by Calculated Risk on 2/09/2009 02:37:00 PM

Video from CNBC: Predicting Crisis: Dr. Doom & the Black Swan (hat tip Dwight)

Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Taleb discuss the recession.

by Calculated Risk on 2/09/2009 12:36:00 PM

On CNBC this morning, PIMCO's Bill Gross said:

"I think at some point we're going to see a 4.5 percent mortgage rate and the 10-year Treasury rate capped at some level."

How far would the Ten Year yield have to fall for mortgage rates to decline to 4.5%? The ten year yield is currently at 3.045%.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the relationship between the Ten Year yield (x-axis) and the 30 year mortgage rate (y-axis, monthly from Freddie Mac) since 1971. The relationship isn't perfect, but the correlation is very high.

Based on this historical data, the Fed would have to push the Ten Year yield down to around 2.3% for the 30 year conforming mortgage rate to fall to 4.5%.

The Fed could also buy more agency MBS to push down mortgage rates, but if they buy Ten Year treasuries with the goal of 4.5% mortgage rates, they might have to push Ten Year yields down significantly.

by Calculated Risk on 2/09/2009 11:20:00 AM

From CNBC: Mortgage Rates Likely Headed to 4.5%: Pimco's Gross

"I think at some point we're going to see a 4.5 percent mortgage rate and the 10-year Treasury rate capped at some level," he said. "When the Fed comes in to buy Treasurys that will be a big day."

CNBC has a video of the interview with Gross.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

The 10-year yield is at 3.04% today, well above the record low of 2.07% set on Dec 18th.

This graph shows the 10 year yield since 1962. The smaller graph shows the ten year yield since the start of 2008. In the bigger scheme, this has been a fairly small rebound in yield.

To move the 30 year mortgage rate to 4.5%, the Fed would probably have to cap the Ten Year yield near 3.0%.

by Calculated Risk on 2/09/2009 10:00:00 AM

From Bloomberg: Lyondell Banks Caught in Bankruptcy Lose $3.7 Billion in Loans

The five banks that helped finance the takeover of Lyondell Chemical Co. have lost at least $3.7 billion, and that figure may climb to more than $8 billion, which would make the leveraged buyout the costliest in history for lenders.
...
The financing includes $8 billion of low-ranking loans still held by the banks that may be worthless ...

Each of the five banks [Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., UBS AG, Merrill Lynch & Co. and ABN Amro Holding NV] holds $1.6 billion of so-called second- and third-lien loans, the people familiar with the situation said.

Lyondell’s losses dwarf those from the busted LBOs of the 1980s, such as Ohio Mattress Co., the $965 million takeover dubbed “the burning bed” by bond traders.

Back in 2007, when the liquidity crisis first started, many banks were stuck with LBO related pier loans (bridge loans that they couldn't sell). Now the banks are being forced to take write downs on these loans. Or in this case, since these are second and third lien loans, complete write-offs.

by Calculated Risk on 2/09/2009 08:31:00 AM

From the Financial Times: Demand for office space falls at record pace

Demand for offices and shops has fallen at the fastest pace on record, spelling further trouble for commercial property landlords struggling to find tenants in worsening economic conditions.
...
Most of the headline indicators of commercial property performance tracked by Rics fell to their lowest levels in the survey’s 11-year history in the fourth quarter, with particular pessimism in the retail sector where almost four-fifths of surveyors reported a fall in demand.

"Demand falling at a record pace" ... Just another "record" being set, this time in CRE.

by Calculated Risk on 2/09/2009 01:32:00 AM

Kash Mansori writes at Econbrowser: Will a Home Purchase Tax Credit Help Boost House Prices?

Check it out. Kash provides a couple of simple diagrams that suggest that the tax credit will probably not meet the stated goal of stabilizing house prices.

If my hunch is correct, then all the house purchase tax credit will do is to modestly increase the number of houses sold each month... with no noticeable impact on house prices.

That doesn't mean that the tax credit would have no impact. In particular, it may be a boon to some cash-constrained households that want to buy a house right now but can't borrow enough. And it should help to reduce inventories of unsold houses by a bit. But if you're hoping that it will make house prices rise, with all of the beneficial economic effects on home equity that such a rise might have... think again.

