Empiric Student Property Share Discussion Threads

[briarberry] 29/12/2006 18:08

The American Dream is based on cheap oil, it's a nightmare for countries with large reserves...

(from 2004)

I did manage to watch the whole DVD, it's good but it's a bit out of date now.

[briarberry] 29/12/2006 10:50

Euro M3 up 9% yoy


FRANKFURT (AFX) - The surge in euro zone M3 money supply growth to its
fastest rate since February 1990 points to another interest rate increase early
next year, economists said.
The European Central Bank this morning announced an M3 money supply growth
rate of 9.3 pct year-on-year, up from October's 8.5 pct and well ahead of
economists' forecasts for 8.7 pct.
Loans to the private sector grew 11.2 pct year-on-year in November,
unchanged from October.

[briarberry] 28/12/2006 17:37

US trucking, starting to see a slowdown...


'The American Trucking Associations' advanced seasonally adjusted for-hire Truck Tonnage Index plunged 3.6 percent in November after falling 1.9 percent in October.

'November 2006 marked the single worst month for for-hire truck tonnage since the last recession,' said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. 'Both the month-to-month and year-over-year decreases indicate that the economic slowdown is in full gear. The most troubling number is the 8.8 percent contraction from November 2005, despite the fact that year-over-year comparisons are difficult due to the very robust volumes during the same month last year. One month certainly doesn't make a trend, but if we continue to see year-over-year reductions of similar magnitudes in the next couple of months, it could indicate a greater economic slowdown than economists are projecting at this point.'

Trucking serves as a barometer of the U.S. economy because it represents nearly 70 percent of tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and retail goods.

The American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry.

[briarberry] 28/12/2006 11:59

New home sales...

not seasonally adjusted, the number of new homes sold in November - 72,000 - was the lowest in almost four years. Inventories, a 7.7-month supply unadjusted, were the highest since December 1995.

In another sign of distress in housing, the Mortgage Bankers Association said yesterday that its index of applications to buy a home or refinance a loan dropped to the lowest level in four months.




Also the new home sales number doesn't take cancellations into account. That's been running at 35%.

"Cancellations of purchase contracts, which aren't counted in the government's numbers, have mounted. 'That's growing,' said economist Kevin Logan. 'There is even more inventory than actual inventory numbers suggest.'"

Yesterday's report on new homes showed the number of homes completed and waiting to be sold rose 51 percent to a record 169,000 in November from the same month last year.

[briarberry] 27/12/2006 16:53

Recession watch... New Century Financial, fell 6% today

Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Irvine, California, New Century Financial Corporation is a real estate investment trust (REIT) and one of the nation's premier full-service mortgage finance companies, providing first and second mortgage products to borrowers nationwide through our operating subsidiaries New Century Mortgage Corporation® and Home123 Corporation®. We offer a broad range of mortgage products designed to meet the needs of all borrowers.

[briarberry] 27/12/2006 16:45

Oil - Kuwait's giant Burgan oil field

By Peter J. Cooper
KUWAIT: It was an incredible revelation last week that the second largest oil field in the world is exhausted and past its peak output. Yet that is what the Kuwait Oil Company revealed about its Burgan field. The peak output of the Burgan oil field will now be around 1.7 million barrels per day, and not the two million barrels per day forecast for the rest of the field's 30 to 40 years of life, Chairman Farouk Al-Zanki told Bloomberg. He said that engineers had tried to maintain 1.9 million barrels per day but that 1.7 million is the optimum rate. Kuwait will now spend some $3 million a year for the next year to boost output and exports from other fields.

However, it is surely a landmark moment when the world's second largest oil field begins to run dry. For Burgan has been pumping oil for almost 60 years and accounts for more than half of Kuwait's proven oil reserves. This is also not what forecasters are currently assuming.
Last week the International Energy Agency's report said output from the Greater Burgan area will be 1.64 million barrels a day in 2020 and 1.53 million barrels per day in 2030. Is this now a realistic scenario?
The news about the Burgan oil field also lends credence to the controversial opinions of investment banker and geologist Matthew Simmons. His book 'Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy' claims that ageing Saudi oil fields also face serious production falls.
The implications for the global economy are indeed serious. If the world oil supply begins to run dry then the upward pressure on oil prices will be inexorable. For the oil producers this will come as a compensation for declining output, and cushion them against an economic collapse.
However, the oil consumers then face a major energy crisis. Industrialized economies are still far too dependent on oil. And the pricing mechanism of declining oil reserves will press them into further diversification of energy supplies, particularly nuclear, wind and solar power.
All this was foreshadowed in the energy crisis of the late 1970s when a serious inflection in oil supply by the year 2000 was clearly forecast. How ironic that those earlier forecasts now look correct, while more modern and recent forecasts begin to look over optimistic and out-of-date with geological reality.
Nobody can change the geology, and forces of nature that laid down reserves of oil and gas over millions and millions of years. Could it be that we have been blinded by technological advances into thinking that there is some way to beat nature?
The natural world has an uncanny ability to hit back at the arrogance of man, and perhaps a reassessment of reality at this point is called for, rather than a reliance on oil statistics that may owe more to political manoeuvring than geological facts. - AME Info FZ LLC.

