Sunday, September 22, 2013

Monday September 23 Housing and Economic stories


Third bailout for Greece realistic: Eurogroup head - (www.reuters.com) Greece's financial troubles will not end in 2014 and it is therefore realistic to expect the debt-laden country will need additional money from the euro zone before it can return to markets, the head of euro zone finance ministers said. International lenders estimate that Greece will need around 10-11 billion euros ($13.1-14.4 billion) from the second half of 2014 to keep it going next year and in 2015. But several euro zone governments are reluctant to extend any further loans because of negative public opinion, with voters tired of bailing out other countries after three years of the sovereign debt crisis. "As far as the potential need for a third program for Greece is concerned, it's clear that despite recent progress, Greece's troubles will not have been completely resolved by 2014," Jeroen Dijsselbloem told the European Parliament.

Student loan bubble starting to burst - (www.cnbc.com)  The largest bank in the United States will stop making student loans in a few weeks. JPMorgan Chase has sent a memorandum to colleges notifying them that the bank will stop making new student loans in October,according to Reuters. The official reason is quite bland. "We just don't see this as a market that we can significantly grow," Thasunda Duckett tells Reuters. Duckett is the chief executive for auto and student loans at Chase, which means she's basically delivering the news that a large part of her business is getting closed down. The move is eerily reminiscent of the subprime shutdown that happened in 2007. Each time a bank shuttered its subprime unit, the news was presented in much the same way that JPMorgan is spinning the end of its student lending.

India scrambling to reduce oil bill inflated by sinking rupee - (www.reuters.com) India's top oil official is grasping at desperate measures to cut the country's oil costs by nearly $20 billion after the rupee's slide to record lows has left India facing an oil bill potentially 50 percent higher than on May 1. Oil Minister M. Veerappa Moily has suggested pricking the ballooning oil bill with everything from a street theatre campaign encouraging lower fuel use, to shutting fuel stations, to increasing imports from Iran. India's crude import bill was $144 billion last fiscal year - the largest part of its overall import costs. India, Asia's third-largest economy, imports about 80 percent of its oil, which accounts for about 30 percent of its energy needs. That has hit India hard over the last four months as the rupee fell 20 percent to record lows near 70 to the dollar. The economy is struggling with decade-low growth, a record current account deficit and a steep fiscal shortfall.

Falling Economic Tide in India Is Exposing Its Chronic Troubles - (www.nytimes.com) India had seemed tantalizingly close to embarking on the same dash for economic growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in China and across East Asia. Its economy now stands in disarray, with the prospect of worse to come in the next few months. Vinod Vanigota, a Mumbai wholesaler of imported computer hard drives, said sales dropped by a quarter in the last two weeks. The rupee, India’s currency, has been so volatile in recent days that he began revising his price lists every half-hour. Business activity at Chip Com Traders, where he is the managing director and co-owner, has slowed so sharply that trucking companies plead for business. “One of the companies called today and said, ‘Don’t you have a parcel of any sort for us to deliver today?’ ” Mr. Vanigota said. The economic decline has laid bare chronic problems, little remarked upon during the recent boom. An antiquated infrastructure, a sclerotic job market, exorbitant real estate costs and bloated state-owned enterprises never allowed manufacturing, especially manufacturing for export, to grow strong.

Currency Trade Reaches $5.3 Trillion a Day as Yen Turnover Jumps - (www.bloomberg.com) Foreign-exchange trading surged to an average $5.3 trillion a day in April 2013, boosted by greater yen volumes, the Bank for International Settlements said. Trading increased 33 percent since the same period in 2010, the BIS said, citing a survey of currency traders it runs every three years. That’s an acceleration from a 20 percent increase in the three years through 2010. The yen had the biggest jump in trading activity among major currencies, while the euro’s role as the second-most traded currency was reduced. Emerging-market currencies increased their share, with the Mexican peso entering the top 10 most-actively traded currencies. Volumes in the global foreign-exchange market are increasing as traders expand activities in developing nations and banks focus on the currency markets while stricter regulations after the financial crisis threaten earnings from other divisions. Transactions jumped this year as diverging economies stoked increasing swings in exchange rates.





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