Real estate agents work very hard and deal with a wide array of emotions on a day to day basis. Sometimes, it’s an hour by hour basis! Sometimes, we need a little something to unwind, or to perk up, or to celebrate, or to drown our sorrows in. Basically, there’s always a reason for an agent to need a drink, so here’s the top ten list of drinks for real estate agents.. Drink responsibly!
1. The Broker Blues – The time when you don’t have any pending deals. You’re feeling sorry for yourself and wondering why the hell you work in real estate.
Ingredients:
½ oz. Blue Curaco
½ oz. Vodka
A squeeze of lime juice
Shake with ice and strain into a shot gloss. Repeat, as necessary.
2. The New Listing Lemon Drop – When you get a new listing and you’re feeling your inner Superhero coming back, baby!
Ingredients:
1 ½ oz. Vodka
½ oz. Triple Sec
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. lemon juice
Maraschino cherry
Mix Vodka,Triple Sec,sugar,and lemon juice in a cocktail shaker half-filled with ice; shake well until sugar is well blended. Pour strained liquor into sugar-rimmed martini glass and don’t forget to garnish with a cherry on top! Note: To create a sugar-rimmed glass, take a lemon wedge and rub the rim of the glass. Dip the edge of the glass into superfine sugar.
3. The Red Hot Realtor – You’re dominating the market. You have homes flying off the streets and clients lining up wanting your help. You’re on fire! This drink is simple, because you don’t have time to make anything complicated.
Ingredients:
1 8oz. glass of 7-up
1 shot of Fireball Cinnamon Whisky
4. The All-Nighter – You’ve had a long day. You spent hours on the phone and computer pulling comps, setting up showings and answering calls and emails. You have offers to respond to and draft, and you know you’ll be up late tonight. The All-Nighter drink has your back. It’s also simple and knows you don’t have the time to measure and bust out a ton of ingredients.
Ingredients:
Red Bull Energy Drink
1 shot of Captain Morgan’s spiced rum
1 shot of orange juice
5. The Home Wrecker – The day the inspection or appraisal kills the deal. You need something STRONG! Also called the Long Island Iced Tea, this is one of the strongest and most alcoholic drinks ever created. It’s also delicious. It also helps take away your anger, bitterness, and extreme sorrow!
Ingredients:
1 shot of vodka
1 shot of rum
1 shot of tequila
1 shot of gin
1 shot of triple sec
1 lemon wedge
Coke
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add the spirits and the juice from a squeezed lemon and shake like hell. Pour into a tall glass, add ice and slowly pour the coke on top of the ice. The less coke you add, the better you will feel.
6. The Double Agent Dance – This is when you’re acting as both the listing agent and buyer’s agent. You know you have a lot of work ahead of you, and that it requires a delicate dance. This drink is also known as The Dancing Goldfish.
Ingredients:
1 bottle of white wine (chardonnay or white zinfandel are best)
12 oz. of 7-Up
12 oz. Peach Schnapps
1 can of mandarin oranges
Over ice and in a large pitcher, pour in wine and peach schnapps. Stir in mandarin oranges and 7-Up. Serve in tall glass with ice and watch the fishes dance! Keep refilling to keep the fishes alive!
7. The Orgasm – When you’ve worked so long and so hard, and given all you can, and you finally get the satisfaction of a job well done. The build-up has been intense, and then… you get an OFFER! You explode with relief!! Also known as a Screaming Orgasm (if the offer was all cash or over asking)! There’s no better feeling in the world. 😉
Ingredients:
1 oz. Bailey’s
1 oz. Kahlua
1 oz. Vodka
1 oz. Amaretto
Makes one shot. Can be doubled for a Multiple Orgasm.
8. The Hail Mary – When you have a deal hanging by a thread and you need that one last burst of energy or negotiation super power to get the deal done. This is when you need your Hail Mary, also known as a Bloody Mary.
Ingredients:
1 ½ oz. vodka
3 oz. tomato juice
1 tbsp. lemon juice
½ tsp. worcestershire sauce
3 drops of tabasco sauce
½ tbsp. horseradish
salt, pepper
Mix everything together and pour into a tall glass. Garnish with lemon or lime wedge, celery stalk, green onion, pickled green bean, rotisserie chicken or anything you have laying around the kitchen.
9. The Superman – It’s closing day! You did your job, did it very well, and made it look easy. You finally got your hard-earned paycheck and saved the world for your client. You feel like a Superhero, and if this isn’t your drink of choice, then a beer will never taste better than after a closing! Cheers!
Ingredients:
1/2 oz Stoli Blueberi vodka
1/2 oz Absolut vanilla vodka
1/2 oz Bacardi white rum
1/2 oz Malibu coconut rum
1/2 oz Blue Curacao liqueur
1 1/2 oz pineapple juice
Cranberry Juice
Sprite
Fill shaker with ice and add all of the alcoholic ingredients and pineapple juice and shake till frothy. Pour mixture into a tall glass, then add a quick pour of Sprite and top with a splash of cranberry juice. This will layer red, white, and blue into the glass and will rejuvenate your super-hero powers!
10. Love Potion – When your happy clients refer you to a friend or family member and you get to start all over again, and your love for the wacky world of real estate is renewed.
Ingredients:
1 oz Grey Goose Vodka
1 oz amaretto almond liqueur
1 oz peach schnapps
1 oz orange juice
1 oz cranberry juice Pour ingredients into a shaker with ice, shake and serve on the rocks. Now get to work and go party!
Losing a listing can be a huge hit to a realtor’s psyche, reputation, and pocket book. It is common for a seller to switch real estate agents if their house does not sell in the time frame of the listing agreement. Sometimes the realtor does a poor job at marketing the property and other times the house is just overpriced. Neither situation was the case for Jason Bruce, a 34-year-old real estate salesman in Cincinnati. During a general inspection, Jason stepped out to the backyard to have a cigarette. “I only smoke when I’m drinking or if I’m stressed,” Jason claimed. “I had a showing across town and the inspector was taking forever. I thought I might have to push back my appointment, so I decided to rip a heater.”
According to the Cincinnati Fire Department, Jason flicked his cigarette into some native foliage that flowed into the wooden deck out back. After his smoke, Jason went upstairs and ended up having a lengthy conversation about the air conditioning unit with the inspector. “I had no idea what the hell he was even talking about. He went on for like an hour about the dirty filter or some sh** and before I knew it the den was in flames,” said Jason. The pair immediately called the fire department, but it was too late. The house burnt to the ground in less than two hours as the firemen managed to save the guest house. Nobody was injured. The seller has remained silent, but is taking legal action on Jason, who blamed the incident on the inspector. It is safe to say that Jason will not be getting an extension on the listing agreement.
A Movement Of Staunch Conservatives And Doomsday-Watchers To The Inland North-West Is Quietly Gaining Steam
ASKED by an out-of-stater where the nearest shooting range is, Patrick Leavitt, an affable gunsmith at Riverman Gun Works in Coeur d’Alene, says: “This is Idaho—you can shoot pretty much anywhere away from buildings.” That is one reason why the sparsely populated state is attracting a growing number of “political refugees” keen to slip free from bureaucrats in America’s liberal states, says James Wesley, Rawles (yes, with a comma), an author of bestselling survivalist novels. In a widely read manifesto posted in 2011 on his survivalblog.com, Mr Rawles, a former army intelligence officer, urged libertarian-leaning Christians and Jews to move to Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and a strip of eastern Oregon and Washington states, a haven he called the “American Redoubt”.
Thousands of families have answered the call, moving to what Mr Rawles calls America’s last big frontier and most easily defendable terrain. Were hordes of thirsty, hungry, panicked Americans to stream out of cities after, say, the collapse of the national grid, few looters would reach the mostly mountainous, forested and, in winter, bitterly cold Redoubt. Big cities are too far away. But the movement is driven by more than doomsday “redoubters”, eager to homestead on land with lots of water, fish, and big game nearby. The idea is also to bring in enough strongly conservative voters to keep out the regulatory creep smothering liberty in places like California, a state many redoubters disdainfully refer to as “the C-word”.
Estimates of the numbers moving into the Redoubt are sketchy, partly because many seek a low profile. Mr Rawles himself will not reveal which state he chose, not wanting to be overrun when “everything hits the fan”. But Chris Walsh of Revolutionary Realty says growing demand has turned into such a “massive upwelling” that he now sells about 140 properties a year in the north-western part of the Redoubt, its heart. To manage, Mr Walsh, a pilot, keeps several vehicles at landing strips to which he flies clients from his base near Coeur d’Alene.
