Empiric Student Property Share Discussion Threads

[briarberry] 19/5/2008 15:55

Nippon Steel last month said higher raw material costs would slash annual profit by 41 percent

[briarberry] 18/5/2008 23:16

Fannie & Freddie take on more risk, trying to hold up Californian house prices...


Borrowers who last week would have been quoted a 7 percent rate for a 30-year mortgage of $500,000 could find a rate of about 6 percent on that loan by Friday. That difference could save a homeowner more than $300 a month on mortgage payments.

What happened to finally push down rates for jumbo-conforming loans? Fannie Mae Chief Executive Daniel Mudd announced last week that the company will purchase jumbo-conforming loans from lenders using essentially the same pricing structure it uses for conforming loans. Freddie Mac has done the same.

In another effort to spur home buying, Fannie Mae announced Friday that it would back loans made with as little as a 3 percent down payment, even in markets where prices are declining. That announcement reversed a policy set in December, in which home buyers in declining markets were required to have bigger down payments to get a Fannie Mae-guaranteed loan. A potential problem with the new policy is that currently, mortgage insurers won't sign off on deals with such low down payments.

[briarberry] 17/5/2008 23:18

Looking at the strength in the SPX, one newsletter writer said, you would think that the USA had an economy based on commodity/resources and that it was not a credit/consumption economy that is being hammered by high energy prices during a credit crunch.

financials down over 2%


energy launch up over 3%



Citi Bank, this looks interesting, down 8% this week

[briarberry] 16/5/2008 17:55

California's foreclosure crisis passed another ominous milestone in April, when more than 1,000 foreclosed homes were auctioned off every weekday at courthouses across the state, the auction tracking firm ForeclosureRadar reported today.

The April total of foreclosure sales at auction - 22,838 for the state - represents a jump of 44% over March totals and the highest level ever in California, ForeclosureRadar reports.

As lenders grow more desperate to avoid taking possession of foreclosed homes, they are offering bigger discounts at courthouse auctions, with "discounts of 40% to 50% from prior sales price common in many parts of the state," ForeclosureRadar reports. Still, the auctions are usually uneventful, and usually do not attract serious bids. "The majority of these sales received no third-party bid and reverted back to the lender despite the largest across-the-board discounts ever offered at trustee sales auctions," ForeclosureRadar reported.

[briarberry] 16/5/2008 17:41

this is worth a read...

As it did when the housing bubble began to burst, California is leading the way in the next leg: a consumer bust.

And California matters. It accounts for 13 percent of the U.S. economy. It was also where more than a third of the non-mainstream home loans, like subprime and Alt-A, were made in 2006 and 2007, making it very important to the health of the banking system.

[briarberry] 16/5/2008 14:39

Mortgage insurer Ambac Financial Group...







Now that's a thought - The United States of Enron ???

[briarberry] 16/5/2008 13:38

Housing Starts Apr 1032K

slightly up from last month

[briarberry] 16/5/2008 10:43

SPX

I hope it's being held up for opex, and so I hope we're still looking at what is going to be the top ?

but losing faith in that idea, just have to wait and see ?

Yes I'm still holding a long term short and so don't really want to have to wait for the SPX to go up to the next fib (1450s) to see if that's the top. Especially as I could close my short here at almost no loss and put it back on higher

FTSE100

If the opex theory is right, that would mean that the FTSE100 isn't going much higher either


(edit added, opex theory = market insiders bought themselves lots of calls and sold lots of puts to joe public when the SPX was at and under the 1300s )

[briarberry] 15/5/2008 15:10

stagflation = higher costs + lower sales = profits collapse

JC Penney 1Q profit falls 50 pct; rough year ahead

Department store retailer J.C. Penney says a pullback in consumer spending has cut its first-quarter profit in half, and predicts "difficult" conditions for the entire year.

[briarberry] 15/5/2008 13:32

Initial Claims 05/10 371K
NY Empire State Index May -3.2

[briarberry] 15/5/2008 10:06

global slow down...

May 15 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese machinery orders fell more than economists expected in March as a global slowdown and waning profits dissuaded companies from investing in factories and equipment.