That is $35 billion for nothing.

by Calculated Risk on 2/08/2009 10:50:00 PM

From Floyd Norris at the NY Times: U.S. Bank Bailout to Rely in Part on Private Money

Administration officials said the plan, to be announced Tuesday, was likely to depend in part on the willingness of private investors other than banks — like hedge funds, private equity funds and perhaps even insurance companies — to buy the contaminating assets that wiped out the capital of many banks.

... The government would guarantee a floor value, officials say, as a way to overcome investors’ reluctance to buy them. ... Details of the new plan, which were still being worked out during the weekend, are sketchy.
...
By trying to bring in private sector buyers to set prices for the distressed assets, and to take some but not all of the risk that the asset value will continue to decline, Obama officials evidently hope to restore confidence in the banking system. They will also try to avoid the politically perilous course of having the government directly buy the assets at prices that could turn out to be far higher, or lower, than their eventual value.
...
A possible model for the way the new Treasury plan could work arose in a deal last July that had no government involvement. In that case, Merrill Lynch sold $31 billion in securities for 22 cents on the dollar. The buyer, the Lone Star group of private equity funds, put down only one-quarter of the purchase price and had the right to walk away, forfeiting only the down payment, if it later turned out the securities were worth even less than it had agreed to pay.

Thus Lone Star stands to receive the upside profit if the securities prove to be more valuable, but has only a limited downside risk if they do not.

Liz Rappaport and Jon Hilsenrath at the WSJ had a story earlier: U.S. Weighs Fed Program to Loosen Lending

Some hedge funds, which often use borrowed money to boost returns, are lining up to get in on the Fed program, seeing a chance to make high double-digit-percentage returns with little downside using low-cost loans made on easy terms.

This really depends on the details. If the model is similar to the Lone Star deal, with hedge funds (or others) putting 25% down, the the Fed loaning the other 75% at attractive rates (with no recourse), and the transaction completely transparent (as they should be), I don't think the returns for investors would be in the "high double digits" as the WSJ article suggests.

This structure would definitely increase the price investors would be willing to pay for toxic assets, as compared to current market values (while putting the taxpayers at risk). For any bank that has aggressively marked down assets to current market values, this could mean a potential markup. But I think most banks will have to take further write downs and will need additional capital.

by Calculated Risk on 2/08/2009 08:10:00 PM

From Mathew Padilla at the O.C. Register: Good O.C. borrowers brought down by bank's bad loans

Even as the housing market began to crack, investment bank Bear Stearns increased its bets on mortgages to Orange County homeowners.

The loans were often to people with good jobs and solid credit. But many borrowers stretched their incomes to buy some of the county’s pricier homes. Now an alarming number of those borrowers are facing foreclosure.
...
In Orange County, Bear’s borrowers generally had credit scores, known as FICO, above 700 – considered strong during the housing boom.

But by the middle of last year, 12.9 percent of Bear’s loans were in foreclosure. By comparison, subprime loans, which have lower credit scores, had an industry-wide foreclosure rate of 11.8 percent at the time. ... Many of the loans allowed borrowers to provide little or no proof of income, while at the same time delaying payment of interest and sometimes principal too.

These were "good borrowers" in the sense that they had high FICO scores. But they used affordibility products - Option ARMs and stated income loans - to buy overpriced homes in Orange County, California. The lenders forgot the three C's!

This is a good time to reread Tanta's post: Reflections on Alt-A. Here is a brief excerpt:

Residential mortgage lending never, of course, limited itself to considering creditworthiness; we always had "Three C's": creditworthiness, capacity, and collateral. "Capacity" meant establishing that the borrower had sufficient current income or other assets to carry the debt payments. "Collateral" meant establishing that the house was worth at least the loan amount--that it fully secured the debt. It was universally considered that these three things, the C's, were analytically and practically separable.

That, I think, is very hard for people today to understand. The major accomplishment of last five to eight years, mortgage-lendingwise, has been to entirely erase the C distinctions and in fact to mostly conflate them.
...
A lot of folks see the failure of Alt-A as a failure of FICO scores. I don't see it that way. FICO scoring is just an automated and much more consistent way of measuring past credit history than sitting around with a ten-page credit report counting up late payments and calculating balance-to-limit ratios and subtracting for collection accounts and all that tedious stuff underwriters used to do with a pencil and legal pad. I have seen no compelling evidence that FICO scoring is any less reliable than the old-fashioned way of "scoring" credit history.

