Thursday, December 29, 2016

Friday December 30 2016 Housing and Economic stories


Even Single-Family Rentals Sink in Once Hottest Markets - (www.wolfstreet.com) Median asking rents in some of the most expensive markets in the US have started to decline on a year-over-year basis, with landlords throwing incentives into the mix, even where incentives are rare. This has hit the formerly hottest rental markets: San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Washington D.C., Chicago, Miami, and Honolulu. At the same time, rents are still rising in other cities. In Seattle, the median asking rent jumped 10% in November year-over-year, but even there, cracks are appearing. More on that in a moment. I’ve been reporting on this spreading phenomenon for months, most recently for November rents, based on rents in multi-family buildings, often owned by institutional investors. These markets are experiencing historic construction booms of apartment and condo towers (many condos end up on the rental market).

U.S. Startups Increasingly Tapping Debt Markets As VCs Pullback From Egregious Valuations - (www.zerohedge.com) After investing nearly $80 billion into startups in 2015, Venture Capitalists, growing slightly weary of the $1 billion valuations being handed out like candy to every 22 year old with an app that can replace your face with that of panda, have pulled back a bit in 2016 resulting in a 10% reduction in equity capital for America's graduating snowflakes.  But as Bloomberg points out, that's not a problem as many of Silicon Valley's revenue-free startups see debt capital as a better alternative anyway...sure, what could go wrong? Venture deals in 2016—for all but the hottest startups, anyway—required founders to give up more equity in exchange for less money than they did last year. So, despite cautionary tales from tech blog GigaOm and game console maker Ouya, which both flamed out after failing to pay back lenders, U.S. startups have loaded up on debt, enabling them to borrow money without ceding a potentially lucrative stake.

Exclusive: Investors shun Italian bank Monte Paschi's share offer - sources - (www.reuters.com) Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI) has all but failed to pull off a last-ditch rescue plan and a state bailout for the ailing Italian bank now looks inevitable, sources said on Wednesday. Confirming an earlier Reuters report, the bank said late on Wednesday it had failed to secure an anchor investor for its offer of new shares, which has just hours left to run. Two sources close to the matter told Reuters this had in turn dissuaded other institutional investors from supporting this part of the 5 billion euros ($5.2 billion) rescue plan. The bank needs to raise the money in the share offer and a separate debt-for-equity swap by the end of this month to avert being wound down by regulators, a move that would rock confidence in the euro zone's fourth-largest banking sector.

Paschi Falls to Record as Investors Balk, Liquidity Dries Up - (www.bloomberg.com) Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA will probably fail to lure sufficient demand for a 5 billion-euro ($5.2 billion) capital raise, said people with knowledge of the matter, making a state rescue likely. No anchor investor has shown interest in the recapitalization so far, the Siena-based company said in a statement late Wednesday after a board meeting. Two debt-for-equity swap offers will raise about 2 billion euros, with investors converting bonds for about 2.5 billion euros, the lender said. Qatar’s sovereign-wealth fund, which had considered an investment, hasn’t committed to buying shares, people with knowledge of the matter have said. 

Spanish banks face $4.2 billion hit from European court's loan ruling - (www.reuters.com) Spanish banks must repay customers more than 4 billion euros ($4.2 billion) after Europe's top court overturned on Wednesday a Spanish ruling that capped liabilities relating to a disputed mortgage clause, posing a new challenge to some lenders. Banks will have to compensate customers for what they lost even before May 2013, when Spain's Supreme Court declared the mortgages invalid if the terms had not been presented clearly. The home loans had an interest rate that could not fall below a certain level meaning customers missed out when rates dropped beneath this level. New charges resulting from Wednesday's ruling by the European Court of Justice could eat into bank earnings, which have already been eroded by record low interest rates and fierce competition for a shrunken loan pool, and encourage more mergers.


Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Thursday December 29 2016 Housing and Economic stories


IPOs had Worst Year since 2003. And the Dow at 20,000? - (www.wolfstreet.com) Stock indices are frolicking in record territory. The S&P 500 is up almost 11% this year, though the gains came after the election. The Dow has been titillating the entire world, day after day, with the prospect of finally, finally hitting 20,000 after being just a hair shy of it for two weeks. So it would seem that the IPO market would be hot. But for IPOs, 2016 has turned out to be a fabulously terrible year. That makes two years in a row. Last year at this time, I wrote that the IPO market in 2015 had been the worst since the Financial Crisis. I quoted Sam Kendall, UBS global head of equity capital markets:

Italy To Nationalize Monte Paschi After Private Sector Rescue Fails - (www.zerohedge.com) Update: the FT writes that the Italian govt set to take a stake between 50% and 70% in Monte dei Paschi, up from the current 4% stake, as part of the government's third bailout in as many years. As the FT adds, "the government rescue, which had long been resisted in Rome, is designed to draw a line under the slow-burn crisis in Italian banking that has alarmed investors and become the main source of concern for European financial regulators." It remains to be seen if Germany, long a critic of state bailouts, will be as agreeable. Meanwhile, Pier Carlo Padoan, the Italin finmin, insisted that apart from a few “critical” situations, Italy’s banking system was “solid and healthy”. He vowed to “minimise, if not erase” any impact of the public intervention on the savings of ordinary citizens. The third bailout, and re-nationalization, of Italy's third largest banks is imminent following a Reuters report that the ongoing, JPM-led attempt to execute a complex private sector bailout of Monte Paschi has failed.

Saving Italy’s Banks Means Missing Public Debt Target Once Again - (www.bloomberg.com) Italian governments may come and go, but the debts they have to deal with just keep mounting. Next year will probably bring more of the same with a new reason: the possible last-ditch rescue of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, the country’s third-biggest bank, as well as other troubled banks. At a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni decided to ask the Rome-based parliament to approve up to 20 billion euros ($21 billion) in additional financing that could be used as a precautionary fund to rescue troubled lenders. “Such an addition inevitably means that the reduction of the debt ratio would be delayed further," said Loredana Federico, an economist at UniCredit Bank AG in Milan.

Percentage of Young Americans Living With Parents Rises to 75-Year High - (www.wsj.com) Household formations by millennials lag behind other economic recoveries; high rents, mortgage standards cited. Almost 40% of young Americans were living with their parents, siblings or other relatives in 2015, the largest percentage since 1940, according to an analysis of census data by real estate tracker Trulia. Despite a rebounding economy and recent job growth, the share of those between the ages of 18 and 34 doubling up with parents or other family members has been rising since 2005. Back then, before the start of the last recession, roughly one out of three were living with family. The trend runs counter to that of previous economic cycles, when after a recession-related spike, the number of younger Americans living with relatives declined as the economy improved.

Modi losing friends as anger grows over Indian cash crackdown – (www.reuters.com) A leading political ally of Narendra Modi has abruptly distanced himself from the Indian prime minister's move to scrap high-value banknotes, as broad initial support for the radical monetary reform showed signs of crumbling. The shift by N. Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, came six weeks after Modi announced to a stunned nation that he would scrap 86 percent of the cash in circulation. While Modi remains by far India's most popular politician, any crack in his authority could have negative implications in state elections next year that will set the tone for his expected bid for a second term in 2019.


Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Wednesday December 28 2016 Housing and Economic stories


Companies Face Delays Getting Cash Out of China - (www.wsj.com) French construction-materials company Cie. de Saint-Gobain SA, is finding it harder to take its money out of China. The conglomerate—like all multinationals operating there—faces new delays in recent weeks as Chinese regulators impose tougher restrictions on the movement of capital out of the country to slow the yuan’s decline. “The process of authorization is going to become longer now,” said Javier Gimeno, who heads Saint-Gobain’s China operations. “The procedures will be controlled more strictly.” Nearly 7% of Saint-Gobain’s world-wide group sales come from Asia and Oceania, a large part of that from China. The new rules are adding confusion and anxiety to a process that had been getting much easier over the past year, he said. The shift could cause some multinationals to rethink future investments in a country where once-sure payoffs are suddenly facing an uncertain return, analysts say.

China Must Curb Speculation Amid Bubble, Top Official Says - (www.bloomberg.com) China must do more to deflate a property bubble that expanded this year by "strictly" controlling speculation while also stepping up the fight to rein in excessive corporate borrowing, a top economic official said a day after leaders announced plans for next year. "We need to give a higher priority to preventing and controlling financial risks," Yang Weimin, deputy director of the Office of the Central Leading Group on Finance and Economic Affairs, said Saturday at a forum in Beijing. "We need to defuse a flurry of risks, contain asset bubbles, and improve oversight to ensure there won’t be a systemic financial risk."

