If you've become comfortable with the current state of the housing market ... don't. Economists at Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Bank of America's Merrill Lynch (NYSE: BAC) say there's still plenty of risk in the housing market.

Alec Phillips, the head of Goldman's Washington office, said, "The risk of renewed home price declines remains significant." His "working assumption" is a drop of between 5% and 10% by the middle of next year.

Continue reading Housing market to dip again next year; Goldman says by 10%

Housing market to dip again next year; Goldman says by 10% originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

While Washington wrangles over $820 billion to stimulate the economy, the Fed and the Treasury have already invested or guaranteed $9 trillion to keep the financial system from imploding. For some strange reason, this much bigger figure seems to fly out the door with no public debate; little clear idea of how it's being spent; or what benefit it's creating. Now the Treasury is poised to announce its own plan to rescue the financial system. I think that plan needs work.

However, the Treasury plan will not be announced as originally scheduled on Monday because there seems to be a concern that it would complicate the passage of the stimulus plan. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) has estimated that it would cost $4 trillion to absorb all the banks' troubled mortgage and consumer debt.

Will Treasury propose a plan to use government funds to do this absorbing? If so, it would mark the biggest example in American history of letting private interests reap profits from their bad decisions -- in the form of keeping their bonuses which total about $100 billion over the last several years -- while sticking the public with the resulting losses which so far exceed $1 trillion.

Continue reading Why the Treasury should rethink its rescue plan

Why the Treasury should rethink its rescue plan originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Banking analyst Meredith Whitney is credited with questioning assets on bank balance sheets given the collapse in the real estate market.

Taking advantage of a complete lack of information, Ms. Whitney triggered a massive collapse of trust in an industry by claiming that mortgage-backed securities were worth far less than what the market had perceived.

While she may have had a basis for her claims, her assessment was more sensational than factual. Mortgage-backed securities are quite complex instruments whereby loans are sliced, diced and packaged for sale to a global market.

With maturities extending 30 years into the future, it is unreasonable and unfair to assume that paybacks, even with high default rates will amount to what is currently priced into the market.

The lack of understanding of the underlying security or loans at the individual level has created uncertainty that has yet to be resolved.

For fans of the original "Star Wars" movie, think of the weakness in terms of attacking the Death Star. That one hole was exploited (we can debate the merits of doing so later) by Ms. Whitney and those like her.

Continue reading Next target for fear mongers: Credit cards

Next target for fear mongers: Credit cards originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In the accounting business, helping clients improve earnings is not that hard, if you can change the rules. Banks would like the boring green eye-shades to alter how they value assets on bank balance sheets, a pretty nifty way to cut losses without doing anything meaningful to balance sheets.

According to Reuters, "Fair value accounting, which requires assets to be valued at market prices, has been blamed for billions of dollars in write-downs by some U.S. banks and policymakers."

Yes, but wouldn't all their investors like to see how badly banks were managed? How big the gambles were on toilet paper assets like mortgage-backed securities?

While it is fine to sweep the dirt under the rug, the rules are the rules and have been the rules for some time. Changing them now would cause a dislocation in reporting, For 2008, losses may be accounted for under one set of criteria. Next year, that may change. How do shareholders see the actual difference in earnings from one year to the next if the way that assets are valued is changed?

It is always nice to re-write the rule book. Why shouldn't a basketball player who is active now be able to score 100,000 points because he gets credit for a point every time he blows his nose? Just a year or so ago, he actually had to put the ball into the hoop.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Bank accounting: Change the rules, make more money originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Treasury has decided that just bailing out American International Group (NYSE: AIG) to the tune of $122.8 billion and counting is not going far enough. Now it's time to use our money to bail out more insurance companies. As it turns out, the insurers that are likely to get the money are the same ones that took a blood bath earlier this month. The companies seeking a bailout include Met Life (NYSE: MET), Hartford Financial Services (NYSE: HIG), and Prudential Financial (NYSE: PRU).

You may be wondering, what crime did I commit that makes it socially acceptable for my money to be used to bailout the insurance industry? Aren't my home, auto, and life insurance premiums up to date? If so, what gives the insurance industry the right to use my taxes to pay for their investment mistakes? Because that is exactly what the insurance companies are doing.

How so? Their books are loaded down with asset-backed securities such as mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that vastly exceed their shareholder's equity. These securities are not worth much -- in fact, a recent report suggested that CDOs were worth 10 cents on the dollar at best. If the insurers have these stated on their books at 60 cents on the dollar, the mark to market process could wipe out a significant portion of their capital.