Equipment orders, which signal capital spending in the next three to six months, declined 8.3 percent from February, when they fell 12.7 percent, the Cabinet Office said today in Tokyo. The median estimate of 33 economists was for a 5.1 percent drop.

[briarberry] 14/5/2008 16:07

CPI y-o-y is DOWN! +3.9% April from +4.0% in March

Year-on-year, the overall CPI slipped to up 3.9 percent in April from up 4.0 percent in March. The core rate was eased to up 2.3 percent from up 2.4 percent the prior month.


DJ Volcker: May Be More Inflation Than CPI Data Are Saying


The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.6 percent in April, before seasonal adjustment, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.



US Government Economic Statistics Are a 'Con Job' from CNN (it's made the mainstream media)



Here's the problem with "Ministry of Truth" nonsense like this - it destroys your credibility, and once that's gone, you have nothing.

[briarberry] 14/5/2008 15:33

CPI yeah no inflation, no effect from energy price rises LOL (from post 1530) - yeah they say motor fuel prices actually fell :) Fantastic lie !

apparently motor fuel is up 5.6% over last month

And even that number may be too low. Measures of gasoline prices by AAA and the Department of Energy suggested prices rose as much as 10% in April.
(both petrol & diesel are up - )

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

U.S. consumer prices increase a moderate 0.2% in April with decelerating energy prices offsetting rising food prices, Labor Department data show.

By components, the softening in CPI was led by transportation which declined 0.7 percent in April. This included a 1.9 percent drop in motor fuel.

[briarberry] 13/5/2008 23:44

NAR - Home prices continue sharp descent

Tuesday May 13, 2:40 pm ET - By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Single-family home prices dropped 7.7% in the first quarter in the largest year-over-year decline since the National Association of Realtors began reporting prices in 1982.

The median sales price fell to $196,300, down 4.8% compared with the last three months of 2007.

[briarberry] 13/5/2008 23:38

US CPI tomorrow - they'll just make a number up like they always do, they'll be saying it's zero soon :)


Critics, by contrast, smell a potential disaster. Oil is up over 80 percent in the last twelve months. The New York Times' consumer reporter, W.P. Dunleavy, wrote on May 3 that his own groceries now cost $587 a month, up from $400 a year earlier. That's a 40 percent increase. Reports in the financial press make frequent reference to foreign investors who distrust the U.S. dollar because they calculate true U.S. inflation at 6% to 9% including food and energy.

[briarberry] 13/5/2008 15:56

Import prices +15.4% y-o-y

Import prices surged once again in April, up a stinging 1.8 percent in the month for a year-on-year gain of 15.4 percent. Price increases, a result of the weak dollar and spill over from oil prices, were widespread showing a stinging 1.1 percent rise excluding petroleum. The year-on-year gain in this category is 6.2 percent -- the worst reading since the late 80s. Petroleum continued to jump, up 4.4 percent in the month for a 57.2 percent year-on-year spike.

Prices on the export side also showed increases, up 0.3 percent in the month for a 7.7 percent year-on-year rise, down slightly from last month's record pace. Export prices for foods came down in the month but are still up 31.6 percent on the year.

[briarberry] 12/5/2008 15:55

China Inflation Quickens; Close to Fastest Since 1996

May 12 (Bloomberg) -- China's inflation accelerated to close to the fastest pace since 1996 as food prices soared and the government slowed gains by the yuan.

Consumer prices rose 8.5 percent in April from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today, after gaining 8.3 percent in March. That topped the 8.2 percent median estimate of 22 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Food prices jumped 22 percent, a threat to social stability as the world's most populous nation prepares to host the Olympic Games this summer. Faster currency appreciation, while reducing import costs, also risks attracting more speculative funds into an economy flooded with cash.

[briarberry] 12/5/2008 15:40

The global slump of 2008-09 has begun as poison spreads
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor

The avalanche of bankruptcies has begun. Six US companies of substance have defaulted on bonds over the past fortnight, against 17 for the whole of last year.

The sick list is varied, though most for now are victims of the housing crash: Linens 'n Things, ($650m), Kimball Hill ($703m), Home Interiors ($310m), French Lick Resorts ($142m), Recycled Paper Greetings ($187m), and Tropicana Entertainment ($2.49bn).

