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

Mark Whitehouse writes about the advantages of renting in the WSJ: American Dream 2: Default, Then Rent (ht Pat)

Whitehouse describes one former homeowner with a monthly income of $8,300. He was paying $4,800 a month on his home and he was basically working to pay his mortgage. He was really a "debt owner" since the home was worth far less than the amount owed. He now rents a similar home for $2,200 a month and is enjoying life:

[H]e now has the wherewithal to do things he couldn't when he was stretching to pay the mortgage. He recently went to concerts by Rob Thomas and Mat Kearney. He also kept his black BMW 6 Series coupe, which has payments of about $700 a month.

"I don't know if I'll buy another house again, because it's such a huge headache," he says.

This is one of the tragedies of the housing bubble - it encouraged people to become homeowners before they were really ready and also encouraged them to buy too much home (58% DTI for the mortgage is definitely "house poor"). Many of these people will not buy again for years, if ever.

The article also mentions the "stealth stimulus" from all the delinquencies:

For the 4.8 million U.S. households that ... haven't paid their mortgages in at least three months, the added cash flow could amount to about $5 billion a month ... "It's a stealth stimulus," says Christopher Thornberg of Beacon Economics ...

by Calculated Risk on 12/09/2009 07:04:00 PM

From KTLA: Home of Subprime Lender Targeted by Violent Robbers (ht WestSac_grrl)

Three suspects are under arrest after a violent home invasion robbery in a gated Newport Beach community ... The home is owned by Daniel Sadek, a prominent former subprime lender.
...
Police did not immediately know whether the men who invaded Sadek's home were collecting on a debt or were there to rob him. They were taking cash and jewelry ...

Sadek made and lost a fortune in the subprime mortgage business. Quick Loan Funding, which he founded in 2002, wrote about $4 billion in subprime mortgages before it collapsed in 2007

The house was the scene of a fire two weeks ago.

There is no evidence of a connection to the collapse of Quick Loan.

by Calculated Risk on 12/09/2009 03:53:00 PM

From Maria Bartiromo at CNBC: Citi Plans to Repay TARP Via Stock Offering: Sources

Citigroup plans to pay back some of the $45 billion in TARP money it received last year by raising capital through a stock offering, CNBC has learned.

An announcement could come as early as Thursday.

Are the regulators sure they have enough capital?

by Calculated Risk on 12/09/2009 03:02:00 PM

With the Ten Year Treasury yield at 3.42%, I was wondering what that would mean for mortgage rates.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph is from Political Calculations: Predicting Mortgage Rates and Treasury Yields (based on one of my posts).

Using their calculator and a Ten Year Yield of 3.42%, we would expect the 30 year Freddie Mac fixed mortgage rate to be around 5.38%. Of course it is lower than expected - as it has been from most of the year - and some of the difference from the expected rate is probably due to the Fed's MBS purchases (also prepayment speed is a factor - and also just randomness).

The following table shows the difference between the expected and actual rate for the last 6 months. This suggests that mortgage rates will rise about 30 to 50 bps relative to the Ten Year Treasury yield when the Fed stops buying MBS.

	Ten Year Treasury Yield	Expected Mortgage Rate	Freddie Mac Mortgage Rate	Spread
May	3.28%	5.28%	4.86%	0.42%
June	3.71%	5.59%	5.42%	0.17%
July	3.54%	5.46%	5.22%	0.24%
Aug	3.58%	5.49%	5.19%	0.30%
Sep	3.39%	5.36%	5.06%	0.30%
Oct	3.37%	5.34%	4.95%	0.39%
Nov	3.40%	5.36%	4.88%	0.48%
Average				0.33%

by Calculated Risk on 12/09/2009 12:40:00 PM

“Has there been one financial leader to say this is really excessive? Wake up, gentlemen. Your response, I can only say, has been inadequate.”
Paul Volcker, former Fed Chairman, Dec 8, 2009

From The Times: ‘Wake up, gentlemen’, world’s top bankers warned by former Fed chairman Volcker

“I wish someone would give me one shred of neutral evidence that financial innovation has led to economic growth — one shred of evidence,” said Mr Volcker ... He said that financial services in the United States had increased its share of value added from 2 per cent to 6.5 per cent, but he asked: “Is that a reflection of your financial innovation, or just a reflection of what you’re paid?”