Many seek properties served not with municipal water but with a well or stream, ideally both, just in case. More than nine out of every ten Revolutionary Realty clients either buy a home off the grid or plan to sever the connection and instead use firewood, propane and solar panels, often storing the photovoltaic power in big forklift batteries bought second-hand. They also plan to educate their children at home. The remoter land preferred by lots of “off-the-gridders” is often cheap. Revolutionary Realty sells sizeable plots for as little as $30,000. After that, settlers can mostly build as they please.
Lance Etche, a Floridian, recently moved his family into the Redoubt after the writings of Mr Rawles stirred in him “the old mountain-man independence spirit—take care of yourself and don’t complain.” He chose a plot near Canada outside Bonners Ferry, Idaho, cleared an area with a view, put down gravel, “and they dropped the thing [a so-called “skid house”, transported by lorry] right on top of it”, he says—no permit required.
Some newcomers are Democrats keen to get back to nature, grow organic food or, in Oregon and Washington, benefit from permissive marijuana laws. Not all conservatives dislike this as much as Bonny Dolly, a Bonners Ferry woman in her 60s who says: “We don’t want liberals, that’s for sure,” and carries a .45-calibre handgun “because they don’t make a .46”. But lefties who move in and hope to finance tighter regulations with higher taxes often get the cold shoulder. Mr Walsh weeds out lefties from the start, politely declining to show them property, noting that they wouldn’t fit in anyway. This discrimination is legal, he says, because political factions, unlike race or sexual orientation, are not legally protected classes.
A Red Dawn:
Todd Savage, who runs Survival Retreat Consulting in Sandpoint, Idaho, works with the more usual sort of client: political migrants who rail against “morally corrupt” nanny government elsewhere. He does a brisk business helping them set up their food-producing fortress-homesteads. Staff train clients in defensive landscaping, how to repel an assault on their property with firearms, and the erection of structures “hardened” to withstand forced entry and chemical, biological, radiological or explosive attack.
Very few redoubters, however, wish to secede from the United States. The Confederacy’s attempt fared badly, notes Mr Rawles. He did, however, exclude the politically conservative but mostly flat Dakotas from the Redoubt because mechanised units could manoeuvre easily there. The same went for swathes of Utah, a state also left out because it has little water.
Purists have criticized him for including eastern Oregon and Washington in the Redoubt, since their larger liberal populations near the west coast dominate state politics. But he believes that the designation will quicken efforts in the eastern reaches to form new, freedom-minded states within a generation. As Mr Walsh puts it, easterners’ taxes get them “nothing back except for a bunch more rules” from socialist bureaucrats.
As for doomsday itself, redoubters differ. Mr Rawles considers the most likely cause to be a geomagnetic solar storm like the Carrington Event in 1859, when a coronal mass ejection from the sun generated sparks in telegraph lines, setting some buildings on fire. Had the nearly 3,000 transformers that underpin America’s grid existed then, a quarter of them would have burned up, according to Storm Analysis Consultants in Duluth, Minnesota. Some redoubters have signed up to receive a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration alert of any approaching solar storm like the big one that blew across Earth’s path on July 23rd 2012, missing the planet by days.
Alternatively, a nuclear explosion 450km above the central United States would produce enough high-energy free electrons in the atmosphere below to fry the grid and unshielded electronics in all states except Alaska and Hawaii. Conceivably, and unpredictably, North Korea or Iran might dare to launch such a missile.
A more likely catastrophe, Mr Rawles believes, would be a pandemic virulent enough to cause the breakdown of the national sewerage system as well as the grid. Mr Savage, for his part, worries most about a “slow slide into socialism” akin to “death by a thousand cuts, right, you just keep whittling away at liberty” by, for example, restricting gun sales. Some of his firm’s clients fear that bankers may deliberately collapse the financial system in order to introduce a single global currency.
The dominant view is simply that institutions and infrastructure are more fragile than most believe, says Dave Westbrook, an American Redoubt consultant homesteading north-west of Sandpoint. Videos sold by his firm, Country Lifestyle Solutions, show redoubters how to assess the viability of off-grid properties, plant orchards and tend crops. But paranoia is out there, says Ben Ortize, the pastor of Grace Sandpoint Church. Terrorism, and the widespread belief that President Barack Obama’s progressive agenda is naive, have fuelled strong support for Donald Trump in the Redoubt, which has a disproportionately large population of former policemen, firemen and soldiers. To calm them down, he tells his flock that the Bible advises them to trust in the Lord, rather than in shotguns and Tasers.
The area’s bad rap is sometimes undeserved. “Hate in America: A Town on Fire”, a recent Discovery Channel broadcast about Kalispell, Montana, attempted to conflate gun-lovers who recoil at big government with the few white supremacists shown at the start. In fact, there is much less racism in the inland north-west than in the South, says Alex Barron, founder of the libertarian Charles Carroll Society blog and self-proclaimed “Bard of the American Redoubt”. Some are quick to label ideological opponents as white supremacists, he says. Liberal bloggers have called him one; but Mr Barron is black.
The Redoubt does give refuge to more than its fair share of outlaws, whether ageing draft-dodgers or crooks on the lam. So says Mike “Animal” Zook, a bounty hunter in Spirit Lake, Idaho with a gunslinger image enhanced by his sidearm’s faux-scrimshaw handle. Pointing east from the Riverman Gun Works car park, he notes that a man can trek that way for nearly 150 miles and see nothing but majestic forest and game. Turn south, and the wilderness extends more than double that.
Wanted men can and do disappear here, Mr Zook says. Some pan for gold, hunt, trap game and quietly slip into a town once a year or so for supplies. Nationwide, perhaps only one in 1,000 indicted felons skip bail and run for it, he says, but the percentage is higher in the Redoubt and especially in Lincoln County, in nearby north-western Montana. That provides enough work, he says, for more than 2,000 fugitive-recovery agents—as bounty hunters are also known—who, like himself, operate at least part-time, typically as private contractors for bondsmen in the Redoubt. All in all, the frontier spirit of America’s Old West is still alive and well.
The second installment of Cook County property tax bills were due August 1. That includes the city of Chicago, where property owners got their first taste of a record increase the city council passed last year. Some property owners are facing double-digit increases.
After paying the highest property taxes ever levied in the city, many Chicago homeowners had the same complaint.
“For the amount of taxes that my neighbors and myself are paying, we’re not getting the proper services like other neighborhoods get,” West Side resident Steve Lucas said.
That’s because the taxes are not paying for added services. The Chicago portion of the property tax bill – which was increased by nearly 70 percent -will pay for police and firefighter pensions and school construction. Add that to what’s become an annual hike in the CPS operating budget levy.
“Increased every year. (Every year they’re increasing?) Yes, every year,” North Side resident David Chang said.
“(00:15:35)We are much better off today than we were five years ago,” said Alexandra Holt, Chicago budget director.
At Chicago’s City Club, Holt said Chicago’s looming $137 million deficit looks a lot better than $654 million projected at this time five years ago. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the city had no choice but to raise money for pensions to spare the operating budget.
“There is a real financial cost and economic cost to the city if you don’t address the problem,” Emanuel said.
Former Gov. Pat Quinn has a petition drive underway to appoint a consumer advocate to help homeowners appeal their tax charges.
“The best way to do it is at the ballot box by gathering signatures on petitions like this one,” said former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn.
The city has scheduled three more tax increases for police and fire pensions and still has not addressed a deficit in the retirement fund for city workers, not to mention a newly-authorized property tax hike to pay for teacher pensions.
“The city says they might have to go up again. Yes, and I might not be able to stay where I’m staying. I’ve been there 40 years and I don’t know if I can stay any longer,” South Chicago resident Doris Hood said.
The city council has approved a plan to rebate a few hundred dollars to the lowest-income homeowners if they apply. It should also be noted that the Chicago School Board is expected to approve a $250 million property tax increase for teacher pensions at its meeting later this month.
Chicago Property Taxes To Increase By 12.8 Percent
The Cook County Clerk’s office released the 2015 property tax rates on Monday for the entire county. While the northern and southern suburbs of Cook County can expect a slight tax bill increase of 1.7 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively, Chicago’s property tax bills will rise by 12.8 percent.