Young Americans Piled Into Some Horrendous ETF Trades Right After the Election  - (www.bloomberg.com) Mimicking President-elect Donald Trump — who has called himself "the king of debt" — risk-loving millennials used exchange-traded funds that employed leverage to juice their returns in the wake of the real-estate mogul's election victory. That didn't work out so well for them. With preferences for gold and volatility, however, they were largely in line with what the consensus called for in the event of a Trump victory —  in other words, far off the mark. "From triple X leveraged products to Vanguard, Millennials have shown they favor the extremes in terms of their growing ETF usage," said Bloomberg Intelligence ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas. "However, when it comes to calling the Trump rally, they weren't alone in getting it wrong — every generation thought gold would rally."

Protests, looting break out in Venezuela after 100-Bolivar note eliminated – (www.reuters.com) Protests and looting broke out in parts of Venezuela on Friday due to a lack of cash after the socialist government suddenly pulled the nation's largest banknote from circulation in the midst of a brutal economic crisis. An opposition legislator said there were three deaths amid violent scenes in the southern mining town of Callao - but there was no confirmation of that from the government. Waving the now-worthless 100-bolivar bills, pockets of demonstrators blocked roads, demanded that stores accept the cash, and cursed President Nicolas Maduro in a string of towns and cities around Venezuela, witnesses said. Dozens of shops were looted in various places. Last weekend, Maduro gave Venezuelans three days to ditch the 100-bolivar bills, arguing that the measure was needed to combat mafias on the Colombia border despite warnings from some economists that it risked sparking chaos.

Italy seeks up to €20bn to prop up fragile lenders - (www.ft.com) Parliamentary approval sought to protect banks as possible state rescue of MPS nears. The Italian government has asked parliament to authorise up to €20bn to prop up the country’s most fragile banks, as it prepares to mount a possible state rescue of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, its third-largest lender, by the end of the week. After a cabinet meeting late on Monday, Pier Carlo Padoan, the finance minister, said that the funds could be used to ensure liquidity and to reinforce capital for Italian banks. “Should it be activated, this measure to protect savings would have an impact on the debt,” Mr Padoan said. “The nature of this measure is that it would be temporary,” he added.


Monday, December 26, 2016

Tuesday December 27 2016 Housing and Economic stories


“Car Recession” Bites GM: Inventory Glut, Layoffs, Plant Shutdowns - (www.wolfstreet.com) GM has been reacting to its fabulously ballooning inventory glut by piling incentives on its vehicles. But that hasn’t worked all that well though it cost a lot of money. Now it’s time to get serious. It will temporarily close five assembly plants in January and lay off over 10,000 employees, spokeswoman Dayna Hart said today. Plants that assemble cars will be hit, according to the AP: The company’s Detroit-Hamtramck factory and Fairfax Assembly plant in Kansas City, Kansas, each will be shut down for three weeks, while a plant in Lansing, Michigan, will be down for two weeks. Factories in Lordstown, Ohio, and Bowling Green, Kentucky, each will be idled for one week.

Brace Yourself For Italy's Bankruptcy - (www.zerohedge.com) Then came the euro. Since 1999 Italian stocks have underperformed German stock by 65%, and since 2003 Italian factory output has lagged Germany’s by 40%. Thus, summarizes Charles, in this short essay,  "The diagnosis is simply that Italy has become woefully uncompetitive, and as a result, is not solvent. This much is clear from the perilous state of its banking system, which is always the outcome when banks lend to firms that have been rendered uncompetitive by some reckless central banker..., This has to be the most well-telegraphed, and now inevitable, national bankruptcy that I have seen in my 45-year career."

Housing Starts Dive 18.7 Percent: Mortgage Rates Soar - (www.mishtalk.com) The often volatile housing starts numbers took another dive this report, down 18.7% in November according to the Census Bureau New Residential Construction report for November 2016. Mortgage rates have risen 104 basis points (1.04 percentage points) since July 8. As I have pointed out, this is bound to affect the housing market sooner or later. Sooner means now. Each quarter-point hike will affect mortgage rates correspondingly until the long end of the curve refuses to rise further. At that point, we will be in recession. Still think three hikes are coming in 2017?