Continue reading More insurance bailouts on the way

More insurance bailouts on the way originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 25 Oct 2008 07:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

During last night's presidential debate (which he lost badly) Republican John McCain vowed that if elected he would order the U.S. Treasury Department to purchase "bad mortgages" to help people avoid foreclosure. It's an idea that deserves consideration.

According to Bloomberg News, the McCain campaign estimates that it would cost $300 billion, some of which would be diverted from the $700 billion rescue of Wall Street. The Arizona senator did not provide specifics during the debate. Democrat Barack Obama proposed a similar idea during a press conference last month, according to Bloomberg. These proposals raise many questions.

First of all, can the government afford to purchase both mortgages and mortgage-backed securities? How will the government determine who gets help? Many people bought homes they could not afford because of criminally lax lending standards at some banks. Others were hoodwinked by unscrupulous mortgage brokers into taking adjustable-rate mortgages when they qualified for cheaper fixed-rate 30-year loans. These individuals are the most deserving of the government's help. Officials should try and help other distressed mortgagers provided that they can afford their properties. Otherwise, they should be given assistance to find affordable housing.

Continue reading Should the government buy homes heading to forclosure?

Should the government buy homes heading to forclosure? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

To put this in perspective, the Dow now trades 631 points below where it was on the morning of the record 778 point decline on Monday. That's when the House voted thumbs down on the original plan. I guess taxpayers will need to spend a few trillion dollars to get more of those triple digit gains.

Meanwhile, I think that unless the Treasury can solve the thorny problem of setting a price for the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), then it will fail to solve the real economic problem -- which is a lack of trust in the financial system. I've proposed what I thought would be a better solution.

Maybe we can try that one next week if stocks drop another 700 points. There seems to be no limit to the amount of taxpayer money the government is willing to throw at this financial crisis.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

Market to $810 billion bailout plan: Yawn originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It seems that there is a problem with our financial system. That could be why Bear Stearns collapsed, the government took over Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM), Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) and American International Group (NYSE: AIG). This problem could also explain why Merrill Lynch sold out to Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), why Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, and why JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) bought Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM). Problems with our financial system could also explain why the Commercial Paper market is freezing up -- making it harder for companies to come up with the short-term cash to pay employees and buy inventory.

But how did our system get to this point? There are five key principles of our current financial architecture that brought us here:

• Securitization. Up until about 30 years ago, people took out mortgages from an S&L and paid their loan officer every month until they owned their house. In the 1980s, Wall Street invented securitization -- the process of buying up, say, 1,000 mortgages from mortgage companies, creating a security based on those mortgages, paying for a AAA rating, and selling the securities to investors worldwide. Securitization is a problem for reasons I'll describe below.
• Too much borrowing. Over the last several years, Financial Institutions (FI) have made some $2 trillion in fees from securitization, according to DealBreaker. One reason for this is that they have been able to buy these securities -- of which there are $13 trillion on the market between Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBSs) and Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) -- with a sliver of capital, roughly $340 billion. The typical FI had a ratio of assets to capital of 30:1. This meant that a mere 3% decline in the value of these securities would wipe out all the capital.

Continue reading 100 Year Crash: How did our system get to this point?

100 Year Crash: How did our system get to this point? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Bloomberg News reports that the price tag for the bailout being discussed this weekend in Washington just went up another $200 billion. That's if you believed the initial $500 billion estimate bandied about yesterday. According to Bloomberg, the plan will be broken into "$50 billion tranches which would last for at least two years" and would "accept mortgage-backed securities [MBS] and collateralized debt obligations [CDOs]." Since there are $13 trillion such securities out there -- I am not sure whether $700 billion will be enough to buy them all up -- unless this agency buys them at a steep discount.

That $700 billion price tag will increase the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion, that's more than double where it was in 2000 and it represents 80% of U.S. GDP. Why is that important? Because in international banking circles any country whose debt exceeds 60% of GDP is considered at risk of not being able to pay back its debt. So the U.S. is surely turning itself into one of the riskiest borrowers in the world. Thus it's too bad that the rest of the world seems to be entirely dependent on what happens here for the global economy work.