According to the Clerk’s office, citizens of Chicago who paid an average tax bill of $3,220.32 in 2014, will pay an average of $3,633.19 on their 2015 bills, an increase of $412.87.
Cook County property taxes are paid in arrears, meaning the bill for 2015 is paid during 2016.
The Clerk’s office says that this substantial increase is due the city being reassessed in 2015, which resulted in a 9.3 percent increase in the equalized assessed value citywide. The equalized assessed value, or EAV, is a multiplier used in calculating property taxes to bring the total assessed value of all properties in Cook County to a level that is equal to 33.3 percent of the total market value of all the real estate in the county.
The Clerk’s office is quick to note that a majority of Chicago’s tax increase is due to the city increasing the pension portion of its levy by $318 million. As a result of the reassessment, the Clerk’s office says the city tax rate actually increased less than one percent compared to 2014.
Cook County is divided into three areas, Chicago, northern suburbs, and southern suburbs, which are reassessed every three years. The southern suburbs were reassessed in 2014. Chicago was reassessed in 2015. The northern suburbs will be reassessed in 2016.
Tax bills for Cook County property owners are due August 1, 2016.
The national average 30-year fixed home mortgage rate in the U.S. recently fell to 3.36 percent, matching the record low first reached in December 2012, according to Bankrate.com. Would-be home-buyers and homeowners looking to refinance existing mortgages at lower rates have benefited from a drop in U.S. Treasury yields since U.K. voters decided in June to leave the European Union. A comparable Freddie Mac mortgage gauge watched by the industry is near a record low, at 3.48 percent.
As you probably assumed anyway, due to Betteridge’s Law, we aren’t currently in a homeownership trough. The recent homeownership rate posting of 62.9% for the second quarter of 2016 is not the lowest in history, nor is it even the lowest in recorded US history. However, it is the lowest post in 51 years(!) – not since the third quarter of 1965 have we seen homeownership rates this low.
And why are we at DQYDJ bothering to look now?
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President sent this Tweet a couple days back:
The History of the Home Ownership Rate
A while back, we did a two-part deep dive into the history of the 30 year mortgage and the history of the (recorded) home ownership rate in America. That research dug up some very interesting information.
First, long-dated mortgages of 15, 20 and longer years started in the mid 1930s. Second, private mortgage insurance (which was mostly done in by the Great Depression) started up in 1957 with the Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Company.
Those innovations brought homeownership to the masses – no longer did you have to be able to afford a huge, short-term loan with a massive down payment. Extending Mr. Trump’s graph back to 1890 you can see the effect of the innovations (and of the Great Depression and Recession) on homeownership rates:
(Note that until the 60s there wasn’t as much resolution in the series – see our historical research for details).
The longer dated series lets us state a few interesting facts:
The lowest homeownership rate since 1957’s PMI innovation was a 61.9% rate in 1960.
The lowest homeownership recorded since 1890 was 43.6% in 1940 – in the midst of the Great Depression.
Why Is the Home Ownership Rate Dipping?
Oh, you won’t accept ‘people are renting more’ as an answer?
Yes, the run up in real estate prices in many areas of the country (so soon after the Great Recession!) is a huge factor. But, so too are the massive demographic changes underway in our country.
As we have pointed out many times, the millennials (of which I count myself as an older member) now makeup roughly 25% of the workforce. Millennials have different living arrangements than past generations – a greater propensity to live at home, a seeming desire to be free to change jobs (and areas!) more often, and, yes, more expensive housing options. That last point, of course, prices many millennials out of the market – renting makes much more sense when you look at the home prices in many metros in the United States.
Can It Change? Will We See the Rate Rise Again?
Yes – as of right now, I don’t see the drive towards renting (and living at home) to be a sort of permanent desire. Already there are countering trends – the so-called “Tiny House” movement one of them (and, yes, I have been searching for a place to name-drop it!). It’s safest, at this point in time, to assume millennials will tend to be similar to their parents – eventually leaving the city to marry, have kids and buy homes. You know, like yours truly.
However, we’re looking into the future here. Marriage is trending towards being an institution for older and older couples, along with kids. If these trends keep up, we might start to get into uncharted territory here – I’d love your input on whether you think homeownership rates will recover, or high-60s was an anachronism.
Will we see an increase in homeownership led by the millennials?
Condos along Vancouver’s waterfront. (Photo: Getty Images)
Summary
U.S. investors betting on an epic U.S. style housing bust occurring in Canada have been doing so for a considerable period with no clear proof.
Claims of a broad-economy wide housing bubble that is ready to burst are significantly overstated with no clear evidence that a bubble exists.
The majority of price growth is coming from Vancouver and Toronto and there are specific reasons supporting higher prices in those markets.
The conditions in Canada’s housing market are strikingly different compared to those that existed in the U.S. during the lead-up to the 2007 housing meltdown.
It appears that ‘group think‘, ignorance and cognitive dissonance have come to dominate the argument around whether Canada’s housing market is in bubble territory and poised to burst sometime soon. Struggling U.S. hedge funds, many of which missed out on the ‘big short‘ of book and movie fame, have been betting heavily on an epic Canadian housing meltdown by shorting Canada’s major banks, but to date have incurred considerable losses.
Then you have the chorus of economists, analysts and investors who have been claiming that not only has a massive real estate bubble formed in Canada but that it is poised to burst. In many cases, these proclamations go back as far as 2009 and despite being reiterated by naysayers now for close on seven years, a housing bust has yet to occur. Many including acclaimed investor Canada’s own Prem Watsa have stated that Canada’s housing market resembles that which existed in the U.S. during the run-up to the subprime crisis.
These claims rest upon a broad-range of assertions that a number of one-off, disruptive and unsustainable factors are driving Canadian housing prices ever higher, creating the perfect storm that will cause the bubble to burst in a spectacular manner. These claims, many of which have been voiced for some years now, include:substantial amounts of foreign (read Asian) investment;
lax lending standards;
large volumes of subprime mortgages;
growing financial stress being placed on households; and
the growing risk of external economic shocks.
However, it appears that many investors, particularly those based in the U.S. are ignoring the fundamental differences between the two markets and local attributes that will not only prevent an epic meltdown but backstop prices for some time to come. Let’s take a detailed look at some of the major myths that are regularly wheeled out by those who claim that a massive housing bubble exists in Canada and is poised to burst any time.
#1 There is a massive economy wide housing bubble
One of the main drivers of the massive U.S. housing meltdown was that frothy prices were not restricted to specific regional markets or segments but instead constituted an economy-wide housing bubble that was highly speculative in nature. And the risk that this posed to the U.S. financial system and economy was magnified by the prevalence of non-traditional and substandard lending practices as well as considerable volumes of inferior mortgage backed securities.
Yet in the case of Canada, overheated or bubbly housing markets are restricted to a small number of regional markets and market segments, with the growth of housing prices either slowing or falling across other regions. By the end of June 2016 it was only a handful of markets including Toronto, Vancouver and Hamilton-Burlington that experienced double-digit growth.
In fact, it was the considerable increase of house prices in those markets which for June rose by 16.8%, 11.4% and 14.2% year-over-year respectively, which was responsible for the Canadian national average growing by 11%. Other regional markets such as New Brunswick and Quebec grew at more modest rates of around 3%, whereas Novia Scotia remained flat. Then you have Alberta and Saskatchewan, which are among the most affected by the prolonged slump in crude, where house prices fell by 1.4% and 1.6% respectively.
It is these points which indicate that Canada’s housing market on whole, is starting to cool with the growth in the national average house price predominantly being driven by Toronto and Vancouver. This does not necessarily mean that either of those housing markets have entered bubbles with a range of market specific dynamics responsible for the ongoing price growth.
#2 A massive influx of foreign investment is responsible for higher housing prices
Probably one of the biggest myths regularly bandied about by those that claim the market is in rarefied bubble territory and ready to burst, is that the tremendous inflow of foreign investment, particularly from China, is driving prices to unrealistic levels, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver. While it is certainly undeniable that these markets are attracting considerable amounts of attention from foreign investors this is not the only or most important factor in causing prices to surge in those markets.
Even naysayers such as Capital Economics economist Paul Ashworth believes that surging house prices are not being caused by foreign investment but rather by Canadians taking advantage of cheap credit and relaxed lending standards.