KUWAIT TIMES NEWSPAPER - KUWAIT

[briarberry] 26/12/2006 21:31

US Retail HOLDRs Trust (RTH) - data from Dec18th - insider shares sold/bought ratio of over 301-1

Yahoo's insider numbers for the Retail HOLDRs Trust (RTH) top ten constituents. The top ten comprise over 81% of the Trust. Unfortunately, an "N/A" was listed for both Walmart and CVS, thus our data covers only the remaining eight issues, still comprising over 60% of the Trust. We found 95 sales and 10 buys for a 9.5-1 ratio. Shares sold totaled over 9.6 million, overwhelming the 32.2 thousand bought, a shares sold/bought ratio of over 301-1. Given the mood of insiders, one would be excused for believing that retail analysts would have caught on and were actually analyzing the sector, but no go. Of the 223 recommendations we found, only 8 (or 2.7%) were of the "sell" variety. But that is par for the course on Wall Street, isn't it?

[briarberry] 26/12/2006 18:45

recession watch...


To All HMIC Business Partners,

It is with deep regret that we announce Harbourton Mortgage Investment Corporation will cease operations effective the close of business today, December 20th, 2006.

We are extremely proud to have had the opportunity to serve our Brokers, Investors and Business Partners and wish everyone much success in the future.

Harbourton originated $738 million in the last year, almost all toxic mortgages. Not a huge player, but another hit for Orange County, and starting to add up.

[briarberry] 26/12/2006 18:37

Moreover, our views about the cyclical nature of profit margins are based on the very dynamics of capitalism. When we say "margins will return to the mean," what we are saying is the same thing that economist Joseph Schumpeter said half a century ago: the emergence and elimination of excess profits through the competitive mechanism is not simply a passing phenomenon, but is the essential fact that drives the economy forward. If high profit margins are permanent, then the free enterprise system is a failure.

[briarberry] 17/12/2006 23:46

M & A Surge

BECAUSE both of these academic theories focus on deals financed with stock, they apply only partially to the current merger wave, much of which has been paid for with cash raised through debt financing. (This undoubtedly reflects the fact that debt is so cheap right now, Professor Shleifer said.)

Professor Rhodes-Kropf cautions stock-market investors not to take solace in that difference. "To the extent the current merger wave reflects an overvalued debt market, it stands to reason that it will eventually correct - just as overvalued stock markets eventually correct," he said. "And it can't be good news for the stock market if money is destined to become much tighter in coming years."

The bottom line is this: The current merger wave means that stocks are probably closer to the overvalued end of the spectrum than to the opposite extreme, and that they also are vulnerable to tighter money in coming years.

This doesn't necessarily mean that stocks will fall in the near future. But it does imply that their prospects are well below average.

[briarberry] 16/12/2006 23:02

recession watch...


Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - Falling prices trap new homebuyers

Neighbors in a new Garden Grove tract say a developer's plan to slash prices by about $140,000 has left them owing more for their homes than they're now worth.

By JEFF COLLINS - The Orange County Register


GARDEN GROVE – David Dunn felt as if Christmas were stolen from him when prices for neighboring homes in his new subdivision fell by about $140,000.

Now, he says, his home is worth less than he owes, making it next to impossible to refinance before his $3,000-a-month payment doubles. Eleven neighbors who bought before the price cuts are in the same boat.

"They put us in a bad financial situation by lowering the price," said Dunn, 33. "Some of (the buyers) did 100 percent financing, so they're completely over their head right now."

[briarberry] 15/12/2006 19:32

CPI should give the bulls some hope

but there's something fishy here, gasoline prices have risen for the last couple of months, the chart in the header shows the gubberments own retail figures :) :)

CPI (Nov): Gasoline prices decreased a monthly 1.6 percent

Wednesday's Retail sales (Nov, $ value of sales): Component gains were broad based but led by; gasoline stations, up 2.3 percent (I think they did sell a bit more but still)

I wish I could make the data fit my position !

[briarberry] 14/12/2006 21:23

so we're waiting for...

CPI and opex tomorrow

(opex are usually mostly sideways trading days)

[briarberry] 14/12/2006 20:32

Risky mortgages imperil market - By Patrice Hill
THE WASHINGTON TIMES - December 12, 2006

The risk of a financial crisis is growing as home prices continue to fall and questionable mortgages made in the past two years go into default, finance officials warned yesterday.

