mavericks

How Bloomberg Fabricates U.S. Housing Numbers

I'm going to take the other side of this argument since I own one of those 5-year adjustable loans and I've been paying interest only on 4 of those years. As it turns out, my payments will go DOWN next year if LIBOR stays where it is.

Second, I would think it would be in a bank's best interest to rent out, either to the former owners or somebody else, the homes they foreclose upon and try and wait for home prices to recover before putting them back on the market. If this is the case, would these homes be considered "empty"? Just asking.

Frankly, I think the tone of this article is a bit on the emotional side so that is why I'm questioning it.

Explaining the Citi Arithmetic

I think a more likely scenario for C is the old Ma Bell, AT&T. Once the Govt. gets control, they will break it up and start new banks by geography.

Just for fun...and to remind us of the disaster that created them, they should be called by the natural disasters prone to that area...for example, the NE zone will be called the Bank of the Arctic, the SE zone will be called the Bank of the Hurricanes, the Midwest zone will be called the Bank of the Tornados, the SW zone (inc. California) will be called the Bank of the Earthquakes and the NW zone will be called the Bank of the Volcanos.

Then once the banks become profitable and the stocks soar, the Govt. will cash in and not long after that...voila, the banks will begin to merge again. But instead of the old Citigroup name, the new consolidated name will drop the natural disaster approach and take on a more warm and personal approach and they will call it...Titigroup. And you can imagine what the names of the new banks will be when THAT ultimately fails.

Housing Market Tracker - Subprime Outlook

Here in Portland, foreclosures are not a problem and homes in the $250K to $425K are moving quite well. When you get up and over $500K, well...things slow down.

Can anybody comment on their market?

Barron's Mid-2007 Analyst Roundtable

PFN is leveraged about 38%. I've owned 2k shares for a long time and was thinking about shedding some shares but its sister fund PFL trades at an even higher premium, lower yield. Risks are if the Fed cut rates since their portfolios are all securities tied to LIBOR + a percentage. The securities are typically in a Senior position but are usually not very liquid compared to corporate bonds. But unlike corporate bonds, when interest rates go up, so does their income which more than offsets their borrowing costs.