And from the Telegraph: Ex-Fed chief Paul Volcker's 'telling' words on derivatives industry

"You can innovate as much as you like, but do it within a structure that doesn't put the whole economy at risk."
...
Mr Volcker argued that banks did have a vital role to play as holders of deposits and providers of credit. This importance meant it was correct that they should be "regulated on one side and protected on the other". He said riskier financial activities should be limited to hedge funds to whom society could say: "If you fail, fail. I'm not going to help you. Your stock is gone, creditors are at risk, but no one else is affected."

by Calculated Risk on 12/09/2009 09:27:00 AM

From the Association of American Railroads: Rail Time Indicators

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows U.S. average weekly rail carloads. This can be a little misleading because the data is impacted by the Thanksgiving holiday, and most of the decline is in coal. (see the notes below)

From AAR:

• In November 2009, U.S. freight railroads originated 1,089,077 carloads, an average of 272,269 carloads per week. That’s down 8.2%, or 96,900 carloads, from November 2008’s 1,185,977 carloads (when the weekly average was 296,494 carloads) and down 17.4% from November 2007’s 1,318,023 total (a weekly average of 329,506 carloads).

• Coal had 78,535 fewer carloads in November 2009 than November 2008, accounting for most of the 96,900 total carload decline for the month.

• U.S. intermodal traffic (which isn’t included in carload figures) totaled 794,184 trailers and containers in November 2009, an average of 198,546 per week. That’s down 6.7% from November 2008 (when the weekly average was 212,879 units) and down
14.1% from November 2007, when the weekly average was 231,124.

• Freight railroading is a 24/7/365-days a year business, but Thanksgiving week is always one of the lowest-volume weeks of the year and therefore holds down the November average.

• If Thanksgiving week were excluded, November would have been the highest volume month for U.S. railroads since November 2008 for both carload and intermodal traffic.

The AAR report has a number of other graphs for various sectors like autos and housing. As an example they compare U.S. Housing Starts with U.S. and Canadian Rail Carloads of Lumber, Wood & Forest Products.

by Calculated Risk on 12/09/2009 08:46:00 AM

The MBA reports: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 8.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. ...

The Refinance Index increased 11.1 percent from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 4.0 percent from one week earlier.
...
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 4.88 percent from 4.79 percent, with points increasing to 1.17 from 1.00 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans. This ends a six week run of declining 30-year fixed rates which may have triggered the increase in refinance applications.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the MBA Purchase Index and four week moving average since 2002.

In the past, the MBA index was somewhat predictive of future sales, but it has been questionable for some time. The increase in 2007 was due to the method used to construct the index: a combination of lender failures, and borrowers filing multiple applications pushed up the index in 2007 even though activity was actually declining.

Recently there has been a substantial number of cash buyers, so the MBA index missed the strength of the recent existing home sales increase. However - even with the increase in the purchase index this week - the recent plunge in the purchase index is probably worth watching.

by Calculated Risk on 12/08/2009 11:59:00 PM

From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary

There were 2.5 million job openings on the last business day of October 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The job openings rate was unchanged over the month at 1.9 percent. The openings rate has held relatively steady since March 2009. The hires rate (3.0 percent) and the separations rate (3.2 percent) were essentially unchanged and remained low.

Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers. Remember the CES (Current Employment Statistics, payroll survey) is for positions, the CPS (Current Population Survey, commonly called the household survey) is for people. See Jobs and the Unemployment Rate for a comparison of the two surveys.

The following graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (blue Line), Quits (green bars) and Layoff, Discharges and other (red bars) from the JOLTS. Red and green added together equals total separations.