And it wouldn't shock me to wake up Monday morning that that $700 billion having hit $1 trillion or more. As the saying goes, when you owe a bank $100,000 and can't pay it back, that's your problem. But when you owe that bank $5 billion and can't repay, it's the bank's problem. That's the way the rest of the world must feel as the U.S. goes out to the beg the world to buy another trillion dollars worth of our national debt.

Continue reading New bailout price tag: $700 billion

New bailout price tag: $700 billion originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 20 Sep 2008 10:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Lehman is expected to have a rough quarter. The Times reports that it could take a "$4 billion loss for the quarter of $3.30 a share." Much of the loss is due to its mortgage- and asset-backed securities -- of which it owns "about $61 billion." And since there is no market for them, Lehman must write down their value and take a charge against earnings and capital. Meanwhile after dropping 71% in the last year, Lehman's stock market value is roughly a sixth of the size of that portfolio of dodgy securities.

Lehman has evidently leaked several options for raising capital -- to add to the $6 billion it got earlier this year. The Times reports that these include "the sale of Lehman's investment management division, which includes Neuberger Berman and could fetch $7 billion to $10 billion. Other options include the sale of about $40 billion of troubled commercial real estate, and the creation of a separate unit that would be owned by Lehman shareholders and house a substantial portion of Lehman's commercial and residential mortgage assets, freeing the investment bank to try to move forward."

Continue reading Why a drop in demand could end Lehman

Why a drop in demand could end Lehman originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Thornburg Mortgage (TMA) posts $3 billion quarterly loss originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Fed, ECB, others take new steps to add liquidity

Fed, ECB, others take new steps to add liquidity originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In August I posted on the danger that subprime mortgages pose to people who invest in money market funds. Today, the New York Times reports that several such funds have invested in commercial paper (CP) issued by Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs) backed by subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBSs). I think all money market funds should start a public information campaign to let people know if they have the SIV virus and if so, what they're doing to protect their customers from it.

Earlier, I posted on all the new vocabulary words I've learned in the last year thanks to the subprime mortgage meltdown. This $1.3 trillion market consists of mortgages to people who can't afford to repay in many cases. Forty seven percent of the loans were made without documentation of the borrower's income -- these are known as liar loans. The subprime mortgages were packaged as MBSs and among the buyers were SIVs -- off-balance sheet entities that use a bank's good credit rating to issue CP to invest in MBSs.

Thanks to the subprime mortgage meltdown, the CP is not worth as much as before so the money market funds that bought it are now forced to break the $1 per share constant value or put money into the fund to make up for the lost value. So far, analysts say that most SIV securities are trading at 97 to 98 cents on the dollar. But if more SIVs are forced to unwind, the resulting fire sale would put pressure on prices.

Continue reading Thought your money market fund was safe? Think again

Thought your money market fund was safe? Think again originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Soros, Greenspan, Gross: More subprime fallout ahead

Soros, Greenspan, Gross: More subprime fallout ahead originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 06 Nov 2007 14:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), one of the major players in the SIV bailout, may not be a big player in the creation of SIVs, but its mutual funds do hold a lot of mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities. While not all of these securities are in trouble, you should take a close look at any mutual fund that has a significant exposure to the types of securities tied to the current credit mess. In reviewing JPMorgan bond funds, I found a number of funds with significant exposure to these securities:

As of 9/30/2007, JPMorgan Ultra Short Duration Bond Fund holds 55.1% of its portfolio in collateralized mortgage obligations, 16.7% in mortgage pass-through securities, and 15.1% in asset-backed securities. That's a huge bet on the areas of the credit markets that appear the most at risk of default right now. The mortgage mess is not going away any time soon. If you do hold this fund, you need to ask yourself, do you want that level of exposure?

As of 9/30/2007, JPMorgan Core Bond Fund holds 46.6% of its assets in collateralized mortgage obligations and 10.3% in mortgage pass-through securities. That's more than half of its assets tied to the mortgage mess. Were you expecting this type of targeted investing when you chose this fund?

Continue reading Mutual funds and the mortgage mess: JPMorgan Funds

Mutual funds and the mortgage mess: JPMorgan Funds originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ever since the Super SIV (structured investment vehicles) story broke last week, I've been seeing hints that mutual fund shareholders might be caught up in the mess and not even know it. Well it's true. I've found significant holdings in non-government backed collateralized mortgage and asset-back securities in a number of mutual funds. That means if you have a mutual fund with a security that does default, that mutual fund will have to write-down those assets and may have to lower the Net Asset Value (NAV, essentially the selling price) of your mutual fund.

