US Treasury enters the Home Mortgage Business

I am sure you have all read by now that the US Treasury Department has effectively “seized” control of the two US home mortgage market corporations - the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) and the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Me) - and placed them under the oversight of the Federal Housing Finance [...]

Unwinding Mess - IndyMac, Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae

On Friday, the first unavoidable evidence that the credit crunch continues burst forth to center stage. The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) and the Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation (FDIC) were forced to take control of IndyMac Bancorp, Inc. IndyMac’s failure marks one of the largest bank failures in history, and is the largest bank failure [...]

Fascinating Charts from the NY Fed Bank

If you haven’t seen this - you need to look at it… it’s fascinating….
http://www2.newyorkfed.org/mortgagemaps/
It’s an interactive map of the mortgage markets across the United States. You can punch in your zip-code and have access to the Fed’s data on housing conditions, foreclosure activity, % of ARM loans, % that will reset, etc.
What struck me the [...]

Buy on the Rumors… Sell on the News….

Lehman beat expectations this morning in earnings:
AP
Lehman Profit Falls 57 Percent
Tuesday March 18, 9:17 am ET
By Stephen Bernard, AP Business Writer

Lehman Brothers Earns $489 Million During First Quarter, Beating Analyst Expectations
NEW YORK (AP) — Investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. said Tuesday its fiscal first-quarter earnings fell 57 percent due to a steep decline in [...]