Banks and mortgage brokers have been passing along to unwary investors as much as $600 billion a year in risky mortgages they made through untested channels in the junk-bond market. That raises the threat of a financial crisis beyond the ability of the Federal Reserve to remedy, said Lewis Ranieri, the Wall Street guru who is widely credited with creating the multitrillion-dollar market for mortgage-backed securities in the 1980s and 1990s.

[briarberry] 14/12/2006 18:45

Greenie printed too much paper money + commodity bull market...


Mint bans melting coins now worth more as liquid than loot

December 14, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Given rising metal prices, the pennies and nickels in your pocket are worth more melted down than their face value -- and that has the government worried.
U.S. Mint officials said Wednesday they were putting into place rules prohibiting the melting down of 1-cent and 5-cent coins, with a penalty of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 for people convicted of violating the rule.

Because of the prevailing prices of metals, the cost of producing pennies and nickels exceeds the coins' face value.

A nickel is 25 percent nickel and 75 percent copper. The metal in one coin costs 6.99 cents for each 5-cent coin.

Modern pennies have 2.5 percent copper content with zinc making up the rest of the coin. The current copper and zinc in a penny are worth 1.12 cents.

AP

[briarberry] 14/12/2006 18:20

the financials, reporting either record profits or closing down :) :)


Sovereign Bancorp is reportedly on the brink of cutting several hundred jobs and closing its wholesale mortgage banking unit.




(top of the business cycle)

[briarberry] 14/12/2006 18:03

Oil, they're spending more & more money looking for oil but finding less & less


In its 2006 Global Upstream Performance Review, John S. Herold, a leading oil and gas industry research and consulting firm, concludes that capital intensity is gradually rising. The study includes data from over 200 publicly traded oil and gas companies from around the world. One of its recurring themes - one should not assume that more dollars invested in the oil patch automatically leads to growth in production.

To quote from the study:

Reserve replacement costs surged by 73% as increased capital spending did not translate into incremental reserve additions. A 36% increase in finding and development expenditures generated just an 8% increase in reserve additions via the drill bit for the over 200 companies in this study...Proved reserves worldwide were up by 2% in 2005, to 257.7 billion boe

[briarberry] 14/12/2006 15:23

SPX... this Santa rally could be a good short into next year

cash now 1420s I guess we could see 1430s

put a small March short on will add if it goes higher

not going to see real trouble until house prices fall in springtime next year so might be best to wait for a longer term bet

still the rally from the summer lows is going to correct sometime, at least a big wave 4 retrace, just not sure when :(

[briarberry] 14/12/2006 14:41

recession watch


"In 1998 'liars' loans' (those with little or no documentation required) amounted to 24% of mortgage originations. To date this year they account for 62%. Interest-only mortgages have vaulted in the same period from virtually no market share in the mainstream lending business to a 50% share."


"Today, the U.S. homeownership rate stands at 69 percent. That compares with 65.1 percent at the end of 1995, according to the Census Bureau. The growth of subprime lending, fueled by new technologies and new mortgage products ­ could have accounted for as much as half of the increase, according to two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Jonas Fisher and Saad Quayyum."

"'Subprime lending appears to be a very significant factor,' Mr. Fisher said."


"Many subprime mortgage lenders borrow money at short-term interest rates, lend it at long-term interest rates. Lately, however, that profit spread has been erased, as interest rates on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes have dipped below the rates for two-year Treasuries."

"'That has just killed subprime companies,' said Sam Garcia, publisher of MortgageDaily.com."


From Paul Muolo at National Mortgage News. "The biggest story this past week, hands down, had to be the failure of OwnIt Mortgage, a subprime lender 20% owned by Merrill Lynch. Sources tell us that 60 days ago OwnIt auctioned off $20 million in defaulted paper (buybacks) at a price of 70. (Par is 100.) Recently, it tried to sell $70 million in bad paper."

[briarberry] 14/12/2006 11:07

Retail figs from yesterday - one person's view...


The Commerce department changed their survey methodology which added 0.3 percent.

They revised up the prior two months by 0.4 percent as a result.

There's also a larger contribution from gasoline sales and drug sales because of the
rise in gas prices and the new drug plan. About 10 percent of the increase in retail
sales over the past year is due entirely to pharmacy sales.

You may see more strength in the coming months as there seems to be another wave
of refinancing to pull out cash from homes.

[briarberry] 14/12/2006 11:05

lots of refi, ARMs resetting & Santa season ?


Lower rates are also driving up refinancing demand, with the index up 16 percent in the week to 2,304.4 -- the best level in more than a year. Refinancing applications made up 52.6 percent of total applications, up from 50.1 percent.


TNX bounced so it might not last

[briarberry] 12/12/2006 23:38

UK inflation at near-decade high

November's Consumer Price Index (CPI) jumped to 2.7%, from 2.4%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. The monthly rate of inflation was 0.3%.

The RPI rate, which includes mortgage payments, rose to 3.9%.