UK
Property Prices Suffer 'Largest Decrease Ever' As London Real Estate Goes Into
Full-Scale Collapse - (finance.yahoo.com) More sellers than buyers, basically. Property
prices in the U.K. can't go on rising forever — and now they're not. A survey of 90% of the market by
Rightmove,
a real estate price tracking company, shows that real estate prices fell 2.9%
in August, the second consecutive down month this summer. Prices fell nearly 6%
in the overheated London market. That news dovetails ominously with the rumors
of "panic selling" in
London as
owners try to cash in on their overpriced houses at the very top of the market.
While prices generally cool off in summer when fewer people feel like moving,
according to Rightmove, the decline was the worst the agency has ever seen: ...
this is the largest decrease ever recorded by Rightmove at this time of year,
and a lead indicator of a slower market in the second half of 2014. The price
fall has been exacerbated by London recording a 5.9% drop, which is the largest
of three consecutive monthly falls.
Credit
Swaps Polished in $19 Trillion Derivative Overhaul - (www.bloomberg.com) The
biggest overhaul to the $19 trillion credit derivatives market in more than a
decade will seek to solve flaws that have stopped some contracts paying out as
buyers anticipated. The changes come too late for investors in the junior debt
of Banco Espirito Santo SA, whose credit-default swaps were devalued this month
when the Portuguese lender was rescued and restructured by the government.
Since the contracts are tied to the majority of a company’s debt, if the
borrower is reorganized the swaps don’t necessarily stay tied to the securities
they’re meant to protect. Investors will start signing up to convert
outstanding trades into new contracts as early as this week after the International
Swaps & Derivatives Association rewrote the documentation to address the
weaknesses. The biggest impact of the shakeup may be in the cost of swaps tied
to subordinated bank bonds like those of Banco Espirito Santo, which will be
about 50 percent more than existing contracts, according to Citigroup Inc.
WTI
Crude Plunges To New 7-Month Lows - (www.zerohedge.com) Brent
crude is rising this morning up from an earlier dip to $101.75. That is
not the case for WTI crude which has been in freefall since this morning's CPI
data print. Brent-WTI has soared from below $5 to over $6.50 in the last few
hours as WTI drops to a $95 handle at its lowest since mid-January. Obviously
positioning in crude was very speculatively long but one wonders at the price
action when it would appear to be the only 'weapon' Obama has left to fight
Putin.
WSJ/NBC
Poll: The Death of American Optimism - (www.moneynews.com) In its most pessimistic reading ever, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll indicates that most Americans, 76 percent
to be exact, are not sure their children's generation will be better than their
own. Less than a quarter (21 percent) believe their children's generation will
lead better lives than their own. What's more, 71 percent think the
country is on the wrong track, 60 percent believe the United States is in a
state of decline, and 54 percent say the widening income gap is undermining
opportunity. The pollsters say the survey reveals "a strong undercurrent
of pessimism about the economy, the political system and the U.S. role in world
affairs." Pessimism cuts across incomes, race and regions, according to Washington Post opinion writer Dana Milbank who says he contacted the pollsters
directly. The wealthy are just as pessimistic as the poor are, and women
are as dour as men are. Hispanics are only slightly more optimistic than white
people are, and Westerners slightly more sunny than are those in other regions,
Milbank notes.
Absolute
Bubble Insanity: For Nearly Half A Billion Dollars, Here Is The World's Most
Expensive Penthouse - (www.zerohedge.com) Forget Hong Kong, London and New York: when it
comes to the pinnacle in absolute real estate insanity - perhaps in all of
history - look no further than James Bond's favorite gambling mecca, Monaco. It
is in this tiny Riviera principality where we find the Tour Odeon, a double-skyscraper being built by Groupe
Marzocco SAM near Monaco’s Mediterranean seafront, which will contain a 3,300
square-meter (35,500 square-foot) penthouse with a water slide connecting a
dance floor to a circular open-air swimming pool. The description is nice, but
it is the bottom line that is mindblowing: Bloomberg reports
that the apartment may sell for more than 300 million euros ($400 million)
when it goes on the market next year, French magazine Challenges reported.
That would make it the world’s most expensive penthouse, according to broker
Knight Frank LLP.
Ukraine separatist leader says rebels getting tanks and
reinforcements - (www.reuters.com)
California’s Record Heat Is Like Nothing You’ve Ever Seen... Yet - (www.bloomberg.com)
California’s Record Heat Is Like Nothing You’ve Ever Seen... Yet - (www.bloomberg.com)
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