January 2017 Earnings Is Going To Be a Bloodbath – (www.zerohedge.com) With the run up in financials and energies for the last month we are going to experience big $5 chunks taken out of these stocks and massive after hours and pre-market gap downs that will cause entire sectors to sell off during earnings in January. It is just going to be brutal, expect 500 point down days in the Dow during this upcoming earnings period. ... Not to mention all the other broken companies that have been lifted up in this 4th quarter rally, and are going to be taken out to the woodshed for a red beating when they report. Throw in all those idiot investors who don`t take profits for tax reasons who will wish they did as everybody sells in the new year at the same time running for the tax exits together, and this January 2017 Earning`s period is going to be outright one of the worst we have seen since last January`s massive stock selloff.

Goldman Warns China Outflows Rising in Both Yuan Payments, Forex - (www.reuters.com) China’s capital outflows are accelerating and the central bank is selling larger amounts of foreign exchange, Goldman Sachs Group Inc warned as the yuan headed for its biggest annual decline in more than 20 years. A net $69.2 billion exited the nation in November, compared with a monthly pace of around $50 billion since June, Goldman economists led by Hong Kong-based MK Tang wrote in a note Friday. Money has been leaving in yuan payments for 14 consecutive months, while the central bank’s yuan positions have slumped the most since January. The situation could get worse, said Banny Lam, head of research at CEB International Investment Ltd.


Sunday, December 25, 2016

Monday December 26 2016 Housing and Economic stories


Italy Banking Crisis is Also a Huge Crime Scene - (www.wolfstreet.com) The Bank of Italy’s Target 2 liabilities towards other Eurozone central banks — one of the most important indicators of banking stress — has risen by €129 billion in the last 12 months through November to €358.6 billion. That’s well above the €289 billion peak reached in August 2012 at the height of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. Foreign and local investors are dumping Italian government bonds and withdrawing their funding to Italian banks. The bank at the heart of Italy’s financial crisis, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), has bled €6 billion of “commercial direct deposits” between September 30 and December 13, €2 billion of which since December 4, the date of Italy’s constitutional referendum.

Gone in 60 Seconds: Chinese Snap Up Dollar Funds as Yuan Tanks - (www.bloomberg.com) Chinese savers, eager to convert their yuan before the currency keeps depreciating, are snapping up U.S. dollar investment products that offer options for keeping money at home instead of sending it overseas. The latest wealth management products from China Merchants Bank Co. in Shanghai last week, paying 2.37 percent annual interest on U.S. dollars, sold out in 60 seconds flat. "You won’t be able to get it online because it’s gone in less than a minute," said a branch manager, who would only give the surname Xu, and encourages customers to book a day in advance next time.

Companies Face Delays Getting Cash Out of China - (www.wsj.com) French construction-materials company Cie. de Saint-Gobain SA, is finding it harder to take its money out of China. The conglomerate—like all multinationals operating there—faces new delays in recent weeks as Chinese regulators impose tougher restrictions on the movement of capital out of the country to slow the yuan’s decline. “The process of authorization is going to become longer now,” said Javier Gimeno, who heads Saint-Gobain’s China operations. “The procedures will be controlled more strictly.” Nearly 7% of Saint-Gobain’s world-wide group sales come from Asia and Oceania, a large part of that from China. The new rules are adding confusion and anxiety to a process that had been getting much easier over the past year, he said. The shift could cause some multinationals to rethink future investments in a country where once-sure payoffs are suddenly facing an uncertain return, analysts say.

Key HK renminbi lending rate stuck at exactly 10% for second straight day - (www.ft.com) A key lending rate in Hong Kong for renminbi lending has dug its heels in at 10 per cent, unchanged from Friday’s unusually round level. The Hong Kong interbank borrowing rate for offshore renminbi (CNH) overnight loans (CNH Hibor) had dropped 1.76367 percentage points to be exactly 10 per cent on Friday. The level was still five times higher than the high end of the overnight rate’s usual range of 1 to 2 per cent. Analysts have voiced suspicions that spikes in CNH Hibor this year may have reflected intervention by The People’s Bank of China to sop up liquidity in the offshore market, thereby driving up the cost of betting on continued renminbi devaluation.