I've found significant holdings in various types of bond funds, including Total Return Bond Funds, Short-Term Bond Funds and Ultra-Short Bond Funds. There are thousands of funds out there, so I can't guarantee I've located all the funds with possible problems, but I can tell you what to look for in any funds you hold.

If your funds hold primarily bonds graded lower than AAA, it's worth a closer look. Next, look at the mortgage and credit holdings of the fund. If your fund holds a significant amount of mortgage pass throughs, collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs), commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) or asset-back securities (ABS), these could be the types of securities that are now tied up in the Super SIV story. In order to know whether or not you have a problem, you would need to look at the actual portfolio holdings and find out exactly what is being held.

Continue reading Is your mutual fund caught up in the mortgage mess?

Is your mutual fund caught up in the mortgage mess? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke are finally getting around to admitting that the subprime problem is not "contained." Regrettably, their grudging admission of reality also comes with a price -- they are unwilling to offer a solution to a problem whose magnitude they cannot even count.

This is the scariest part. According to the New York Times, at a speech in New York last night Bernanke said, "I'd like to know what those damn things are worth. Until investors are confident in their evaluations, they are not going to be willing to fund these vehicles."

This spring, Paulson and Bernanke were singing the same hymn: "subprime is contained." The reasons? The administration's trademark combination of religion -- the desire to avoid a "moral hazard" -- coupled with incompetence -- a lack of awareness of the magnitude of the problem or how to solve it. Moral hazard is a concept I happen to agree with -- investors should get the benefits and pay the costs of their risky bets rather than asking the government to bail them out of their mistakes.

Continue reading Paulson and Bernanke: Subprime is (not) contained

Paulson and Bernanke: Subprime is (not) contained originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This morning UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) said it expects a loss of up to $690 million while Citigroup (NYSE: C) said it expects a 60% decline in profit -- but still managed to expect a profit. The difference? European banks like UBS were only marginally brighter than the poor U.S. subprime mortgage borrowers because they actually fell for the line that packages of subprime mortgages were safe, high yielding investments.

It's worth remembering that the mortgage industry value network is complex. No longer does a mortgage bank issue a mortgage and keep it on its books. What happens now is that a mortgage broker convinces a borrower to sign a mortgage contract. The originating mortgage bank then turns around and sells that mortgage to a Wall Street investment bank that packages the mortgage into a mortgage-backed security (MBS) which it quickly gets off its books -- and onto those of European and Asian investors, like UBS, which are now paying the price for their gullibility.

How big of a price? UBS is taking a $690 million loss and firing 1,500 workers due to the $3.4 billion writedown of the value of its MBSs -- but I think it's curious that it still has $19 billion of MBSs with which it is "comfortable." Meanwhile Citigroup's problems are more complex -- it will take $1.4 billion in pretax write-downs on leveraged buyouts it is helping to finance, $1.3 billion in pretax losses on subprime MBSs and $600 million in pretax losses on fixed-income trading.

Citigroup looks like a better diversified sucker. While Citigroup took pain from its MBSs, it also suffered from LBO loan writedowns. Nevertheless, Citigroup looks like it will stay in profitable territory.

But with its shares down 16% in 2007, its performance is nothing to cheer about.

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He owns Citigroup shares and has no financial interest in UBS.

Why UBS's (UBS) pain exceeds Citigroup's (C) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 01 Oct 2007 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The New York Times [registration required] suggests that General Electric Company's (NYSE: GE) CNBC's Jim Cramer has had little effect on Fed Chair Ben Bernanke -- this despite his famous video rant in favor of cutting interest rates.

Cramer is used to having tantrums and getting his way. But his responsibility is limited to providing a unique mix of entertainment and stock touting. Bernanke, on the other hand, has a slightly bigger responsibility -- managing the first global financial panic of his 18-month tenure. To do that, he issued $62 billion of short-term government loans (known as repos) -- accepting mortgage backed securities (MBSs) as collateral -- in an effort to restore confidence to the markets.

Meanwhile Cramer is trying to get Bernanke to bail out his buddies at The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS), whose formerly eight-figure-bonus-worthy trades are now blowing up in their faces. Simply put, Cramer wants the Fed to grant Wall Street all the upside while shifting the costs of its mistakes onto society. But Bernanke does not want to play along.

Continue reading Cramer vs. Bernanke: interest rate faceoff

Cramer vs. Bernanke: interest rate faceoff originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.