Unfortunately this is a new series and only started in December 2000.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

Notice that hires (blue line) and separations (red and green together) are pretty close each month. When the blue line is above total separations, the economy is adding net jobs, when the blue line is below total separations, the economy is losing net jobs.

According to the JOLTS report, there were 3.966 million hires in October, and 4.203 million separations, or 237 thousand net jobs lost.

I'm not sure if openings are predictive of future hires (the data set is limited), but openings near a series low can't be a positive. Separations have declined sharply, with fewer quits and layoffs, but hiring has not picked up. And quits at a series low suggests those that are employed were holding on to their current jobs in October.

by Calculated Risk on 12/08/2009 08:23:00 PM

Meredith Whitney's comments this morning sounded like something right out of "American Apocalypse I":

The government is running out of ways to help the economy as the US faces major issues regarding credit and employment ahead, banking analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC.

"I think they're out of bullets," Whitney said in an interview during which she reinforced remarks she made last month indicating she is strongly pessimistic about the prospects for recovery.

Primary among her concerns is the lack of credit access for consumers who she said are "getting kicked out of the financial system."

In American Apocalypse, Nova imagines the economic recovery stalling, leading to the collapse of another major financial firm, the unemployment rate rising to 14% and the fabric of society starting to unravel.

Nova's protagonist, Gardener, loses his job, and is forced to face the challenges of the street. Almost vacant strip malls, "car people", "tree people" and tent cities are all part the scenery.

The book is reminiscent of other post-apocalyptic stories - like "Alas, Babylon" following a nuclear war - except the financial and social crisis of American Apocalypse builds slowly throughout the story, adding tension to the challenges of survival. Gardener lives in a suburb of D.C. that faces cutbacks in services, creating more hardships for the homeless and unemployed. Eventually the town goes bankrupt, and an Old West style of justice becomes the norm - and Gardener discovers a Charles Bronson "Death Wish" like talent.

American Apocalypse I Buy it Now!

Here is an excerpt:

I am sure that someday a history will be written of our times, I am just not sure from whose perspective it will be written. Eventually there will be a Gibbons to write the Decline and Fall, but I am positive it will not be Europe or America that produces the author.

The fragmentation of information sources was accelerating. Print had failed as a business model, at least of the daily news; digital broadcast news was homogeneous for the most part. The only difference in the networks was what shade of the official color you wanted. Online news was the least regulated and most interesting; the only problem was the amount of noise one had to sift through to find a reliable source. I was still reading Calculated Risk then, this was before the 'Information Consolidation Act' shut him down.

Oh no, watch out for the ICA!

Nova has a website where he is currently posting chapters from Part II.

The book is fast paced and gripping; a terrifying portrait of what seems a little too possible.

Disclosure: Nova sent me an unsolicited proof copy of his book. I’ve received no compensation for this review.

by Calculated Risk on 12/08/2009 05:38:00 PM

The following information is from the JPMorgan Chase presentation today at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

The first slide (page 18 in the presentation) shows the progress of the various modification programs at JPM Chase. Only 2% of all trial modification have become permanent (4,302 or 199,033 trial mods).

29% fail to make all their payments during the trial modification program. Another 51% fail to submit all documentation.

The other modification programs are having more success.

The second slide is even more important (slide 15 in the presentation). This shows the weak demand for loans in all categories.

Mortgage 3Q09 YTD applications down 10% YoY

Card 3Q09 YTD sales volume down 7% YoY

Average large corporate loans down 24% YoY to $66.3B at 3Q09 from $86.6B at 3Q08 due to lower demand and increased access to capital markets

Average Mid-Corporate and Middle Market loans down 13% YoY to $51.9B at 3Q09 from $59.6B at 3Q08 due to lower demand and utilization rates

Business Banking 3Q09 YTD origination volume down 66% YoY due to lower demand and tighter underwriting standards

The presentation isn't all gloomy (see page 14):

Overall Commentary

Some initial signs of stability in consumer delinquency trends, but we are not certain if this trend will continue

Prime and subprime mortgage delinquencies impacted by foreclosure moratorium, extended REO timelines and trial modifications