In fact, according to a range of reports and research conducted by a number of economists there is very little evidence to support the assertion that foreign money is driving up housing prices. According to an article from Canada’s National Post earlier this year, vacancy rates in Vancouver are on average 2% which then increases to 7.5% for condos, with very few of those vacant properties being foreign owned. The same article goes onto state that it is the laws of supply and demand that are responsible for higher housing prices rather than foreign money.
Recent data from the B.C. government shows that between June 10 and June 29 only 3.3% of all real estate deals in Vancouver involved foreign nationals and as a share of sales by value they only amounted to 5.1% of all sales. This is a far cry from the figures to be expected from a market where foreign money is responsible driving property prices into a bubble.
Indeed, if we take a closer look at the property markets of Vancouver and Toronto it is possible to identify specific market dynamics that are responsible for higher prices and these factors will continue to push them higher for some time to come.
#3 Toronto and Vancouver are in bubble territory
According to the naysayers, Canada’s housing market is now truly defying common sense and that a colossal housing crash is on its way, with the housing markets in Vancouver and Toronto caught in massive bubbles. This they claim is supported by factors such as Canada being judged to have the most overvalued housing market among developed economies and that global investors are increasingly betting against Canadian housing in record numbers.
Nonetheless, there are also a range of factors that indicate that these claims are alarmist and inaccurate, with no evidence to support the view that housing bubbles exit in either market. Will Dunning, chief economist of industry group Mortgage Professionals Canada, believes that prices are sustainable and not representative of a property bubble, stating that this talk has been going on since 2008 with no evidence of one existing. He even went on to state:
Housing bubbles do not exist in Canada, . . .
If we turn to what defines an economic or market bubble it becomes apparent that Dunning could certainly be right. For a housing bubble to exist people have to be buying houses for purely speculative reasons and this has to be across a considerable portion of the market. Then to illustrate that a bubble exists there has to be expectations of self-fulfilling price growth and that those unrealistic expectations are leading to increased and excessive activity in the housing market.
The theories postulated by Nobel award winning economist Joseph Stiglitz also supports these notions, he defines a bubble as where the reason that the price is high today, is only because investors believe that the selling price will be higher tomorrow.
None of these factors in their entirety apply to Canada’s housing market nor those of Vancouver or Toronto. If anything it is far more mundane market specific factors that are driving housing prices ever higher. A group of academics from the University of British Colombia while proposing placing a tax on vacant properties in order to reduce the level of foreign investment in Vancouver have stated that the fundamental drivers of higher prices are higher demand and limited supply. Upon taking a closer look at the markets of Vancouver and Toronto this becomes very apparent.
You see, Toronto and Vancouver are defined as global gateway cities that sees them cast in the same light as global cities such as London, New York, Paris and Hong Kong that have far more expensive real estate markets. This makes them important destinations for immigrants, with them accepting around half of all external immigrants to Canada.
The reasons for this are predominantly economic with both cities, particularly because of the prolonged slump in oil prices, have the greatest concentration of jobs in Canada, with around 25% of total employment in Canada. And according to economists’ from Bank of Montreal these two cities accounted for all of Canada’s job growth in 2015.
It is these factors which according to National Bank economist Stefane Marion are responsible for the working age population in Toronto and Vancouver to be growing at a rate that is 70% faster than the national average.
The prolonged slump in oil has magnified this phenomenon, with the deep economic slump in Canada’s oil patch significantly impacting the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan. This has not only made those regions less appealing to immigrants but triggered a marked uptick in the number of households seeking to relocate because of higher unemployment and falling wages.
Meanwhile, The Economist has theorized that this rapidly growing demand is placing considerable pressure on housing supplies particularly because of their unchanging supplies, stating:
The supply of housing is rather inelastic, so in the short term house-price inflation is driven more by demand factors, such as the number of households, disposable income, interest rates and the yield available on other assets. In recent years all of these have helped to push house prices steadily upwards, especially in big cities.
The constrained supply situation caused by limited inventories in both cities is easy to see. As the chart below illustrates, Toronto’s housing inventory by June of this year was at less than half of its 10 year average and a third lower than the previous year.
Source: Canadian Real Estate Association.
When turning to Vancouver it is possible to see that for the same period inventories are around 60% lower than the 10 year average and a third lower than a year earlier.
Source: Canadian Real Estate Association.
With expanding populations, driven by growing internal and external migration, causing demand to swell coupled with extremely limited housing supplies in Toronto and Vancouver there is considerable support for higher prices, which means there won’t a correction in those markets anytime soon.
#3 The Conditions in Canada are similar to those in the U.S. prior to the financial crisis
One of the biggest myths concerning Canada’s housing market is that the conditions that exist are similar to, if not the same as those that existed in the U.S. in the lead-up to the massive housing meltdown that almost caused the U.S. financial system to collapse in 2007.
. . rising levels of Canadian household debt relative to income, along with rapidly increasing house prices, have created conditions similar to those in the United States prior to the financial crisis of 2008.
Then there is Steve Eismann who rose to fame betting against the U.S. housing market in the lead-up to the subprime crisis. He is making similar claims to Moody’s but was doing so way back in 2013 and has been recommending that investors bet against Canada’s mortgages lenders and banks.
It is this which has attracted the attention of short-sellers and now sees Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE:TD) and Bank of Nova Scotia (NYSE:BNS) being the first and third most shorted stocks on the TSX.
However, there are a range of reasons why Canada is not a repeat of what was occurring in the U.S. back in 2006, key among these is far higher underwriting standards for loans and a distinct lack of subprime mortgages.
It appeared that way back in 2006, anyone with a pulse could obtain a mortgage with mortgage underwriting standards relaxed to levels that were ridiculously low. Then there was the huge influx of fraudulent applications and an extremely lax approach to checking applications for accuracy. This easy money helped to fuel ever rising house prices and give a leg up to the next round of frenzied speculation. No one, from mortgage brokers, to the major banks wanted the merry-go-round to end as they all sort to cash in on the growing frenzy.
Clearly, Canada has not reached this stage yet and in fact it is doubtful that it ever well, with its property market certainly not caught in the same type of speculative frenzy.
Furthermore, it was the presence of considerable volumes of subprime mortgages that essentially precipitated the U.S. housing meltdown. It is estimated that they made up somewhere between 18% and 21% of all mortgages originated in the run-up to the housing crash. Whereas, in Canada subprime mortgages are estimated to make-up less than 5% of the market, and that was when the market was at its peak. With Bank of Canada pushing for tighter mortgage underwriting standards since this figure was released, it will certainly have fallen.
Aside from these key differences there are also a range of other Canada specific factors to consider including:
the lack of non-recourse mortgages, a greater prevalence of mortgage insurance;
the fact that borrowers on average have higher levels of equity in their homes; and
lower loan-to-valuation ratios for non-insured mortgages.
As a result, these differences mean that the market is not exposed to the same degree of risk nor the same volume of rapid defaults that forced U.S. lenders in 2006 and 2007 to flip repossessed properties as quickly as possible, causing prices to cascade ever lower.
Final musings
The differences between Canada’s housing market and that which existed in the U.S. in the run-up to the housing meltdown, which almost caused the U.S. financial system to collapse, are strikingly important. They highlight that not only is a sharp correction or housing meltdown unlikely but that in marked contrast to the claims of naysayers that there is in fact no evidence of a housing bubble. If anything while some regional markets are cooling, Vancouver and Toronto’s ever higher housing prices can be attributed to demographic pressures, higher demand and constrained supply. These factors will push prices higher in those markets for some time to come and backstop prices if there is a sharp economic downturn. For all of these reasons it is difficult to envision an epic Canadian housing meltdown occurring any time soon.
Houston lost its locally famous Bullock-City Federation Mansion in 2014 to a developer who plans to erect townhouses on the site.
The house may not have been worthy of a place on a list of historically significant structures. But the 5,000-square-foot structure that was erected in 1906 on a 30,000-square-foot lot was the first in the sweltering Texas city to have air conditioning. And its demise was mourned by more than a few people.
“It’s a beautiful building,” Ernesto Aguilar, general manager of KPFT Radio, which sits next door, told the Houston Chronicle at the time. “It is sad to see a piece of Houston history going the same way as many others do.”
