: +0.9% 2Q2008: 2.8% A recession
Load More