Sunday, March 20, 2016

Monday March 21 2016 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:

Oil Crash Risks $19 Billion Wave of Junk Debt Defaults - (www.bloomberg.com)  Investors are facing $19 billion in energy defaults as the worst oil crash in a generation leaves drillers struggling to stay afloat. The wave could begin within days if Energy XXI Ltd., SandRidge Energy Inc. and Goodrich Petroleum Corp. fail to reach agreements with creditors and shareholders. Those are three of at least eight oil and gas producers that have announced missed debt payments, triggering a countdown to default. "Shale was a hot growth area and companies made the mistake of borrowing too much," said George Schultze, founder and chief investment officer of Schultze Asset Management in New York, which has been betting against several distressed energy companies. 

Investors risk appetite grows for stock, junk funds -Lipper - (www.reuters.com) Investors showed renewed appetite for risk in the past week, with U.S.-based taxable debt funds taking in the most cash in a year and stock funds posting net inflows for the first time in 2016, Lipper data released on Thursday showed. U.S.-based stock funds attracted $4.6 billion in net new cash during the week ended March 9, the data showed, breaking a nine-week streak of outflows. Taxable bond mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in the United States attracted $5.8 billion in net new cash, their seventh straight week of inflows, Lipper said. Investment-grade corporate debt funds took in $2.1 billion, while high-yield junk bond funds took in $1.8 billion, their fourth straight week of inflows.

Sao Paulo Prosecutors Charge Brazil's Lula With Money Laundering - (www.nytimes.com) State prosecutors in Brazil are seeking the arrest of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on charges of money laundering and identity fraud for concealing ownership of a beachfront apartment, his foundation said on Thursday. The effort to arrest the former president raised the stakes dramatically in a crisis threatening to topple his successor, President Dilma Rousseff, and was likely to further polarize protests on Sunday calling for her impeachment. Lula's foundation called the motion to arrest the president "more proof of the partiality" of Sao Paulo state prosecutor Cassio Conserino. The motion requires the approval of a judge, which is highly unlikely, according to a presidential aide who asked not to be named given the sensitivity of the case.

It's payback time for emerging markets' $1.6 trillion debt - (www.nytimes.com)  Recent signs of stabilisation in emerging markets may merely be the calm before the storm - a $1.6 trillion (£1.1 trillion) debt mountain is due for repayment in the next five years, a steep rise in maturities that could stir fresh trouble. The debt-servicing hump - with annual repayments jumping by more than $100 billion by 2020 compared with 2015 - is a result of a borrowing spree after the 2008 financial crisis. From African governments to Turkish banks, developing world borrowers flogged their debt on hard-currency bond markets in post-crisis years, encouraged by near-zero U.S. interest rates that sent investors hunting for higher yields.

The Vacant Condos in Vancouver - (www.wolfstreet.com) To get a grip on the problem, the city commissioned a report last year, and the results were just presented to the City Council. The idea was to figure out how many homes were vacant, presumably owned by absentee investors. These vacant homes have been a hot topic. “Home buyers and prospective renters have fretted for years that investors were snapping up homes and leaving them empty, cutting supply and boosting prices in the process,” as the Financial Post put it. The report analyzed residential electricity consumption via a decade’s worth of anonymized data provided by BC Hydro, the electric utility. A home was considered non-occupied for the year if electricity use, which normally varies dramatically during the day, showed little variability in each of the “non-heating months August, September, and the following June and July. And one thing stood out: 12.5% of the condos were deemed non-occupied.



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