If you dare call yourself an entrepreneur, read James Altucher’s piece below to ensure your self-applied title is legit. Today’s links also include a negative outlook on Zillow’s IPO, a great write-up on Fannie’s economic outlook, and a word on home appraisals from FoxBusiness—so it has to be legit. -Fannie Mae Outlook: Economy Hits Air
BlackRock
Regarding the government shutdown, Caroline Baum wrote this on Bloomberg: What if the U.S. government shut down and no one noticed? Even worse (or better, depending on one’s point of view), what if all federal workers went on furlough and the public realized there were benefits, not just costs, to smaller government? Essential services will
Let’s see: the US government helps out BofA, and is now asking them to buyback loans? An investor group (including PIMCO, BlackRock, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York) is deciding whether to sue BofA even after BofA’s recent loan buyback settlement with Fannie and Freddie. As BofA is hammered by bond investors to
Top 10 Lenders For 2Q Here’s the top 10 residential lenders for 2Q from Mortgage Stats. Total production for lenders 3-10 basically matches Wells Fargo’s total (in spite of its back office backlog). And here’s good stats on #2 Bank of America’s loan production: they originated $73 billion in first mortgages in the third quarter,
Jobless Claims Up This morning’s weekly Jobless Claims showed an increase to 457,000, slightly higher than expected, and the 4-week moving average is up 2k to 456k. Non-farm productivity came in at +1.9%. Unit Labor Costs were -.1% after adjusting for productivity. After this news and the Fed announcement yesterday (see below), stocks and mortgage
Jobless Claims Up This morning’s weekly Jobless Claims showed an increase to 457,000, slightly higher than expected, and the 4-week moving average is up 2k to 456k. Non-farm productivity came in at +1.9%. Unit Labor Costs were -.1% after adjusting for productivity. After this news and the Fed announcement yesterday (see below), stocks and mortgage
Fed’s Conflicting Recovery Agenda The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has joined forces with BlackRock, PIMCO and other major bond investors in trying to force Bank of America to repurchase $47b of mortgages that were packaged into securities. Bank of America defended its position. “We’re not responsible for the poor performance of loans as
Fed’s Conflicting Recovery Agenda The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has joined forces with BlackRock, PIMCO and other major bond investors in trying to force Bank of America to repurchase $47b of mortgages that were packaged into securities. Bank of America defended its position. “We’re not responsible for the poor performance of loans as
Missed this Saturday Night Live skit until now. It’s short and sweet.
Starbucks is reportedly adding alcohol to the menu at one of its stores. When asked why, a spokesperson for Starbucks said, “Because sober people don’t pay eight bucks for a cup of coffee.” I wouldn’t either, and given today’s GDP numbers, neither would many others. GDP, which measures the value of all goods and services
From the Wall Street Journal: BlackRock Inc. reached an agreement to buy Barclays Global Investors from Barclays PLC for $13.5 billion, creating a money-management titan roughly twice the size of its closest competitor. The firm, renamed BlackRock Global Investors, will have more than $2.7 trillion in assets under management. The deal makes BlackRock, already a
PennyMac, a firm founded by Stanford Kurland and backed by BlackRock and Highfields Capital, bought $558m of home loans from the FDIC. PennyMac was formed by Kurland after he left Countrywide to do exactly this—take bad loans off of the books of other institutions and do it at a deep discount. According to Bloomberg: …The
Following their announcement last week, The New York Fed started buying mortgage bonds as of Monday. When bond prices rise on buying activity, yields (or rates) drop. Their target is to buy about $500b of mortgage bonds over the coming months to help push rates down and keep them down. They’ve hired Blackrock, PIMCO, Goldman
Yesterday the Fed confirmed their pre-Thanksgiving commitment to buy $500b in Fannie/Freddie bonds to push mortgage bonds. They they’ve hired BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, PIMCO and Wellington to manage the purchases which are set to begin early January. Mortgage bonds have already had another rally on the news. For obvious reasons, investors want to get in
President Bush signed the bailout bill shortly after it was passed by the House today (it passed the Senate yesterday). Below is Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s statement today on the bailout bill. Feels Palin-like in its generalized tone, but that’s because he’s already doing the real work behind the scenes. Under the bill, Treasury has