Tear downs — in which builders or private individuals purchase an aging, outmoded house, then demolish it and replace it with a modern home that will suit today’s homeowners — are currently on a tear in Houston. Permits for tear downs are up by 22% in the city this year.
And that phenomenon isn’t limited to Houston. Barry Sulphor, a real estate agent in the Los Angeles area, counts no less than 100 tear down sites in the so-called beach cities where he plies his trade: Hermosa Beach, Redonda Beach and Manhattan Beach. “And I’m sure there are just as many in Venice, Santa Monica and Beverly Hills,” Sulphor says.
According to the National Association of Home Builders’ best count, nearly 8% of all single-family housing starts in 2015 were attributable to tear down-related construction. That’s roughly 55,000 older houses gone forever, and that’s on top of the 31,800 single-family tear down starts in 2014.
In some instances, the houses that are destroyed are outmoded, functionally obsolete relics that no longer serve a useful purpose. But in other cases, they work just fine and simply lack up-to-date amenities. And some have historical significance that may or may not be worthy of saving.
Usually, the places that replace a tear down are larger, covering more of the lot and rising higher than the old place — often to the maximum height allowable under local zoning rules.
Sulphor recently sold two lots where the old houses were taken down. One was bought for $1.35 million by a builder who plans to put up a house with a nearly $4 million price tag. The other was purchased for $2.15 million by a retired couple who “love the creativity of working with architects to design luxury beach properties,” according to Sulphor. “When the new place is completed, it will fetch close to $5 million.”
Not everyone sees the benefit of tear downs. The leading opponent is the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which argues that they are an “epidemic” that is “wiping out historic neighborhoods one house at a time. As older homes are demolished and replaced with dramatically larger, out-of-scale new structures, the historic character of the existing neighborhood is changed forever.”
Richard Moe, a former president of the National Trust, said, “From 19th-century Victorian to 1920s bungalows, the architecture of America’s historic neighborhoods reflects the character of our communities. Tear downs radically change the fabric of a community. Without proper safeguards, historic neighborhoods will lose the identities that drew residents to put down roots in the first place.”
But the NAHB, which admits that tear downs “have become a significant modus operandi” for its members in some parts of the country, counters that the new houses often “breathe new life into older communities.”
Because tea rdowns are sometimes controversial, folks considering buying an older place with the idea of taking it down and putting up a new house should proceed cautiously. Often, these old homes are not advertised for sale on the open market or in the multiple listing service, so the challenge begins with finding out about one, says Sulphor. And once you do, the agent suggests making absolutely sure the condition of the current home is such that it cannot be salvaged.
Would-be buyers should also determine, before making an offer, whether what they plan to build conforms to local restrictions. Preservationists often use — or try to change — local building codes to push back against tear downs.
On the other hand, people trying to sell old properties that are tear down candidates should make sure whatever offers they receive are legit, Sulphor advises. Look for the proof that they have the funds to close the deal, especially if they say they will pay with cash and have no need of a mortgage.
Sellers should also realize that selling a property “as-is” does not insulate them from their obligation to disclose any issues that might impact value. The term “as-is” means only that the house is being offered and sold in its present condition.
Net issuance seen rising after steady declines since 2009
Fed seen adding to supply as Treasury ramps up debt sales
Negative yields. Political risk. The Fed. Now add the U.S. deficit to the list of worries to keep beleaguered bond investors up at night.
Since peaking at $1.4 trillion in 2009, the budget deficit has plunged amid government spending cuts and a rebound in tax receipts. But now, America’s borrowing needs are rising once again as a lackluster economy slows revenue growth to a six-year low, data compiled by FTN Financial show. That in turn will pressure the U.S. to sell more Treasuries to bridge the funding gap.
No one predicts an immediate jump in issuance, or a surge in bond yields. But just about everyone agrees that without drastic changes to America’s finances, the government will have to ramp up its borrowing in a big way in the years to come. After a $96 billion increase in the deficit this fiscal year, the U.S. will go deeper and deeper into the red to pay for Social Security and Medicare, projections from the Congressional Budget Office show. The public debt burden could swell by almost $10 trillion in the coming decade as a result.
All the extra supply may ultimately push up Treasury yields and expose holders to losses. And it may come when the Federal Reserve starts to unwind its own holdings — the biggest source of demand since the financial crisis.
“It’s looking like we are at the end of the line,” when it comes to declining issuance of debt that matures in more than a year, said Michael Cloherty, head of U.S. interest-rate strategy at RBC Capital Markets, one of 23 dealers that bid at Treasury debt auctions. “We have deficits that are going to run higher, and at some point, a Fed that will start allowing its Treasury securities to mature.”
After the U.S. borrowed heavily in the wake of the financial crisis to bail out the banks and revive the economy, net issuance of Treasuries has steadily declined as budget shortfalls narrowed. In the year that ended September, the government sold $560 billion of Treasuries on a net basis, the least since 2007, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Coupled with increased buying from the Fed, foreign central banks and investors seeking low-risk assets, yields on Treasuries have tumbled even as the overall size of the market ballooned to $13.4 trillion. For the 10-year note, yields hit a record 1.318 percent this month. They were 1.57 percent today. Before the crisis erupted, investors demanded more than 4 percent.
Net Issuance of U.S. Treasuries, Fiscal-Year Basis
One reason the U.S. may ultimately have to boost borrowing is paltry revenue growth, said Jim Vogel, FTN’s head of interest-rate strategy.
With the economy forecast to grow only about 2 percent a year for the foreseeable future as Americans save more and spend less, there just won’t enough tax revenue to cover the burgeoning costs of programs for the elderly and poor. Those funding issues will ultimately supersede worries about Fed policy, regardless of who ends up in the White House come January.
As a percentage of the gross domestic product, revenue will remain flat in the coming decade as spending rises, CBO forecasts show. That will increase the deficit from 2.9 percent this fiscal year to almost 5 percent by 2026.
“As the Fed recedes a little bit into the background, all of these other questions need to start coming back into the foreground,” Vogel said.
The potential for a glut in Treasuries is emerging as some measures show buyers aren’t giving themselves any margin of safety. A valuation tool called the term premium stands at minus 0.56 percentage point for 10-year notes. As the name implies, the term premium should normally be positive and has been for almost all of the past 50 years. But in 2016, it’s turned into a discount.
Some of the highest-profile players are already sounding the alarm. Jeffrey Gundlach, who oversees more than $100 billion at DoubleLine Capital, warned of a “mass psychosis” among investors piling into debt securities with ultra-low yields. Bill Gross of Janus Capital Group Inc. compared the sky-high prices in the global bond market to a “supernova that will explode one day.”
Despite the increase in supply, things like the gloomy outlook for global growth, an aging U.S. society and more than $9 trillion of negative-yielding bonds will conspire to keep Treasuries in demand, says Jeffrey Rosenberg, BlackRock Inc.’s chief investment strategist for fixed income.
What’s more, the Treasury is likely to fund much of the deficit in the immediate future by boosting sales of T-bills, which mature in a year or less, rather than longer-term debt like notes or bonds.
“We don’t have any other choice — if we’re going to increase the budget deficits, they have to be funded” with more debt, Rosenberg said. But, “in today’s environment, you’re seeing the potential for higher supply in an environment that is profoundly lacking supply of risk-free assets.”
Deutsche Bank AG also says the long-term fiscal outlook hinges more on who controls Congress. And if the Republicans, who hold both the House and Senate, retain control in November, it’s more likely future deficits will come in lower than forecast, based on the firm’s historical analysis.
FED HOLDINGS OF TREASURIES COMING DUE
2016 ────────────── $216 BILLION
2017 ────────────── $197 BILLION
2018 ────────────── $410 BILLION
2019 ────────────── $338 BILLION
However things turn out this election year, what the Fed does with its $2.46 trillion of Treasuries may ultimately prove to be most important of all for investors. Since the Fed ended quantitative easing in 2014, the central bank has maintained its holdings by reinvesting the money from maturing debt into Treasuries. The Fed will plow back about $216 billion this year and reinvest $197 billion in the next, based on current policy.
While the Fed has said it will look to reduce its holdings eventually by scaling back re-investments when bonds come due, it hasn’t announced any timetable for doing so.
“It’s the elephant in the room,” said Dov Zigler, a financial markets economist at Bank of Nova Scotia. “What will the Fed’s role be and how large will its participation be in the Treasury market next year and the year after?”
