Housing - Finding the Elusive Bottom Where is the Value in Housing? Bottom Line? There is no Bottom in Sight The Real ARMs Race Cancun, La Jolla, London, and Switzerland Existing home sales rose by 2.9% in February, the first significant rise in home sales since the housing market started to decline...
Introduction We are in a world far different than the one I learned about in economic text books. As I have written, the shadow banking system of hedge funds and CDOs, CLOs, PIPES, etc. have created a new financing economic reality far different than the traditional banking system was just 20 years ago...
Introduction Who should we blame for the problems in the credit markets? This week in Outside the Box my good friend Barry Ritholtz takes on the task of pointing his prodigious finger at the guilty parties. As he notes, there is plenty of guilt to go around. This is a problem that is going to stay with...
The Mortgage Pig in the Python Inflation is Baked into the CPI Numbers The Mortgage Pig in the Python Housing Starts Look to Stop A Few Thoughts on the Recent Credit Crisis Half of All Hedge Funds Gone? Golf, Weddings, and Europe With the economy increasingly looking like it will slow down materially...
$250 Billion in Subprime Losses? Is the subprime mortgage market collapsing before our eyes, or did we avoid a disaster as Bear Stearns stepped up to the plate with $3.2 billion to help its ailing funds? As we will see from the data, the problems in the subprime world are not over. The Fat Lady has not...
Introduction This week we look at the US mortgage market to see what fallout there is from the subprime mortgage woes. It is both less of a problem and/or more of a problem, depending on your perspective, as I predicted it would be last year. Score one for your analyst, which said score is needed as...
Introduction On Friday, I wrote my annual forecast, " The Goldilocks Recession ," on what investment themes I expect in the coming year. This week's Outside the Box will follow up on the subject with an excellent piece written by Van Hoisington and Dr. Lacy Hunt. In their fourth quarter...