Einhorn is the famous Lehman short of 2008; he got a lot of flak from Clueless Charlie Gasparino for that. I seem to remember our own Lehman bear, Yves, getting snarled at by Charlie G somewhere along the line, too. But of course, Einhorn, via his vehicle Greenlight Capital, had it right; as did Yves […]
Read more...I’m surprised it has taken this long for Mr. Market to wake up and smell the coffee. Major bank suspending foreclosures in a whole passel of states, overwhelming evidence of fraud on courts (commemorated in sworn testimony), and increasing evidence that these developments are mere symptoms of much deeper problems had been spun by the […]
Read more...Bank of America announced a foreclosure halt in all 50 states; JP Morgan and GMAC have stopped in 23 judicial foreclosure states. Or have they? Florida is a judicial foreclosure state, and local reports suggest the banks are still moving forward with foreclosures. Note the inconsistencies between the statements of the bank employees versus the […]
Read more...There’s nothing like a bank being shown to be a liar. I was told yesterday that Wells Fargo has been making the rounds among policy types in DC this week to tell its story that (of course) the foreclosure crisis is overblown. Moreover, Wells reportedly said that it was not like the other major servicers, […]
Read more...I get on an airplane, and there are more dramatic developments by the time I land. Even though the headline item is the fact that the attorneys general in all 50 states are joining the mortgage fraud investigation, the real indicator that the banks are stressed is that they have started abandoning MERS, the electronic […]
Read more...As readers no doubt know, we’ve indicated from early on in the foreclosure crisis that problems with foreclosures of mortgages held by securitizations went well beyond the now well known “robo signer” issue. The most difficult to resolve and apparently widespread problem is the failure to convey the note (the borrower IOU) properly to the […]
Read more...It’s time to resurrect that 1960s expression, “credibility gap,” since it applies so well to the bank and Administration posture towards the foreclosure mess. The banks continue to insist, despite the unheard specter of foreclosure freezes, that they just need to check some things and tweak some processes and they will be back to normal […]
Read more...A lively session on BNN. Enjoy! You can view the segment here.
Read more...There are so many fronts to the foreclosure crisis that it’s now becoming difficult to stay on top of all of them. One development Monday that didn’t get the attention it deserved is the fact that Bank of America is now eating title insurance liability on foreclosed properties sold by its servicer. Per Bloomberg: Bank […]
Read more...Josh Rosner, a well respected bank analyst (he describes himself as “a recovering GSE analyst”) is circulating a client note and it takes the foreclosure crisis very seriously. The critical part is his discussion of the conveyance chain. As we indicated before, the minimum chain for a recent mortgage securitization is is A (originator) => […]
Read more...Lender Processing Services, which provides “technology” services to servicers and foreclosure mills, is under an escalating legal assault. Although media attention has focused on its role as a generator of fabricated documents for servicers and mortgage trusts, it can probably shift the liability for those documents onto the parties that used them as part of […]
Read more...I should have expected this, Team Obama is so predictably bank friendly that it was inconceivable that the Administration would ever decide against them on anything other than the occasional sop to maintain plausible deniability. But this morning’s news stories reveal the officialdom isn’t even bothering to keep up appearances. First, from Politico writer Ben […]
Read more...A DC contact warned me last week that the banks were readying a massive pushback on the foreclosure crisis. It went into full swing over the weekend. Obama, admittedly through his proxy, David Axelrod, threw his weight in behind the banks on Face The Nation: Q: I guess the first question I would have is […]
Read more...Readers may argue I’m reading more of a bank PR role in a page one Wall Street Journal story than is warranted. However, even the Columbia Journalism Review took notice of the Journal’s scanty reporting on the foreclosure crisis, a mounting series of problems that is deservedly damaging to the banking industry’s image and bottom […]
Read more...As more and more problems with foreclosures and borrower horror stories are coming to light, it isn’t hard to notice that banks are still gamely sticking with the pitch that the failings are technical and procedural even as the breadth of their response and the official reaction says otherwise. Suspending all foreclosures in the US, […]
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