Homes are selling an average of a week faster than they did a year ago, meaning home shoppers should be prepared to move quickly in a competitive housing market, according to the June Zillow Real Estate Market Report.
Tight inventory continues to be a major factor for home shoppers. The supply of homes for sale is nearly 5 percent lower than it was a year ago, and 38 percent lower than its peak level in 2011. With fewer available options, home shoppers are moving quickly to buy homes, with the average U.S. home closing after 78 days on the market.
The 78-day average includes the time it takes to close, which is usually one or two months after the home goes under contract. This means that homes are pending within about a month of being listed.
The length of time homes stay on the market before selling has been steadily decreasing since 2010, when homes took an average of five months to sell. The average time home buyers had in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Charlotte, N.C. dropped by at least two weeks, the biggest change among the largest U.S. metros.
The low inventory and quick-moving market combine to create a competitive home shopping market, especially for potential buyers looking for less expensive homes. The most expensive third of the market has experienced the smallest drop in available inventory compared to the rest of the market.
“Homes are selling faster than ever as the home shopping season hits its peak,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Svenja Gudell. “If you’re looking for a home, be prepared to move quickly. Adding to this difficult buying environment is low inventory—there simply aren’t many homes to choose from. And while this looks like a good time to be a seller, potential move-up buyers may hesitate to list their homes and become buyers. Until the supply increases, it will remain a tough market to find a home.”
Confidential briefing for CRA auditors outlines strategy to tackle suspected tax cheats who do not report global income or who ‘flip’ homes – but reveals that last year, there was only one successful audit of global income for all of British Columbia
A backhoe destroys a C$6 million mansion in Vancouver’s Shaughnessy neighbourhood this year. The destruction of the well-kept home prompted community outrage and was cited in a briefing for Canadian tax auditors looking into Vancouver real estate transactions. Photo: Twitter / @DeborahAMG
A secret strategy briefing for Canada Revenue Agency auditors has revealed plans to crack down on real estate tax cheats in Vancouver, with 50 auditors being assigned to investigate purchases funded by unreported foreign income.
Presentation notes for the seminar, delivered to auditors on June 2 and leaked to the South China Morning Post, show that only one successful audit of worldwide income was conducted in British Columbia in the past year, in spite of Vancouver’s reputation as a hotspot for immigrant “astronaut families” whose breadwinners often work in mainland China and Hong Kong.
The plans, which come amid a furore over the role of Chinese money in Vancouver’s runaway housing market, were provided by a Canada Revenue Agency employee who attended the June 2 briefing. The briefing is identified as a “protected B” confidential document on the cover.
The cover for a confidential CRA briefing for auditors. Photo: SCMP Pictures
But the employee feared the sweep would prove inadequate. “Sure, they’ve upped the numbers because it’s hitting the papers,” they said. But on average, they estimated, each redeployed income auditor would only be able to conduct 10 to 12 audits per year – about 500 or 600 in total. “This is nothing,” compared to the likely scale of the cheating, they said.
Confidential briefing notes for CRA auditors reveal how the Canadian tax agency is targeting unreported global income and other issues related to real estate sales in the Vancouver region. Photo: SCMP Pictures
That estimate is in keeping with the briefing text which says the crackdown will “review the top 500 highest risk files within our region”.
The briefing lists four areas being targeted for audit under the CRA’s “real estate projects”, launched in response to “significant media attention”: unreported worldwide income, property “flipping”, under-reporting of capital gains from home sales, and under-reporting of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on sales of new homes.
‘High-end homes, minimal income’
The time-consuming global income audits will tackle “individuals living in high-valued areas in BC who are reporting minimal income not supporting their lifestyle”, as well as those who buy “high-end homes with minimal income being reported.”
The supposed case of a C$5.8 million home bought by someone who claimed a tax break intended for the poor is cited in the CRA briefing. Photo: SCMP Pictures
The presentation includes a photo of a luxury home supposedly bought for C$5.8million whose owner claimed the “working income tax benefit” for low earners. It also lists the tuition fees of Vancouver private schools.
Confidential briefing notes for CRA auditors show that 50 income tax auditors are being redeployed to tackle real estate cheats in BC. Photo: SCMP Pictures
Property flippers who swiftly resell homes for profit will meanwhile be audited to see if their properties truly qualify for exemption from capital gains tax, granted to people selling their principal residence.
The briefing describes various excuses given by owners who moved out of newly purchased homes, including a negative feng shui report, the “bad omen” of tripping over a crack in the sidewalk, and a painter dying in the home.
It cites the highly publicized case of a well-kept 20-year-old, C$6million mansion that was simply torn down after being bought, prompting community outrage.
Yes, we are getting a response now, but the government has known about this issue for a few years. They held back
CRA employee
The briefing does not say the owners of this home, or the $5.8 million home, are tax cheats and nor does the SCMP suggest so.
The CRA employee said the briefing, which was streamed online, was delivered by CRA’s Pacific region business intelligence director, Mal Gill.
The CRA briefing lists various excuses given by people who moved out of new homes, apparently claimed as principal residences. Photo: SCMP Pictures
Gill declined to discuss the briefing. “I cannot confirm anything to you,” he said, referring the SCMP to a CRA communications manager.
The case of a well-kept C$6million Vancouver home that was simply demolished after purchase is cited in leaked notes for Canadian tax auditors. Photo: SCMP Pictures
A spokeswoman said: “The CRA cannot comment or release information related to risk assessment or non-compliance strategies.”
However, she said real estate transactions in Toronto have been the subject of greater scrutiny, for some years. “More recently, the CRA has been actively monitoring and auditing real estate transactions in British Columbia,” she said.
“For the year ending March 31, 2016, the CRA completed 2,203 files [in BC and Ontario] related to real estate,” she said.
In addition to the 50 redeployed income auditors, the leaked briefing says CRA is assigning 20 GST auditors and 15 other staff to the real estate project in BC.
The CRA source said they leaked the material because, “like many people, I’m pretty disgusted by what’s happening here [in the Vancouver real estate market], and a lack of enforcement has been a part of the problem. Yes, we are getting a response now, but the government has known about this issue for a few years. They held back.”
The CRA briefing reveals that there was just one successful audit conducted on unreported global income in BC last fiscal year. Photo: SCMP Pictures
The employee said they were surprised to discover that only one successful audit of global income had been conducted in BC in the year to March 31. “That’s the ludicrousness of this. I was shocked when I saw this, and they only got C$27,000 in tax revenue out of it,” they said.
Asked whether this might show a widespread problem with undeclared worldwide income did not exist in BC, the source said: “No, what it shows is that inadequate people and resources have been put to the task. These [tax cheats] are highly sophisticated individuals, with good representation from their lawyers and accountants, and we are sending out our least experienced people to catch them. That’s the problem.”
Source cites CRA’s ‘racism fear’
Census data from 2011 has previously shown that 25,000 households in the City of Vancouver spent more on their housing costs than their entire declared income, with these representing 9.5 per cent of all households.
But far from being impoverished, such households were concentrated in some of the city’s most expensive neighborhoods, where homes sell for multi-million-dollar prices.
The source suggested CRA bureaucrats previously feared being labelled racist if they targeted low-income declarers buying real estate “because the vast majority of these cases, involving high real estate values, involve mainland Chinese”.
The crackdown was not intended for public knowledge, and instead was to satisfy “people from high up” in the CRA and government who wanted to know “what are you guys doing about this…there’s stuff hitting the papers every day”, the source said. Yet the briefing says the crackdown “will not address the major concerns about affordability of real estate”.
“The vast majority of these [undeclared global income] cases, involving high real estate values, involve mainland Chinese”
CRA employee
The source said there had previously been little done to check whether taxpayers were secretly living and working abroad while supporting a family in Vancouver. “There’s virtually no liaising done with immigration. The common auditor would never check when people are actually coming and going, to check whether they might be going back to China or wherever to work. You can be lied to, to your face: ‘Oh no, I live here [in Canada] full-time’.”
The leaked documents show that in in addition to the single audit on global income in the last fiscal year, CRA in BC conducted 93 successful audits on property flips, 20 on capital gains tax and 225 on under-reported GST. The audits yielded C$14.4 million in new tax, of which C$10million was GST. There was C$1.3 million in fines.
