jswede

In Praise of Suze Orman

Suze Orman Inc is capitalism at it's finest.

She's making money hand over fist under a facade of 'compassion' and 'helping those who need it' with advice handed out as though its charity...

She even has people "defending" her money making machine with articles.

brilliant.

Bank Earnings: Why I Don't Trust Analyst Reports

Casflow.... what's a good ROA? 2%? Maybe they'll hit 3% with all this cheap funding?

Capital.... what are losses on assets? ~30%+ ? Possibly much more?

cashflow is a drop in the ocean compared to losses on assets.

Housing: Not Cheap Enough?

rates don't matter. they could go to 2% and it wouldn't stop the drop.

the issue is the fact that nobody has 20% to put down --- today's low rates are available to but a sliver of the home buying public -- maybe 10%.

many more *think* they have 20%, and it won't be til after an appraisal of their current property that they find out they don't... it will be a harsh reality.

the uptick in sales and prices in some places are due to mis-guided investors/speculators who wrongly think we're nearing a bottom.

and as far away as the bottom is, the idea that we'll see significant appreciation after it hits is laughable. after we hit bottom, home prices will go up about at the rate of general inflation, like they did for the 100 years previous to this bubble.

Is Buying Bonds Really a Good Idea?

when he says "yields are low", he's talking about USTs - then he mentions defaults and is talking about spread product... 2 different markets, and very different yields.

Ben Stein Watch: December 28, 2008

for those unfamiliar, this is an ongoing series at Portfolio.com calling out Stein.

...and RealResearch, just because something is published here does not mean that it is written for this audience -- SA is an aggregator, most authors don't have anything to do with SA beyond giving permission to re-publish stories here.

It seems many of you are unfamiliar with Stein's record - I'd advise you to search Felix' archives at Portfolio to get a better idea of this idiot. It's astounding how stupid Stein thinks everyone but himself is.

Why AIG Gets Billions While GM Gets Scorn

Why do banks and insurance get help, while manufacturing doesn't?

to quote Dillinger: "because that's where the money is"

Is the FHA a Bailout Waiting to Happen?

check Denninger's Market Ticket today -- latest data:

22.9% of all FHA loans are either delinquent or in foreclosure....

incredible considering that they used to have VERY conservative lending standards, as noted above....

Bill Gross: Buy Early What the Government Buys Later

it's easy to buy what "they" buy, when you are the one buying for them...

again, Gross just talking up his book, like every other time he opens his mounth, just like El Erian and McCulley --- when they suggest to buy anything, it's because they spent the 2 months prior buying up all they could of said sector.

Negative Media Attacks Plague Sirius XM Radio

"Despite it being a mathematical impossibility that Sirius XM Radio will file for bankruptcy in the next year".....

it's good you're lining up your 'manipulation' and 'media attack' excuses... you'll need them.

as an aside, I find it funny you say "mathmatical impossibility" when you have never done the actual math on the debt side. niever. ever. I've searched -- NONE of you bulls have ever done the math.

bankruptcy is not only possible, it's very likely. This company cannot afford $500mil/yr in debt service, nor can they afford the $billions in debt maturities coming in the next years...

If any poster thinks that Siri CAN, in fact, cover the debt service and debt maturities, I'd love to see the analysis... I've asked so many times and had to response that this is no doubt a lost cause, but hey, maybe I've just asked the wrong people...

Sat Waves doesn't even understand debt offerings, debt service, interest rates, or the current debt market... yet somehow they feel you can speak on these topics freely, passing along inaccuracies to retail investors who then put their hard-earned money at risk on their word... I have no stake in Siri anymore, but I have a real problem with that.

Is the FHA a Bailout Waiting to Happen?

the quality is CRAP. see my post above. it's crap - they are taking all the 'problem loans' and making 'mod' loans to somehow save these bad apples.... that and 1st time buyers is 95% of the FHA volume.... 95% loan-to-value and up.

FHA is NOT doing higher quality -- FHA is the administrations last gasp 'solution' to falling home prices - they are taking most ANY borrower.... their old, conservative lending guidelines are LONG gone...

On Sep 21 11:36 AM Kansas City Shuffle wrote:

> Don't get me wrong, I love quoting the cheesy Green Street Hooligans/West
> Ham song as much as the next guy (Roger Knights)...but this article
> has nothing to it. There is some good data available on this and
> there is nothing data-wise in this article. Although FHA has jumped
> from nothing to a huge part of the market, in complete antithesis
> to your argument, the credit scores of their borrowers are actually
> vastly improving because you are getting the higher quality that
> usually could get private insurance. So saying they are screwed based
> on large volume ignores the quality of the volume.

Is the FHA a Bailout Waiting to Happen?

here's a look at a random Aug 2008 GNMA security -- $417 million original size; 465 loans in the pool. Loans made at 92% Loan-to-value.

Delinquency Status #Loans Percent Loan Amount
30 days Delinq Loans 41 8.48 20,473,322
60 days Delinq Loans 26 5.23 12,626,825
90+ days Delinq Loans 81 17.41 42,033,082

reminder, this is 1yr later. 30% delinquent. This is typical. losses will be paid entirely by the taxpayer.

A Good Time to Buy Apple

at $89, your share price breaks down as follows:

* $57.50 for the company and operations
* $31.50 for the cash on its balance sheet

As long as you have faith that management will invest the $28bil in cash wisely, you're buying a debt free, growing cash machine for under $60, closer to 10 P/E, if you care for that metric....

Their recent cash investments have been to create iTunes and Apple Stores... I feel pretty good about that cash.

Sirius XM Long Term Investors Will Make a Good Deal of Money - Gabelli

what doesn't this guy like? current recommendations:

TIVO US TiVo Inc buy
CCO US Clear Channel Outdoor buy
CNK US Cinemark Holdings In buy
TKTM US Ticketmaster Entertai buy
SIRI US Sirius XM Radio Inc buy
IMX CN Imax Corp buy
LAMR US Lamar Advertising Co hold
NCMI US National CineMedia In hold
MVL US Marvel Entertainment hold
CKEC US Carmike Cinemas Inc hold
RGC US Regal Entertainment G buy

Is the FHA a Bailout Waiting to Happen?

they USED to. not anymore. they don't even publish the FICO scores of their borrowers anymore....

consider that and the fact that they are doing 95%+ (going to 125% ?) ltv loans, they bumped their 'max' loan size up by nearly 3x to ~$720k, and you have yourself a subprime shop at the expense of the American Taxpayer.


On Sep 21 11:45 AM KingGeithner wrote:

> This article propagates a lot of the incorrect criticism about FHA
> loans. FHA purchases actually have substantially more red tape to
> clear than other mortgages, more documentation requirements on personal
> finances, and higher credit scores requirements.

Negative Street Bias on Sirius Presents Opportunity

"With any debt concerns removed until at least 2013"......

you guys just choose to ignore the elephant... it's really not that difficult of a concept: it's debt and it's huge and it's incredibly costly.

SIRI has about $3.8 billion in loans and bonds outstanding at the moment -- these are the obligations BEFORE 2013:

$263mil in 2009 (convert)
$100mil in 2010 (revolver)
$552mil in 2011 (loan/bond)
$496mil in 2012 (term loan)

and contrary to what SatWaves will tell you, debt is not free -- interest expense is now 5x more than what it was 2 years ago, nearly $100million per quarter.

That's $400million per year.... just to pay off what's already been spent... and NO ONE talks about it....

but hey - let's delude ourselves: "no debt issues til 2013, and the loss was smaller than expected".... yay