"Everyone Is Nervous" - Chinese Bond Bloodbath Reawakens As Hong Kong Stocks Turn Red For 2016  (www.zerohedge.com) After a brief respite, the bloodbath in Chinese bonds is back, with futures plunging back to lows overnight amid liquidity fears (short-term lending rates are inverted) and growing anxiety over China's almost unprecedented debtload. As The Wall Street Journal reports, a gradual tightening of short-term credit by China’s central bank - combined with rumors of liquidity squeezes at brokers - prompted a mini-rout in the country’s $8 trillion-plus bond market last week, forcing authorities to reverse course and inject some $86 billion in short- and medium-term funds. China’s total debt surged to around $27 trillion this year, or 260% of gross domestic product, compared with 154% in 2008 at the start of a stimulus program to offset the financial crisis. It is continuing to grow at more than twice the pace of the economy.



Thursday, December 22, 2016

Friday December 23 2016 Housing and Economic stories


How Will Homebuyers Swallow these Mortgage Rates?  - (www.wolfstreet.com) Many of them say they won’t. And they can’t. It’s called sticker shock: you look at something that you very rarely buy, and when you see how much it would set you back, you go into shock. This is what is happening with mortgage rates when potential homebuyers figure how much the monthly payment would be for a given house. On Friday, lenders quoted conventional 30-year fixed-rate mortgages between 4.375% and 4.5% for prime borrowers. While that’s still historically low, it’s up well over half a percentage point over the last four weeks, the highest since April 2014, and up over a full percentage point from many low points during this period. Home prices have soared in recent years, in part due to historically low mortgage rates. But today’s higher mortgage rates make those homes a lot more expensive in terms of the monthly payment, at a time when home “affordability” in many cities is already a huge issue for what remains of the middle class.

TrimTabs Issues Warning After A Record $98 Billion Flood Equity ETF Since The Election - (www.zerohedge.com) Having recently (before the election) found that stock buybacks have tumbled to the lowest level in 5 years, coupled with the lowest amount of insider buying since 2011, this morning TrimTabs Investment Research reported what regular readers already know, namely that U.S. equity exchange-traded funds received a record $97.6 billion from Tuesday, November 8 through Thursday, December 15, promptly TrimTabs to ask if "investors are all-in on US stocks?"
“The stampede into U.S. equity ETFs since the election has been nothing short of breathtaking,” said David Santschi, chief executive officer at TrimTabs.  “The inflow since Election Day is equal to one and a half times the inflow of $61.5 billion in all of last year.  One has to wonder who’s left to buy.”

Ukraine’s No. 1 Bank to Be Nationalized as Tycoons’ Rescue Fails - (www.bloomberg.com) Ukraine will nationalize its No. 1 bank as the former Soviet republic concludes a cleanup of ailing lenders and seeks to snuff out threats to economic recovery. The government will take 100 percent of PJSK Privatbank after its billionaire shareholders requested help, according to an announcement late Sunday. Home to a third of retail deposits, the lender had a capital shortage of 148 billion hryvnia ($5.6 billion) on Dec. 1, the central bank said. While savers are protected, Eurobond holders must help plug the gap. Privatbank’s fate has loomed large over efforts to stabilize the financial industry following a recession brought on by revolution and a separatist conflict. Addressing the lender’s struggles is key to preserving Ukraine’s $17.5 billion bailout, resuming the flow of credit and preventing a disorderly collapse later on. 

Rising Rates Ripple Through Mortgage Market - (www.wsj.com) The era of ultralow mortgage rates is over. The Federal Reserve’s decision to raise the federal-funds target rate by a quarter of a percentage point Wednesday means borrowing is about to get more expensive for consumers. Some homeowners also will feel the pain, in particular those who signed up for home-equity lines of credit, adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) and other variable-rate loans. Interest rates on these loans tend to rise after rate increases, resulting in larger payments for borrowers. The Fed’s rate increase is the second blow in the past five weeks for mortgage lenders and borrowers. Rates on plain-vanilla, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have surged since Election Day by 0.76 percentage point, bringing them to an average of 4.38% on Thursday—their highest rate since April 2014, according to MortgageNewsDaily.com.

How David Cameron lost his battle for Britain - (www.ft.com) David Cameron began 2016 in 10 Downing Street and ended it at DePauw Universityin a small Indiana town, speaking for a reported £120,000 an hour. The former British prime minister is now paid almost as much for a 60-minute speech as he used to earn in a year, as he tries to make sense of his own historic failure: Brexit. Whatever he says now, Mr Cameron’s political epitaph is already written. Peter Mandelson, former British trade minister and European commissioner, said: “History will remember David Cameron simply as the prime minister who took us out of the EU. I don’t think there will be anything else. A man who took this tactical risk, which then turned into a strategic blunder.”