As of April 29, there were 40 audits of global income under way, 205 related to flipping, 34 related to capital gains and 428 related to GST.
The average Vancouver house price now sits around C$1.75million for the metropolitan region, while the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver’s “benchmark” price for all residential properties is C$889,100, a 30 per cent increase over the past year. However, incomes remain among the lowest in Canada, making Vancouver one of the world’s most un-affordable cities .
The Hongcouver blog is devoted to the hybrid culture of its namesake cities: Hong Kong and Vancouver. All story ideas and comments are welcome. Connect with me by email ian.young@scmp.com or on Twitter, @ianjamesyoung70
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as:
Bolstered by first-time home buyers, existing-home sales rose for the fourth straight month in June, reaching a nine-year high.
Sales of existing single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops increased 1.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million, up from May’s downwardly revised 5.51 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. The June pace was the strongest since 2007.
First-time buyers made up 33% of those transactions, the biggest share in four years. That eased concerns that a shortage of affordable houses has been pushing entry-level buyers out of the market.
The median existing-home price also reached a new high as it surged 4.8% to $247,700 from a year ago, above the former peak of $238,900 in May.
June’s sales exceeded the highest forecast of economists polled by Bloomberg, 5.56 million.
Healthy job gains, record-high stock prices and near-record low mortgage rates stoked June’s positive showings, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.
“The modest bump in June sales to first-time buyers can be attributed to mortgage rates near all-time lows and perhaps a hopeful indication that more affordable, lower-priced homes are beginning to make their way onto the market,” he said. “The odds of closing on a home are definitely higher right now for first-time buyers living in metro areas with tamer price growth and greater entry-level supply — particularly areas in the Midwest and parts of the South.”
The Midwest has the lowest median existing-home price among all regions, $199,900, followed by the South, at $217,400. The median price in the West climbed 7.2% from a year ago to $350,800.
Total available existing homes for sale dipped 0.9% to 2.12 million, now 5.8% below a year ago.
“Seasonally adjusted, the month’s supply of homes in June 2016 was the lowest since June 2005, indicating that inventory problems still plague home buyers,” said Ralph McLaughlin, Trulia’s chief economist.
In Central London – the 30 most central postal codes and one of the most ludicrously expensive housing markets in the world – eager home sellers are slashing their asking prices to unload their properties. But even that isn’t working.
In the 12 days after the Brexit vote, cuts to asking prices have soared by 163% compared to the 12 days before the vote, according to the Financial Times. Yet sales have plunged 18% from before the Brexit vote. Sales had already taken a big beating before then and are now down a mind-boggling 43% from where they’d been a year ago!
So Brexit did it?
Um, well, sort of. But it’s more than Brexit. Home prices on a £-per-square-foot basis had peaked in Q2 2014, according to real-estate data provider LonRes. Since then, the market in Central London has been hissing hot air. By Q1 2016, prices for homes above £5 million had dropped 8% from their 2014 peak, and prices for homes from £2 million to £5 million had plunged 10%.
Back in December 2015, we reported that luxury housing in London was getting mauled, based on the LonRes report for the third quarter, released at the time. It pointed the finger at folks who, once “awash with cash, don’t have as much to spend” [read… It Gets Ugly in the Toniest Parts of London].
Then, in its spring review, LonRes called the prime London housing market “challenging.”
It wasn’t just the Brexit referendum and the new stamp duty – In 2014, a change in the stamp duty made buying high-end homes more costly; and in April this year, an additional duty was imposed on purchases beyond a primary residence. Now there’s a third reason, and it originates deep from the bowels of the UK economy. LonRes:
A third is now making itself known to us as it is not something that the chancellor can bury any more. This is the balance of payments which ran at 5.2% of GDP last year and was the largest annual deficit since records began in 1948.
If measures are not taken to bring this under control, then the mini experiment to deflate the London property bubble will seem small change compared to the £32.7bn deficit that exists.
The London residential market has undoubtedly slowed, and this is impacting prices. No one will disagree that London’s prime market needed the steam to be released from it. My guess is that this slower market will be here for some time.
And not just in London…
Last week, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors was spreading gloom with its residential market survey of the UK, conducted after the Brexit vote, that found, as the Telegraph put it, “The number of people wanting to buy a house has fallen to the lowest level since mid-2008 amid post-referendum uncertainty.”
Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills, told the Telegraph:
“The current month’s figures suggest countrywide impact on sentiment which is to be expected. However previous months’ results would indicate that a slowdown in London has been on the cards for some time. It looks like the Brexit vote may be the trigger for this to materialize.”
Now all hopes are once again centered on foreigners and their money to bail out the housing bubble before it completely implodes. But this time, it’s different, as they say at the worst possible moment: it’s not the Russians or the Chinese, but people whose investments and incomes are in currencies linked to the US dollar. Over the last 12 months, the pound has lost about 14% against the dollar, most of it since the Brexit vote, which would give these folks an additional discount on UK real estate.
The Financial Times expressed those industry hopes, and its new saviors, citing Anthony Payne, managing director at LonRes:
“We have heard that quite a number of Middle Eastern buyers have been coming back into the market. A lot of them are converting from dollars, and together with any discount they get [plunging prices], the saving in the actual price is quite substantial,” said Mr. Payne. “Some people are concerned by Brexit – others see it as an opportunity.”
London isn’t the only ludicrously overpriced housing market, where prices, once helped along by foreign money, are skidding. And now the industry is hoping for more foreign money to wash ashore, just when the Chinese, by far the largest group of investors in the US housing market, are getting cold feet.
One conundrum stumping investors in recent months has been how, with investors pulling money out of equity funds (at last check for 17 consecutive weeks) at a pace that suggests a full-on flight to safety, as can be seen in the chart below which shows record fund outflows in the first half of the year – the fastest pace of withdrawals for any first half on record…
… are these same markets trading at all time highs? We now have the answer.
Recall at the end of January when global markets were keeling over, that Citi’s Matt King showed that despite aggressive attempts by the ECB and BOJ to inject constant central bank liquidity into the gunfible global markets, it was the EM drain via reserve liquidations, that was causing a shock to the system, as net liquidity was being withdrawn, and in the process stocks were sliding.
Fast forward six months when Matt King reports that “many clients have been asking for an update of our usual central bank liquidity metrics.”
What the update reveals is “a surge in net global central bank asset purchases to their highest since 2013.”
And just like that the mystery of who has been buying stocks as everyone else has been selling has been revealed.
But wait, there’s more because as King suggests “credit and equities should rally even more strongly than they have done already.”
More observations from King:
The underlying drivers are an acceleration in the pace of ECB and BoJ purchases, coupled with a reversal in the previous decline of EMFX reserves. Other indicators also point to the potential for a further squeeze in global risk assets: a broadening out of mutual fund inflows from IG to HY, EM and equities; the second lowest level of positions in our credit survey (after February) since 2008; and prospects of further stimulus from the BoE and perhaps the BoJ.
His conclusion:
While we remain deeply skeptical of the durability of such a policy-induced rally, unless there is a follow-through in terms of fundamentals, and in credit had already started to emphasize relative value over absolute, we suspect those with bearish longer-term inclinations may nevertheless feel now is not the time to position for them.
And some words of consolation for those who find themselves once again fighting not just the Fed but all central banks:
The problems investors face are those we have referred to many times: markets being driven more by momentum than by value, and most negatives being extremely long-term in nature (the need for deleveraging; political trends towards deglobalization; a steady erosion of confidence in central banks). Against these, the combination of UK political fudge (and perhaps Italian tiramisu), a lack of near-term catalysts, and overwhelming central bank liquidity risks proving overwhelming – albeit only temporarily.
Why have central banks now completely turned their backs on the long-run just to provide some further near-term comfort? Simple: as Keynes said, in the long-run we are all dead.
In another reminder why most of the population is increasingly furious at the “elites”, over the holiday weekend a 31-year-old portfolio manager for Moore Capital, Brett Barna, threw a wild “Wolf of Wall Street”-style Hamptons party, complete with Champagne, scores of bikini-clad women and costumed gun-toting midgets, and in the process trashed a $20 million mansion.
According to Page Six, Barna, “a portfolio manager at Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital Management, hosted the all-day “#Sprayathon” pool party on Sunday, where 1,000 people doused themselves in bubbly as rapper Ace Hood performed.”