As the Fed's latest loan survey makes clear, lenders have dropped the guillotine. With the usual delay, the poison is spreading from banks to the real world.

Diane Vazza, S&P's credit chief, says defaults are rising at almost twice the rate of past downturns. "Companies are heading into this recession with a much more toxic mix. Their margin for error is razor-thin," she said.

Two-thirds have a "speculative" rating, compared to 50pc before the dotcom bust, and 40pc in the early 1990s. The culprit is debt. "They ramped it up in the last 18 months of the credit boom. A lot of deals were funded that should not have been funded," she said.

Some 174 US companies are trading at "distress levels". Spreads on their bonds have rocketed above 1,000 basis points. This does not cover the carnage among smaller firms outside the rating universe.

[briarberry] 11/5/2008 18:58

this is a sign ???


Sotheby's (NYSE) was sold to the bear in the first row, sliding 2.56, or 9.3%, to 24.91, after swinging to a first-quarter loss on lower auction commission revenue and higher operating costs

[briarberry] 11/5/2008 16:19

Citi dumping assets, isn't that a bad sign ? Like the opposite of the M&A and IPO boom ???


Citigroup to wind up Nikko as it seeks to save $15bn

By Mark Leftly
Sunday, 11 May 2008

Citigroup, the beleaguered investment bank, is to wind down Nikko Principal Investments (NPI), a UK and Australian-based private equity business, as part of a structural overhaul announced on Friday.

[briarberry] 11/5/2008 14:55

yeah makes you wonder (although you would think that China's foreign reserves should top out once recession hits it's export markets, but I guess that would still leave them with a lot of money to spend)...


A New Inflationary Epoch
Crude oil closed today above $126. The most vitally important commodity in the world has now posted a stunning year-to-date rise of better than 30% and has now doubled in the past year. It is worth noting that during the ten-year period 1996 through 2005 crude averaged about $29 a barrel. It's now at four times this level - and running.

I don't believe it is mere coincidence that crude has posted about a 30% y-t-d price surge at the same time as international reserve positions have expanded at about a 30% annualized rate - to a stunning $6.769 TN. Over the past 4 ½ years, official international reserves have ballooned an unprecedented $3.921 trillion, or 138%. During this period, crude prices surged almost 300%. Chinese reserves ballooned more than four-fold over this period to $1.68 Trillion; India's reserve position tripled to $303bn; and Brazil enjoyed a four-fold increase to $189bn. After beginning 2004 at $73bn, Russian reserves have almost reached the half Trillion mark ($493bn). And in just the past year, OPEC reserves have inflated 42% to $490bn. To be sure, the world is awash like never before in excess "liquidity" for which to bid up prices of critical tradable resources.

Especially since the Fed's Credit System Bailout, anticipating Heightened Global Monetary Disorder has been a key CBB theme. The ongoing relevant question: how much would (in particular) China, India, Russia and Asia be willing to pay to procure adequate supplies of food and energy for their populations and economies? The obvious answer is "we have no way of knowing", but the market is becoming increasingly cognizant of the reality that today's massive international reserve positions provide virtually unlimited purchasing power. The bidding war has begun in earnest, in what increasingly appears A New Inflationary Epoch.

The CRB Commodities index closed today at an all-time high, sporting a y-t-d gain of 19% and one-year rise of 37%. The Goldman Sachs Commodities index, also ending at a record high, has gained 28% so far this year and 68% over the past 12 months. During the past year, soybeans have gained 85%, corn 72%, and wheat 68%. Prices for iron ore, steel and hard commodities have experienced similar price inflation. Gasoline prices are up almost 40%, natural gas about 50%, and heating oil about 90% over the past year.

[briarberry] 11/5/2008 14:45

quote

Did you notice that every bank that went BK in the last few months is absurdly underwater? I mean not just insolvent, but insolvent by -100% of assets.

Which makes me think that there is a bunch of banks that are insolvent by only -50% and they are held upright by the balls by the Feds alphabet soup programs?

(alphabet soup = TAF, TDWP, TSLF, PDCF)