To me, the failure of Alt-A is the failure to represent reality of the view that people who have a track record of successfully managing modest amounts of debt will therefore do fine with very high amounts of debt. Obviously the whole thing was ultimately built on the assumption that house prices would rise forever and there would always be another refi.

by Calculated Risk on 2/08/2009 03:32:00 PM

This house is a flipper - the buyer bought in December at the Trustee sale for $502 thousand, and is now asking $750 thousand.

Here is the price history from Redfin:

Date	Event	Amount
Jan 16, 2009	Listed	$749,000
Dec 17, 2008	Sold	$502,000
Jun 26, 2007	Sold	$752,287
Jan 21, 2004	Sold	$752,000

The house was built in 2003, and it appears the house was first sold in Jan 2004. The buyer in 2007 bought at the 2004 price, and then lost the home in foreclosure.

The house looks pretty nice, but Realtor Jim unmasks the "running-pool trick"! Enjoy.

by Calculated Risk on 2/08/2009 11:02:00 AM

From ABC News: 'This Week' Transcript

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask about that financial overhaul. Originally, Secretary Geithner was supposed to give that speech tomorrow. Administration officials are telling me it's now more likely on Tuesday?

SUMMERS: Yes, I think there's a desire to keep the focus right now on the economic recovery program, which is so very, very important.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So Tuesday it is.

And on the Stimulus Package:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me start out by putting up a little chart that shows the House and Senate versions of this stimulus package. Let me show our viewers that right now. The overall cost is about the same, the House $820 billion, Senate $827 billion, but the composition different. The Senate has about $100 billion more in tax cuts, but $40 billion less in state aid, $20 billion less in education, $15 billion less in payments to individuals, some other differences.

I know that, when the president was meeting with these moderate Republican senators this week, including Senator Susan Collins of Maine, he told them he endorsed their efforts to scrub the bill of what they called excessive spending. Does that mean the president prefers the Senate version to the House version?

SUMMERS: No, the president feels that, above all, we need a major program enacted very quickly that will create 3 million to 4 million jobs. He believes we need to perfect it in every way we can.

If there are programs that aren't going to serve important purposes, they should be -- they should be eliminated. He certainly believes that. He's open to good ideas from both -- from both sides.

But we're going to have to look at both these bills, assuming the Senate bill passes, as most people expect at this juncture, and craft the best possible approach going forward.
...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Some of the critics of the Senate bill say that the most important elements have been -- have been brought down. Paul Krugman, writing on his blog this morning, said, "Some of the most effective and most needed parts of the plan have been cut." He's citing especially that $40 billion in state aid.

And he goes on to say that, "My first cut says that the changes to the Senate bill will ensure that we have at least 600,000 fewer Americans employed over the next two years."

SUMMERS: There's no question we need -- we need a large, forthright approach here. There are crucial areas, support for higher education, that are things that are in the House bill that are very, very important to the president.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But will the Senate bill produce fewer jobs?

SUMMERS: There's no question -- no question what we've got to do is go after support for education. And there are huge problems facing state and local governments, and that could lead to a vicious cycle of layoffs, falling home values, lower property taxes, more layoffs. And we've got to prevent that.

So we're going to have to try to come together in the conference. And the president is certainly going to be active in sharing his views as that process -- as that process...

And on the economy:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me -- let me get to the state of the economy, because some economists have been even more alarming than you are right now.

STEPHANOPOULOS: This week, two economists, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Janet Yellen, said, "I think we do have the same type of dynamics taking place that do happen in a depression." The managing director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss- Kahn, was quoted in Bloomberg News as saying, "Advanced economies are already in a depression, and the financial crisis may deepen unless the banking system is fixed. The worst cannot be ruled out."

Already in a depression?

SUMMERS: We're in a very serious situation, George. This is worse than any time since the Second World War. It's worse than I think most economists like me ever thought we would see.

But let's remember. In the Depression, the unemployment rate was 25 percent. GDP had fallen in half. We were really in a very different situation than that.

But all of this concern -- the risks of deflation, for example -- points up the importance of acting as aggressively as we can. That's why the president's economic recovery program is so important. That's why it needs to be twinned, as it will be this week, with the financial recovery program directed at shoring up the flow of credit so that people can get the loan to buy a car...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me -- let me ask you about that.

SUMMERS: ... so that we can address the problem which has, frankly, gone unattended for much too long of declining house prices.

I hope Summers understands that house prices are still too high by most measures and need to fall further. On the question of depression, the answer is no, although the Senate appears to be trying for one!