Empiric Student Property Share Discussion Threads

[briarberry] 17/7/2008 20:44

Freddie & Fanny - saw this link on a US BB and thought it was good...

this is Jim Bunning's complete thrashing of Bernanke & Stammering Hank

[briarberry] 15/7/2008 16:27

oil down $10, back down to 136

[briarberry] 15/7/2008 01:53

Merrill Lynch noted over the weekend that earnings during the quarter now are expected to decline by 17%...

The second concern is second quarter results. They will start to flow in volume by late this week. Second quarter consensus earnings for S&P 500 companies is a decline of 11.5% on a year over year basis. However, consensus earnings estimates continue to move lower prior to news. Merrill Lynch noted over the weekend that earnings during the quarter now are expected to decline by 17% with most of the additional decline coming from the financial service sector. Major financial service companies (e.g. Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Citigroup) are scheduled to release results later this week. Investors are looking forward to moving past second quarter results.

[briarberry] 15/7/2008 01:23

Food, if you've got a garden you should probably start thinking about growing food...


Jim Rogers advised buying agricultural commodities

The chairman of Rogers Holdings, who in April 2006 correctly predicted oil would reach $100 a barrel and gold $1,000 an ounce, also said the commodities bull market has a ``long way to go'' and advised buying agricultural commodities.

[briarberry] 15/7/2008 01:13

Citigroup has got another $1 trillion more of off-balance-sheet ass-ets to account for...


Citigroup's $1.1 Trillion of Mysterious Assets Shadows Earnings

Citigroup prepares to announce second-quarter results July 18, those off-balance-sheet assets, used by U.S. banks to expand lending without tying up capital, are casting a shadow over earnings. Since last September, at least $100 billion of assets have flooded back onto Citigroup's balance sheet, accompanied by more than $7 billion of losses. [/QUOTE]

[briarberry] 14/7/2008 19:10

Washington Mutual down 28% today



National City

[briarberry] 14/7/2008 18:24

Could peak oil lead to a long term economic slow down ? I keep hearing optimists saying that we in the West use less oil per unit GDP than in say China. And so they say there is less reason to worry. However this is obviously rubbish as we still use lots more oil per person. Plus our so called service economy is dependent on cheap energy.

I've read several newsletters that say buy a farm or croft or something. I hope this doesn't take-off as a new investment craze or pension pot idea, because it will increase food prices even more. If you've got a garden, it might be best to plough it up now and start growing as many veggies as you can.


Negative growth
Submitted by toma on Mon, 07/14/2008 - 7:18am.

The real driver here is 'Peak Oil'.

Economic growth has mirrored growth in oil supplies. We crossed the peak of oil production worldwide in 2005, soon production will begin to fall.

Negative growth will destroy fiat currencies and with it all current investment schemes.

Now is not the time to invest in anything other than tangible goods that you have under lock and key, or buried in the ground.



Land, toma. Buy land (preferably at bankruptcy):
Submitted by ConservoDem on Mon, 07/14/2008 - 7:29am.
They ain't making any more of it.

[briarberry] 14/7/2008 14:06

45 more banks like IndyMac ??? (yeah most likely there are)...

At least 45 banks in straits potentially similar to IndyMac.

By looking at stock market under performance

The bank and savings and loan stocks falling into the bottom 20% of all market performers were far more numerous: there were 113 in all. Of these, 45 are severe laggards, falling into the bottom 10% of market performers. Interestingly, about half of these are located in the West and Southeast regions of the country: two of the hotter real estate markets during the boom. And the large regional banks? Seven fall into the underperforming category; two in the lowest group. None are up on the year.





(and if that happens the FDIC won't have enough bailout money...)

If you think Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac are under capitalized, then how about this very rough, and very non analytical back of the envelope capitalization for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance deposit fund.

Combined Deposit Insurance Fund Balance - $ 52.8 billion (before Indy Mac failure).
Insured Deposits $4.4 trillion.
Reserve Ratio - 1.19%.

Of course I am sure there is more to it than that. The FDIC can raise premiums, and ultimately, the U.S. Government is there.

[briarberry] 13/7/2008 23:17

The fall of IndyMac

Feds seize bank - once a leading mortgage lender. It may turn out to be most expensive collapse ever. One thing is sure: The credit crisis is still with us.

By Catherine Clifford and Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com writers
Last Updated: July 12, 2008: 10:58 AM EDT

IndyMac grew rapidly during the real estate and home building boom. Its specialty was so-called Alt-A loans, those for which home buyers were asked to produce little or no evidence of income or assets other than the house they were buying.

It lost $614 million last year stemming from its focus on the Alt-A mortgage sector

IndyMac, with assets of $32 billion and deposits of $19 billion, is the fifth bank to fail this year.

[briarberry] 12/7/2008 23:35

$1.6 Trillion in Losses and Counting
by John Mauldin - July 11, 2008

"Bridgewater Associates has issued an apocalyptic warning to clients that bank losses from the worldwide credit crisis may reach $1,600bn [$1.6 trillion], four times official estimates and enough to pose a grave risk to the financial system.

