One of my favorite catch-phrases from last year comes courtesy of Calculated Risk — if you aren’t reading that blog, you should be. And it look like we’ve got another case of a market participant taking a loss they didn’t see coming even a few months ago.
United Community Banks Inc. posted $76 million in loan loss provision, with $56 million in net charge-offs, during Q3. And they said at the time as follows:
… we certainly don’t see a recurrence of the third quarter charge-off level in the immediate future.
You know what’s coming next, right? Uh-huh. A Q4 loan loss provision of $85 million, with an expected $74 million in charge-offs, per a warning released by the firm yesterday evening. Whoocoodanode, indeed.
But it also underscores how enduring the... more»
If you do nothing else today, I recommend taking a look at this, via the NYT’s DealBook. It’s becoming pretty clear that GMAC got a sweet deal in taking money from the government, despite efforts from lawmakers and regulators to suggest that the taxpayer handout came under duress and with onerous terms.
Consider:
Unlike other Treasury investments under the TARP, Treasury is not receiving warrants convertible into common equity of GMAC and so will receive no upside. Instead, the best Treasury can do on this deal is be paid back its investment plus interest. In addition, the 5 percent warrant value is below the 15 percent in value that other TARP recipients had to agree to and the program requirements specify.
That’s just for starters. The GMAC deal essentially gives the freshly-flush... more»
We’ve wasted no time in ramping up our magazine coverage via HousingWire Magazine for 2009. With 11 issues planned for this year, we’re getting started with a bang — the Jan/Feb issue, our last bi-monthly issue before we begin monthly publication, is going to begin hitting subscriber’s mailboxes this week through next. If you don’t subscribe, here’s what you need to know: the magazine focuses on in-depth analysis and trends, as well as investigative reports, moreso than the leading-edge news we cover daily on our website.
And we’ve been getting RAVE reviews for our work in the first two issues from subscribers.
In the Jan/Feb issue about to hit mailboxes is an exclusive look at what lies ahead for the nation’s economic and housing markets, and... more»
I’d like to think I’m downright religious about sourcing stories here on HW, going so far as to name sources and provide links wherever possible — hell, I’m so religious about that sort of thing that I gladly cite competitors in the trade press when they beat HW to a story. It happens in the rough-and-tumble news business.
But to see the WSJ and Bloomberg completely fail to cite our story from earlier this week in their own coverage of the negotiations with Fannie Mae over the pending sale of IndyMac just reeks of information theft, to me. There is supposed to at least be some level of understanding among journalists in terms of tipping the hat towards a colleague.
Here’s our story from Dec. 30th: http://www.housingwire.com/2008/12/30/fannie-mae-holding-indymac-deal-hostage-sources-say/
Here’s... more»
It’s hard to believe that 2008 has passed us by, as I sit to write this column. For me, at least, time really has sped up this year; reporting on a financial crisis that has moved seemingly at the speed of sound has meant that I have lost the ability to tell, and often, sense time.
If you think I’m kidding, just ask my wife. Or my two small children. All three have been wonderfully supportive of my decision to run HW full time this year — I quit my corporate job to run this site full time in January of this year, and it’s been non-stop go-go-go on a breakneck news pace since then.
That said, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I view our job at HW as one where we help market participants make sense of a mortgage market that is simply no longer content to move at... more»
Do you use Twitter?
If you do — drum roll, please — @housingwire is now up and running, feeding fresh HW news and views via tweets in real-time. Give us a follow and make us feel at least a little special. (We sorta live off that feeling over here.)
If you don’t know what Twitter is, BTW, you might want to read this.
Generally speaking, in our case, we’re using Twitter as another distribution point for HW’s media platform; yet another aspect of what we do here that quite literally makes us very different from your usual trade publication.
Much, much more to come in the months ahead in terms of new features here, so stay tuned…
It’s now two years this month since HousingWire first began, and 4,000+ stories and millions of readers later, it’s clear that this “little site” isn’t so little anymore. But I’m still constantly reminded of why I started this platform back in late 2006, and the latest reminder comes courtesy of the most recent issue of Mortgage Banking Magazine.
The inside back cover advertising position in the Dec. 2008 issue was taken by Franklin American Mortgage Company, a retail, correspondent and wholesale lender that has been thriving during the industry downturn. In the very same issue is an entire feature titled “Franklin American’s Formula” that uses six pages to talk about how Franklin American is “one independent mortgage banking firm”... more»
Circulating via MBS trading desks this afternoon, enjoy!
On the 12th day of hedging, my true love gave to me:
12 Investors suing
11 Brokers beeping
10 Traders weeping
9 Originators selling
8 Dealers standing
7 Bonds I’m bidding
6 Regulators sleeping
Offer 5’s to Beijing
4 letter words
3 half days
2 OJ gloves
And a 4 trading at par + three
From Bill Coppedge’s Mortgage NewsClips site, attributed to April Smith:
DUE TO RECENT BUDGET CUTS,
AND THE RISING COST OF ELECTRICITY, GAS AND OIL,
THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL HAS BEEN TURNED OFF.
WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE
Sincerely,
The Government
We really have no comment on this one, because we’re not really even sure what it’s supposed to be about:
As mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae hurtled to financial ruin, their charitable foundations continued to pour money into homosexual causes.
According to its records, the Freddie Mac Foundation gave over $125,000 to gay-activist groups since 2005. The Fannie Mae Foundation donated about $80,000 to these groups over the last decade.
Their largest one-time gifts came in the last year — just months before both companies collapsed and were taken over by the government.
Freddie Mac gave more than $20,000 to the 2008 fundraising gala of the Washington, D.C., chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG-DC). Fannie Mae gave between $10,000-$19,000 to the... more»
