Category Archives: Credit markets

More Signs That the Housing Market is Deteriorating

I have a quibble with Nouriel Roubini’s headline, “Housing Recession Deepens and Subprime Credit Crunch Spills Over to Other Mortgages,” but agree with the substance of his post. The difference of opinion is in the idea that the subprime credit crunch is “spilling over.” Lenders have gotten much more stringent with weak borrowers, and somewhat […]

Cognitive Dissonance, Financial Markets Edition

It’s quite remarkable how indifferent to bad economic data keeps coming in and the markets keep shrugging it off. And what is of particular concern, if you are the worrying sort, isn’t the peppy equity markets (that’s for the optimistic types anyhow), but the near-total indifference to risk in the credit markets. Aside from a […]

Mortgage Lenders Tightening Up Across the Board

It was obvious that lenders were going to become more stringent, in a classic knee-jerk fashion, and now it is happening. From Calculated Risk:From O.C. Register: LendingTree lays off 20% of 2,200 workers LendingTree … laid off 20 percent of its 2,200 workers nationwide today, the company said. Rebecca Anderson, a spokeswoman for the company […]

"Ratings Agencies Could Be Liable For Losses"

Ooh, now things are getting interesting. The subprime meltdown is moving into the usual “pin the liability on someone” phase, which is proving to be complicated, given that many of the logical suspects, meaning the original lenders, have declared bankruptcy (and in the case of mortgage broker New Century, the IRS has first dibs, since […]

The Fed: Out of Control?

That’s the bottom line of a smart and scary bit of analysis by Michael Shedlock of “Mish’s Global Trend Analysis.” And it confirms, even more dramatically than we imagined, the large and growing gap between the Fed’s reputation and its real power. The Fed is a close cousin to the Wizard of Oz. It hides […]

Is There a Precedent for Mortgage Investor Liability?

Media interest in the subprime problem has died down. Subprimes are now in that same zombie category of ongoing problems that are unpleasant and unresolved, like Katrina victims and Iraq turning military service into involuntary servitude. In poking around, we found an intriguing item that likely won’t get the attention it warrants. Readers may recall […]

Inflation Targeting: The Fed’s Excuse to Ignore Asset Bubbles?

Kudos for an excellent post, “Inflation Targeting is Flawed,” by Michael Shedlock at Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis. Like many other observers, we’ve criticized the Fed’s failure to consider, or even acknowledge, asset price inflation in its monetary policy decisions. Instead, the Fed and other central bankers focus on traditional price inflation, and stick their […]

"NY Fed warns on hedge fund risk"

Oddly, this story, which runs in today’s Financial Times, does not seem to have been reported in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times (and perhaps not on Bloomberg either, but I am less certain since its search tools for the great unwashed aren’t foolproof). The findings, at least for the Fed, are […]

Jeremy Grantham: The Whole World’s a Bubble

Jeremy Grantham of GMO Investments (the G in GMO stands for Gratham), a very well regarded and long standing investment manager (the firm runs over $140 billion, much of it in equities). He is skilled in the black art of modelling and at the peak of the dot com bubble, correctly called how far the […]

The Fed: The Need for a Paradigm Shift

Due to Paul Volcker’s having broken the back of inflation in the early 1980s, and Alan Greenspan performing what appears to be adequately on the substance of his job and masterfully at the showmanship, the Fed’s reputation is at an all time high. And that in and of itself is a danger sign. The Fed’s […]

Were Half the Subprime Borrowers Ripped Off?

That’s what Lewis Ranieri, who can lay claim to founding the mortgage-backed securities market, said in presentation at a Milken Institute conference last week. He asserted that 50% of the subprime borrowers qualified for loans from the FHA, Freddie Mac, or Fannie Mae on much more favorable terms. Tanta at Calculated Risk looks to see […]

Lewis Ranieri on the Subprime Mess

Thanks to Tanta at Calculated Risk, we have a rush transcript from a presentation by Lew Ranieri at the Milken Institute conference on financial innovation. Ranieri is credited with creating the mortgage backed securities business, has continued to be active in the industry, and has sounded warnings on subprimes. I found three points to be […]

FT vs. WSJ on Financial Stability Report by Bank of England

While most US readers believe that the Journal’s ideological bias is limited to its editorial pages, we have repeatedly seen (and commented on) skewed reporting as well. Specifically, the Journal tends to put a positive spin on economic (as opposed to company-specific) reporting. Today’s object lesson is the Bank of England’s latest edition of its […]

"Leveraged loans risk copying subprime – Fink"

In an interview with the Financial Times, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, one of the world’s largest fund management groups, warns of burgeoning risk in the leveraged loan market, arguing it has the potential to go the way of subprimes, and urges the Fed to take interest. Now this story has more significance than […]

LBO Chief Warns of Coming Debt Crisis

You seldom hear language like this from anyone in the deal community, particularly a borrower. But Steve Rattner, head of Quadrangle Partners, sees himself as not just your average LBO maven, but also a thoughtful Democrat (he was expected to get a post in a Kerry administration). But also notice that his comments in a […]