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Monthly Archives: December 2007
Subprime: It Never Did Help Homeownership
Student of the Tao goes mythbusting, after reading the Seattle Times: Myth 1: Sub-prime mortgages allow bad credit risks to buy homes. Locally and nationally, nearly all of Ameriquest’s loans went to people who already owned homes, The Times found. … Continue reading
Posted in housing
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Subprime Prescience at MetLife
Lavonne Kuykendall quotes Steven Kandarian, MetLife’s CIO: Mr. Kandarian said MetLife identified the risk from subprime loans early and stopped buying subprime mortgage-backed securities rated single-A and below in late 2004. Note that MetLife’s fund managers aren’t the kind of … Continue reading
Posted in bonds and loans, housing, investing
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Cuomo Stalks Wall Street, Mortgage Edition
Andrew Cuomo is on a fishing expedition for mortgage-related malfeasance on Wall Street, specifically sins of omission: The inquiry raises questions about the extent to which securities firms are obligated to dig into the mortgages before slicing them up to … Continue reading
Posted in bonds and loans, housing, law
1 Comment
Silvio Berlusconi for Citigroup CEO!
In the wake of Saturday’s NYT story that Vikram Pandit looks set to take over Citigroup, a bit of color is emerging: essentially that he’s the best man for the job only insofar as he’s the only person willing to … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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Blogonomics: The Gulf Between Bloggers and Professional Journalists
Professional journalists tend to think of their article as the end of a process of reporting, while bloggers tend to think of their entries as the beginning of a process of commenting.
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Posted in blogonomics
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Extra Credit, Wednesday Edition
US house price index only now indicating depth of crisis Small-town America: The new Bangalore? Homeowners With Negative Equity The Samwick Family Fund: Giving stock to charity, made easy. Subsidising rootedness: "When people speak of ‘putting down roots’, they generally … Continue reading
Posted in remainders
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Chris Dodd Has Lost His Mind
Dennis Kucinich, maybe, I could understand. Even John Edwards, with his populist streak. But Chris Dodd? I know the chap’s presidential campaign is struggling, but has he forgotten that he’s chairman of the Senate Banking Committee? It would seem so. … Continue reading
Posted in ben stein watch, Politics
2 Comments
A Chinese Bid for Rio Tinto?
It makes sense all the sense in the world that China, broadly defined, should make a bid for Rio Tinto. If it doesn’t, there’s a very good chance that the BHP-Rio merger will go through – a merger which would … Continue reading
Posted in commodities, M&A
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Subprime Paper of the Day
Kristopher Gerardi, Adam Hale Shapiro, and Paul Willen of the Boston Fed: This paper provides the first rigorous assessment of the homeownership experiences of subprime borrowers… We present two main findings. First, homeownerships that begin with a subprime purchase mortgage … Continue reading
Posted in housing
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The Weakness of Marking Subprime Bonds to Market
In the case of subprime bonds, marking to market is a pretty crappy way of working out how much those bonds are worth.
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Posted in bonds and loans, housing
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Which Bondholders Benefit From the Paulson Plan?
Last week, when the Sheila Bair subprime-modification plan became the Hank Paulson subprime-modification plan, I tentatively suggested that junior bondholders might be winners, while senior bondholders could lose out: In reality, it’s almost certain that some bondholders would benefit from … Continue reading
Posted in bonds and loans, housing
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David Woo Defends the Oil Price Denomination Fallacy
David Woo, global head of foreign exchange strategy at Barclays, knows a hell of a lot more about the FX market than I do. And it turns out that Woo doesn’t dismiss the oil-price denomination fallacy out of hand. In … Continue reading
Posted in foreign exchange
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Optimism in Bali
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon marked the beginning of the huge climate conference in Bali yesterday with an excellent and upbeat op-ed in the Washington Post. "Largely lost in the debate is the good news," he wrote: "We can do … Continue reading
Posted in climate change
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Scenes From the Credit Crunch, UK Edition
It’s really bad out there right now. If you took a snapshot of financial conditions, especially in London, you’d have to conclude it’s now much worse than during the worst days of the summer – the only thing missing is … Continue reading
Posted in bonds and loans
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Extra Credit, Tuesday Edition
Conversations with the Trading Desk: Rick Bookstaber on the trader’s mindset. Editorialists Gone Wild: The Post on Nafta CRUSHING BEAR HUG FOR HEDGE HONCHO: Ralph Cioffi failed at running hedge funds, now he’s failing at starting them. How to save … Continue reading
Posted in remainders
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Ben Stein Watch: The Aftermath
Dear God what hath Ben Stein wrought? His latest column was as dreadful as most, but it seems to have touched one hell of a nerve. I have a weekly Ben Stein Watch; I had to respond to it. But … Continue reading
Posted in ben stein watch
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When Fund Managers Change Their Minds
The Swiss fund manager and blogger who calls himself "Baruch" posted a comment on Saturday evening about Research in Motion, currently trading at about $105 a share: I use a standardized DCF approach and have quite a detailed model of … Continue reading
Posted in investing
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Why is Warren Buffett Buying $2.1 Billion of Super-Junky TXU Debt?
Warren Buffett just bought a huge chunk of TXU debt at a $125 million discount to face value: Berkshire bought into two issues by TXU. It purchased $1.1 billion of 10.25% bonds at 95 cents on the dollar to give … Continue reading
Posted in bonds and loans
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Can Thain Make Merrill More Collegial?
John Thain wants to know why his new colleagues at Merrill Lynch can’t just get along: Mr Thain, whose tenure as Merrill chief executive begins on Monday, said in an interview that he believed there was insufficient co-operation between senior … Continue reading
Posted in banking
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Good Ideas on NYC Congestion
Brad Aaron has news of developments with NYC’s congestion pricing plan. If you recall, the mayor put forward a proposal which now needs to be ratified by a whole bunch of constituencies, including the city and state legislatures. But before … Continue reading
Posted in cities
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Euro Disney Datapoint of the Day
From Floyd Norris, all figures split-adjusted: Share price of Euro Disney in 1992: €2,500 Price per share paid by Prince Walid bin Talal of Saudi Arabia when he rescued Euro Disney in 1994: €152 Share price of Euro Disney today: … Continue reading
Posted in stocks
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Blogonomics: Gawker Media
A surprising number of people seem to care that there’s a bunch of turnover going on at Gawker: the latest departures have made both the Observer and the NYT today. That very fact proves Gawker’s continuing media-goldfish-bowl relevance: it’s unthinkable … Continue reading
Posted in blogonomics
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Why Paulson Needn’t Worry About Litigation Risk in his Mortgage Plan
Elizabeth Warren is worried about the investor lawsuits that Hank Paulson’s mortgage-relief plan might trigger. "There is no clear legal basis for doing this kind of wholesale revision of the value of the collateral and forced revision of the mortgage … Continue reading
Signs the Housing Bubble Still Hasn’t Really Burst, Bestseller Edition
The most-gifted book at Amazon.com is Be a Real Estate Millionaire: Secret Strategies for Lifetime Wealth Today. Interestingly, although it’s the most-gifted book, it only ranks at #197 on the overall Books bestseller list. Weird. Are people buying dozens of … Continue reading
Posted in housing
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Ben Stein Watch: December 2, 2007
Ben Stein pops up in a lot of places: Yahoo columns, Fortune videos, scientifically-illiterate movies, brain-dead TV shows, even Portfolio features. One place he doesn’t seem to have much presence, however, is the UK. Which is just as well, because … Continue reading
Posted in ben stein watch
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