Thursday, July 18, 2013

Friday July 19 Housing and Economic stories


Millions told to work longer or cut spending to pay the mortgage - (www.telegraph.co.uk) Millions of homeowners have been warned they will have to work longer hours, or cut spending, to be able to pay the mortgage when interest rates start to rise. In a bleak warning, the Bank of England warned that just a small rise in rates from the current 0.5 to 1.5 per cent could cause significant levels of "borrower distress" and yet more bank losses. A rise to 2.5 per cent could force households holding 20 per cent of Britain's £1.3 trillion of mortgage debt to take some kind of action to keep up with repayments. This could include "cutting essential spending, earning more income or changing mortgage". The Bank's comments came in its latest Financial Stability Report, which said that last year, almost a fifth of mortgage holders had less than £200 of disposable income a month.

Junk-Loan Rates Soar on Record 43% on Debt as Buyers Balk - (www.bloomberg.com) Junk-rated companies agreed to boost interest rates on more U.S. loans than any time since at least 2011, as lenders extracted more compensation with prices of the floating-rate debt tumbling from a six-year high. Drug distributor Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. (VRX) to toothbrush-maker Water Pik Inc. were among companies that sweetened terms on $17.7 billion of loans in June, accounting for 43 percent of total deals, according to Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ Leveraged Commentary & Data. That’s 10 times greater than in May and the highest in data going back to January 2011. Twenty issuers failed to get loan financing, versus 22 for the first five months of the year, as the average price of the senior-ranking debt fell by the most since May 2012. Investors are demanding more in interest to fund the $550 billion market for leveraged loans after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke indicated the central bank could slow the pace of its stimulus if economic growth keeps pace with its forecasts. The comments triggered a surge in debt yields, causing a drop in loan prices as high-yield fund managers dumped the debt to mitigate losses on junk bonds.

'Unprecedented' $80 Billion Pulled From Bond Funds - (www.cnbc.com)  A record amount of money poured out of exchange-traded and mutual bond funds in June, according to a fresh report by TrimTabs, nearly double the amount pulled out of bond funds at the height of the financial crisis in October 2008. Investor fears over the scaling back of the U.S. Federal Reserve's bond purchasing program has seen the yield on 10-year Treasurys rise sharply to 2.5 percent as $80 billion left bond funds in June, according to the research. "The herd is scrambling for the exit this month as bond yields back up across the board and central bankers hint that they might provide less monetary stimulus in the future," TrimTabs CEO David Santschi said in a research note on Sunday. "We estimate that bond mutual funds have lost $70.8 billion in June through Thursday, June 27, while bond exchange-traded funds have lost $9.0 billion."

10 bubbles blowing into biggest crash in 30 years - (www.marketwatch.com) Yes, 2014 is an absolute total disaster just waiting to ignite. In “Doomsday poll: 87% risk of stock crash by year-end”we analyzed 10 major crash warnings since early this year. Since then, more incoming bogies raced across our radar screen. Ticking time bombs from Congress, the Supreme Court, sex, carbon emissions, Big Oil, NSA, IRS, Tea Party austerity. Relentless. Mind-numbing. So many are tuning out. Denial. Truth is, bubbles are everywhere. Ready to blow. The evidence is accelerating, with only one obvious conclusion: Max 98% risk at a flashpoint. This 2014 crash is virtually guaranteed. There’s but a narrow 2% chance of dodging this bullet. Here are the 10 bogies, drones targeting markets, stocks, bonds and the, global economy:

DOJ Takes Down 4 More For Rigging Bids at Foreclosure Auctions - (www.mortgagefraudblog.com) Wesley Barta, Oakland, California, Irma Galvez, Pacheco, California, Stan Kahan, Berkeley, California, and Joseph Vesce, San Francisco, four Northern California real estate investors, have agreed to plead guilty for their role in conspiracies to rig bids and commit mail fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions in Northern California. Felony charges were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland. To date, as a result of ongoing antitrust investigations into bid rigging and fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions in Northern California, 35 individuals, including Barta, Galvez, Kahan and Vesce, have agreed to plead or have pleaded guilty. According to court documents, for various lengths of time between June 2008 and January 2011, Barta and Vesce conspired with others not to bid against one another, but instead designated a winning bidder to obtain selected properties at public real estate foreclosure auctions in Contra Costa County, Calif.






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