westwest888

31 Comments

    • New Treasury Supply: Did It Already Cost Taxpayers $240 Million Today? [view article]
      Owen - lemme guess, default is impossible because it's a 10 standard deviation event in your model. I would short treasuries, except the counterparty won't be able to pay when I'm right because they have no money. Oct 08 05:10 PM
    • New Treasury Supply: Did It Already Cost Taxpayers $240 Million Today? [view article]
      You make a very good point. This bond issue had to compensate buyers an extra 40 basis points or it would have failed. This will ramp the cost of rolling over all existing US debt (11 trillion) which has an average maturity of 3 years. That increases the interest portion of the Congressional budget and inches us closer to the end game - DEFAULT. Oct 08 03:31 PM
    • California Home Sales: 43% Year Over Year Increase! [view article]
      "Your" an idiot. Aug 27 12:24 PM
    • Home Prices Have Stopped Falling: The Statistics Are Skewed [view article]
      Pop quiz, based on your hypothesis that home prices have reached a nominal bottom.

      Home price year 0 = $400,000.
      Home price year 5 = $400,000.

      How much did the home appreciate?

      Answer: It depreciated 26%. There was inflation.

      In a more likely scenario it depreciates AND gets eaten by inflation. Hello 50% off.       Aug 21 03:39 PM
    • Home Prices Have Stopped Falling: The Statistics Are Skewed [view article]
      You could post date your article August 21, 2011 and your bottom call would be wrong - like Ben Stein wrong, Daniel Mudd wrong, David Lereah wrong.

      The "green zone" for house prices is a maximum of 3x income or 120x rent. By either measure in any top 20 US city, we'd still need to fall another 50% to be in the green zone. But that's not the bottom, that's just the MAXIMUM affordable, sustainable home price. The bottom in some cases is 1/4 current asking prices. As for REO inventory, you'd better hope private equity approaches these banks and buys 50,000 houses from them in bulk with financing. Like $0.50 on the dollar, $0.10 down, 80% financed. A call option. LOL.       Aug 21 03:34 PM
    • Why I Finally Bought Fannie Mae [view article]
      You look like a thug from Scarface in your photo. Oh yeah, and you just made a hellacious trade!

      Investing 101 - common stock is an option on the profits for the next 50 years, secondary to bond holders and preferred stock holders. And in this case, the US Treasury, Russia, China and Japan.       Aug 21 10:20 AM
    • How Low Before Housing Blows? [view article]
      If now is a good time to buy, later is a good time to pay half as much. Only now is not a good time to buy. And later than later will be 1/4 as much as now. Aug 20 02:25 PM
    • What's Driving Fannie and Freddie [view article]
      Maybe the bond market is projecting the new cost of Treasury debt, in the agency spreads. In other words, when the Treasury bails out FNM, FRE, here are your new costs for the 5y and 10y. Aug 20 01:48 PM
    • Options Trader: Monday Outlook [view article]
      XOM makes $30b. AAPL makes $3.5b and they're only 10% of the computer market. Sounds like AAPL needs to pay their fair share. Windfall profits tax is in order. Give a rebate to everyone who bought an iPod on their credit card, so they can pay their credit card bill. Aug 11 12:27 PM
    • 16 Stocks That Are Paying My College Tuition [view article]
      Uh, do you have $2000 in positions in 20 stocks? I found it hard to make money taking positions less than, say, $5000. Aug 11 10:03 AM
    • Are Short Sales Shorting the Real Estate Market? [view article]
      Short sales are just a carrot the banks use to get homeowners to keep making payments. If they were astute, they'd know it's never happening and the bank is conning them out of a dozen PMTs they could have walked away from. I don't think short sales are fake inventory, rather future inventory. Clearly these homes will be foreclosed on. Get used to the banking system being the biggest landlord in the country, with more inventory than new homebuilders combined.

      8 or 9% interest would be great for young buyers (anyone under 30). You can refinance away interest; you can't refinance away $500,000 of principal on a 3br 1ba house. Let prices fall.       Jul 18 07:04 PM
    • Why It's Time to Invest in Domestic Banks [view article]
      Oh, it's that easy. Just take the deposits and invest them in high yield instruments. What about the fact that those banks on average have 67% of their assets in US real estate? You know, the stuff that is going to go down another 50% in price? Jul 18 02:34 PM
    • Busted: 6 Economic Myths [view article]
      I calculate that $12 trillion in US real estate and $10 trillion in US equities will be wiped out. Jun 26 12:44 PM
    • Really, Really Bad News About Oil [view article]
      Dubai is not a country. I stopped reading after that glaring error... Jun 03 10:19 AM
    • Ten Comments on Housing [view article]
      15% is a complete and total pipe dream, even for nationwide prices. I could see it falling 15% per year for two or three years for close to a 40% drop, then leveling off to a rate of home price appreciation that doesn't keep up with inflation. Any place where a starter home is approaching $500,000 is going to see a 50% haircut guaranteed. Until the manager of Pizza Hut can buy a house in David Merkel's zip code with a 30 year fixed DTI 36% and 20% down, it's too expensive.

      Think about people born after 1978 who are unlikely to be current homeowners because they were in school and finding a spouse. These people are the foundation of buyers as the nation's housing stock increases in size. Until it is fiscally possible for 80% of them to buy with a legitimate mortgage product, the crisis has no end in sight. Even when they can buy, who's going to want to when the social mood is so sour? Real estate is going to be about a popular as YHOO in 2001. Contrarians will be buying real estate. Real people will run for the hills.

      2015 is an optimistic time for 12 months of continuous year over year home price increases that outpace inflation.       Apr 06 05:26 PM
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