[briarberry] 12/7/2008 23:34

everyones talking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...

wallstreetexaminer.com/


www.financialsense.com


www.nytimes.com

[briarberry] 12/7/2008 23:06

IndyMac Bancorp Inc. became the second-biggest federally insured financial company to fail today after a run by depositors left the California mortgage lender short on cash.

[briarberry] 12/7/2008 22:09

Initial claims - underneath the happy headlines, unemployment is still trending higher...


Initial jobless claims showed surprising improvement, down 58,000

continuing claims, in data for the June 28 week, jumped 91,000 to 3.202 million for the highest reading in five years.

[briarberry] 12/7/2008 21:55

Too Big To Bail (yeah makes you wonder)...


Fannie and Freddie Credit Implosions Are Too Big to Bail Out

The credit bubble has popped. Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie Mac (FRE), Washington Mutual (WM), Wachovia (WB), and Lehman (LEH) are all at serious risk. Many smaller payers are at huge risk as well.

Meanwhile, the Fed continues to orchestrate "takeunders" like the shotgun marriages between JPMorgan (JPM) and Bear Stearns (BSC), and Bank of America (BAC) and Countrywide (CFC). The Fed's idea seems to be for the strong to take over the weak. The reality is the strong become weak through these efforts.

Paulson's statement " Institutions Must Be Allowed To Fail " is in reality an implicit admission the Fed is powerless to stop a credit implosion whether the Fed wants to do something about it or not. We have finally reached the point at which the mess is too big to bail. All that remains at this point is the final numbers on how much taxpayers have to cough up when Congress foolishly tries to make water run uphill.


By Mike "Mish" Shedlock


don't forget Merrill

plus numerous small banks

[briarberry] 12/7/2008 21:29

the start of monetary deflation ?


Monetarists warn of crunch across Atlantic economies
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Paul Kasriel, chief economist at Northern Trust, says lending by US commercial banks contracted at an annual rate of 9.14pc in the 13 weeks to June 18, the most violent reversal since the data series began in 1973. M2 money fell at a rate of 0.37pc.

"The money supply is crumbling in the US. There was a very sharp lending contraction in the second quarter lending. If the Federal Reserve is forced to raise rates now to defend the dollar, it would be checkmate for the US economy," he said.

Leigh Skene from Lombard Street Research said the lending conditions in the US were now the worst since the Great Depression. "Credit liquidation has begun," he said.

(lots of charts)

[briarberry] 12/7/2008 21:03

price inflation is the USA is anything up to 20.5% y-o-y...


Import prices spiked 2.6 percent in June. The year-on-year is +20.5 percent.

Excluding petroleum, import prices spiked 0.9 percent in June with the year-on-year rate at +7.3 percent.

Export prices jumped 1.0 percent in June. The year-on-year rate is +8.6 percent. Here agricultural prices are the culprit, up 2.2 percent in June alone for a year-on-year rate of +33.0 percent. Excluding agricultural goods, export prices jumped 0.9 percent for a year-on-year rate of +6.4 percent.

[briarberry] 10/7/2008 21:52

casinos

MGM Mirage down 21% today

Las Vegas Sands down 10%

[briarberry] 10/7/2008 20:10

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Congress Thursday that new regulatory powers are needed to insulate the national economy from damage if a big Wall Street firm collapses.

[briarberry] 10/7/2008 17:57

Fannie, Freddie `Insolvent' After Losses, Poole Says

Chances are increasing that the U.S. may need to bail out Fannie Mae and the smaller Freddie Mac, former St. Louis Federal Reserve President William Poole said in an interview. Freddie Mac owed $5.2 billion more than its assets were worth in the first quarter, making it insolvent under fair value accounting rules, he said. The fair value of Fannie Mae's assets fell 66 percent to $12.2 billion, data provided by the Washington-based company show, and may be negative next quarter, Poole said.

``Congress ought to recognize that these firms are insolvent, that it is allowing these firms to continue to exist as bastions of privilege, financed by the taxpayer,'' Poole, 71, who left the Fed in March, said in an interview.

[briarberry] 09/7/2008 11:36

Germany slowing down...

"Manufacturing orders in Germany unexpectedly fell for the sixth month in succession and industrial production declined for a third, reports showed over the past week. "

"Exports from Germany, Europe's largest economy, declined the most in almost four years in May, as a cooling global economy and a stronger euro curbed demand. "

[briarberry] 07/7/2008 22:07

Q2 earnings reports starting...

ALCOA Inc tomorrow

[briarberry] 07/7/2008 21:12

sentiment becoming less hopeful...


Record Shorting of U.S. Stocks May Fuel Rebound, JPMorgan Says

By Elizabeth Stanton

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- Record bets against U.S. stocks may mean the market is on the verge of a rebound fueled by purchases of shares that were sold short, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

So-called short interest on the New York Stock Exchange has risen 55 percent this year to a record 3.6 percent of listed shares, JPMorgan Chief Equity Strategist Thomas J. Lee wrote in a report today. In a short sale, an investor sells borrowed shares in anticipation of being able to buy them back later, or ``cover,'' at a lower price.

Given the ``extreme levels'' of short interest, positive catalysts for the market ``could trigger a substantial short- covering rally,'' New York-based Lee wrote.