Thursday, November 3, 2016

Friday November 4 20916 Housing and Economic stories


Arizona Obamacare Plan To Jump By 116 % When Premiums Go Up ... - (www.cbslocal.com) The Department of Health and Human Services revealed Monday that premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25 percent across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, and that about 1 in 5 consumers will have plans only from a single insurer to pick from, after major national carriers such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Aetna scaled back their roles. However, in Arizona, unsubsidized premiums for a hypothetical 27-year-old buying a benchmark “second-lowest cost silver plan” will jump by 116 percent, from $196 to $422, according to the administration report.

What the Heck is Going on with Rents? - (www.wolfstreet.com) But beneath the surface, a sea change is underway. Zumper: Among the top ten rental markets, we saw declines in both of the most expensive markets, San Francisco and New York, a trend that continued from last month, and half of the twenty priciest saw falling rents, including cities like San Diego, and Miami, and Honolulu. The market for two bedroom apartments seems to be slowing down even faster, as prices fell in nearly 60% of rental markets. All heck is breaking loose in San Francisco… But not because the economy has tanked in the most ludicrously expensive rental market in the US, which it has not. Enormous supply is flooding the market, thanks to a historic construction boom not only of apartment towers but also of condo towers, whose investor-owned units, now that selling them has become tough, are appearing on the rental market.

Tronc Trumbles After Gannett Terminates Acquisition – (www.zerohedge.com) Ultimately, Tribune's, pardon, Tronc's management and shareholders turned out to be too greedy for their own good. After Gannett had made two previous offers to acquire Tronc, the publisher of such newspapers as the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun, one in April for $12.25 a share and a second in May for $15 a share - both of which were rejected by Tronc’s board rejected both as too low and not in shareholders’ best interests - the two companies ultimately agreed on a $18.75 take out price. Alas, it was not meant to be and as we reported last week citing a Bloomberg article, the banks that were supposed to provide the debt financing for the transaction, pulled out "over concerns about the health of the two companies’ businesses at that valuation." So, after Gannett had been trying to buy Tronc for months to create a company with the scale to compete more aggressively with online news sites for national readers and advertisers, moments ago Gannett announced in a tersely worded press release that its was terminating discussions to acquire Tronc.

 

Slide continues for junk bond ETFs - (www.ft.com) Two of the largest junk bond exchange traded funds suffered their fifth straight day of losses on Monday, as last week’s sell-off in government bonds and the drop in oil prices reverberate across credit markets. The slide has knocked the biggest high-yield bond ETF — BlackRock’s $16bn iShares HYG — 1.6 per cent since it touched a record peak of $87.42 on October 24. The five-day decline is the ETF’s longest losing streak since May. State Street’s $11bn high-yield ETF — known by the ticker JNK — has slipped 1.7 per cent over the same period. 
The pair’s losses come after global government bond markets were rattled by rising inflation expectations last week. Yields on benchmark 10-year Treasuries, which rise as the bond price falls, climbed to the highest level since May on Thursday.

Credit indicators flash as world runs out of dollars - (www.telegraph.co.uk) Credit analysts are becoming nervous about the spread between Libor and the overnight index swap, the so-called Libor-OIS spread that is used to gauge problems in the plumbing of the credit system. It has widened to 38 basis points, near levels seen in the eurozone debt crisis and past bouts of stress. ... "Something more fundamental is at work. The cost of global capital is going up, full stop," Mr Jakobsen said. Long-term bond yields are also soaring as the markets question the logic of a $70 trillion debt edifice priced on assumptions of a deflationary liquidity trap lasting deep into the 21st Century. ... Marc Ostwald from ADM said the global dollar shortage is now palpable. "There is no depth to the market. The transmission mechanism is still broken and there is a poor level of liquidity as a result of regulations. Eventually things are going to explode," he said.




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