A few quick items this morning before I’m off to the factory. The main one is Monster Warns On Q1, on how the purveyor of job ads online is seeing its business take a hit. The reason given is openly described as “economic slowdown”. Labor conditions are noted as problematic. Very […]
In today’s top mortgage finance news, one of my absolute “favorite” subprime lenders, SouthStar, has shut down, and New Century has finally filed for bankruptcy.
This just in from Gloomberg- *STERN AGREES WITH BERNANKE ASSESSMENT ON INFLATION BIAS *STERN SAYS `THE BULK’ OF HOME CONSTRUCTION DOWNTURN IS PAST *STERN: SUBPRIME…
A new podcast is up — me and Lee chat about the fate of the mortgage and housing markets. The theme: spreading beyond subprime; marginal loans and marginal borrowers are everywhere and will likely cause mass financial destruction.
Today some of New Century (NEW’s) warehouse lenders finally did the deed and cut them off. Call me crazy, but after the announcement of major restatements, more than ten class-action shareholder lawsuits, criminal probes initiated by states and the NYSE, and revelations of Enron-like manipulation, this one seemed like an easy call to me.
I normally try not to mindlessly propagate what other bloggers and analysts are saying, but Mish’s rant today is just too good to pass up. The tirade was sparked by some commentary by Bloomberg’s Caroline Baum, which was already pretty damning of the economic establishment to begin with:
The fault lines continued to spread outwards from the worst-of-the-worst in subprime today. New Century plunged around 60% on the latest news (finally — it was released Friday after the bell) and on analyst coverage suggesting the company could be in a “death spiral” (also finally — no explanation required). The company’s […]
(Or as close to dead as any parties involved will likely ever admit.)
Fremont General, the fifth largest subprime lender (as of Q2 2006 according to the MBA), has collapsed. They had just announced a postponent to their Q4 2006 earnings reporting a few days ago. This is the highest-level done-deal collapse so […]
Interesting zeitgeist piece in Yahoo! Finance News today (very revealing, as usual). We hear that Home Depot released an earnings disappointment, but the market has rallied anyway because of soothing words on the housing market from outgoing Fed Governor Susan Bies:
The world’s largest home improvement retailer reported that sales at its stores open […]