Making things more complicated is that Barna is not the owner of the 9-bedroom, 8 acre Hamptons mansion which “comes with tennis court, gym, outdoor pool & jacuzzi” where he celebrated US Independence Day in decadent style, and instead rented it from “Tommy” for $29,000 on AirBNB, a fee he is now disputing.
And now Tommy is angry: “the furious owner of the 14-bedroom estate in Bridgehampton plans to sue Barna, 31, for $1 million, saying the Wall Street hot shot had claimed the party would be a fundraiser for an animal charity for a mere 50 guests.”
The owner, who asked to not be named, told Page Six that , “Brett came to me dropping Louis Bacon’s name and saying he was a big deal with the Robin Hood Foundation. He said there would be 50 people at the event and it was for animal rescue. But the only animals there were the people, a thousand of them. They drowned themselves in Champagne, they had midgets they threw in the pool, they broke into the house, trashed the furniture, art was stolen, we found used condoms. So many people were there that the concrete around the pool crumbled and fell into the water. It was like ‘Jersey Shore’ meets a frat party. We are preparing a massive lawsuit . . . We’re waiting to serve him.”
“Brett was last seen on Sunday chugging Champagne with two midgets.”
Wild social media posts show party goers dousing themselves in booze and dancing wildly.
The videos and photos below, capturing the festivities, will surely be Exhibit A-X in the upcoming lawsuit.
According to the publication, this is an annual bacchanal: Last year #Sprayathon revelers started a brush fire at a Hamptons manse owned by “Hercules” actor Kevin Sorbo.
Page Six adds that a rep for the embarrassed hedge fund didn’t comment, but a source said Moore raised $100,000 for Last Chance Animal Rescue, and they hired cleaners and left the house in good condition.
As CNBC adds this morning, Moore Capital said it has fired Barna. “Mr. [Brett] Barna’s personal judgment was inconsistent with the firm’s values,” the company told CNBC in a statement.
“He is no longer employed by Moore Capital Management.”
Bob Corker and Mark Warner speaking in an interview with Zillow about mortgage-finance reform
“The idea that Wall Street came out of this thing just fine, thank you, is just something that just grates on people. They think you didn’t just come out fine because it was luck. They think you guys just really gamed this thing real well.”
So said then-Senator Edward E. Kaufman, a Democrat from Delaware, at the Congressional hearing in the spring of 2010 where assorted members of Congress lambasted Goldman Sachs’ activity in the run-up to the financial crisis.
But it turns out two members of Congress actually made money from that crisis, according to publicly available documents. During the crisis years, two now-senators, Mark Warner (D-Va.) who was the governor of Virginia until his Senate term began in 2009, and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who took office in 2007, were invested in a fund that appears to have made sizable profits from Goldman products that were designed to bet against the real estate market.
There’s no evidence either Senator was aware of the specific strategy, although both have reported millions of dollars of income from the fund. A little bit of ancient history: Back in the spring of 2010, the SEC charged Goldman Sachs with fraud over a deal called Abacus 2007-AC1. Abacus 2007-AC1 was a so-called CDO, which in essence requires investors to wager against each other. One set of investors was betting that homeowners would continue to pay their mortgages. Others, who were short, were betting there would be massive defaults.
In this particular deal, Goldman allowed a hedge fund client, Paulson Capital Management, to take the short position and help choose which securities would go into it. The SEC alleged that Goldman hadn’t told the long investors that Paulson’s team essentially had designed the CDO to fail. According to a report done by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, three long investors together lost about $1 billion from their Abacus investments, while the Paulson hedge fund profited by about the same amount.
Goldman paid $550 million to settle the SEC’s charges in the summer of 2010. A young vice president who had worked on the deal, Fabrice Tourre, was eventually found liablein a civil suit brought by the SEC, making him one of the few to face any repercussions from the crisis era.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., listens on Capitol Hill in Washington
But Abacus 2007-AC1 wasn’t unique. In fact, it was merely the last in a series of Abacus CDOs. According to the Senate report, these were “pioneered by Goldman to provide customized CDOs for clients interested in assuming a specific type and amount of investment risk” and “enabled investors to short a selected group” of securities. Many of the Abacus deals were tied in part to the performance of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities, but some were also tied to the performance of commercial mortgage-backed securities.
Because AIG provided insurance on at least some of the Abacus deals, the Abacus deals were also part of the collateral calls that Goldman made to AIG, and part of the reason that taxpayers ended up bailing out AIG. Plenty of well-known hedge funds availed themselves of Goldman’s Abacus deals, according to a document Goldman provided the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The list of those who were short various Abacus deals includes Moore Capital Management, run by billionaire Louis Bacon; Magnetar, an Illinois-based fund run by Alec Litowitz; Brevan Howard, a European hedge fund management company; and FrontPoint Partners (which shows up in the movie “The Big Short”).
There are also some lesser known names in the document, including Pointer Management, a Tennessee-based fund which was founded in 1990 by Joseph Davenport, a Chattanooga area businessman and former Coca-Cola executive, and Thorpe McKenzie, also from Chattanooga, according to the Campaign for Accountability.
Specifically, Pointer took short positions in an Abacus deal called ABAC07-18, as did FrontPoint Partners and several others. According to several sources, this Abacus deal was based entirely on securities tied to commercial real estate, rather than residential real estate. While few people have heard about this particular Abacus deal, it too resulted in Goldman making a collateral call on AIG. According to a document Goldman submitted to the FCIC, it looks as if by late 2008, AIG had posted a total of $308 million in collateral to Goldman in connection with Abacus 2007-18.
U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) speaks at a news conference in the U.S. Capitol in Washington
And it too was controversial — so controversial that at a meeting of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on October 12, 2010, the commissioners voted to refer the matter to the Department of Justice, citing “potential fraud by Goldman Sachs in connection with Abacus 2007-18 CDO.”
In its write-up, the FCIC quoted Steve Eisman, the FrontPoint trader whose character figures prominently in “The Big Short.” According to his interview with the FCIC, Eisman seemed to feel that Goldman might have gamed the rating agencies, and might have brought in outside investors so that the firm could justify marking the deal down immediately, meaning long investors would suffer and short sellers would make money.
According to Eisman’s testimony, he said to the Goldman traders, “So you put this stuff together and you went to the agencies to get a rating and the biggest issue with the rating is the correlation of loss, and you presented a correlation analysis that was lower than you actually thought it was but the rating agencies were stupid, so they’d buy it anyway. So assuming your correlation analysis was correct, you took the short side, sold it to the client, and then [did the deal with me to get a mark].” One of the Goldman traders responded, according to Eisman’s testimony, “Well, I wouldn’t put it in those terms exactly.”
Eisman went on to say he believed Goldman “wanted another party in the transaction so if we have to mark the thing down, we’re not just marking it to our book.” He added that, “Goldman was short, and we [FrontPoint] were short. So when they go to a client and say we’re marking it down, they can say well it wasn’t just our mark.”
The FCIC noted that if Goldman did agree with Eisman’s characterization, this could raise legal issues for Goldman as to whether the firm deliberately misled the rating agencies, thereby leading to a material omission in the offering documents for Abacus 2007-18 and violating securities laws. The FCIC also noted that if Goldman indeed knew it was expecting to lower the value of the security as the firm was creating it, and brought in other investors only to make that look more genuine, that could be another potential violation of securities laws. Anyway. Nothing came of this, just as nothing came of any of the FCIC’s other referrals to the Justice Department.
According to a document Goldman submitted to the FCIC, the short investors did very well: Pointer appears to have been paid $120 million in “termination payments” in 2008 and 2009. (Although commercial real estate held up fairly well in the end, prices also collapsed in the crisis.) The documents don’t make it clear what, if any, upfront investment was required; the monthly coupon rate was small.
“This amount of money that’s going into AIG, there is no upside now,” Corker told Politico in early 2009 about the taxpayer bailout of the company. “This is all just like gone money.”
Gone where? Well, what is clear is that Corker especially, but also Warner, made money from their overall investments in Pointer. According to his disclosure forms, Corker’s investment in Pointer first shows up in 2006. He put the value of his investment between $5 million and $25 million. In July 2007, several months before the effective dates for Pointer’s Abacus deals, he put an additional $1 million to $5 million into Pointer. From 2006 to 2014, he reported total income from Pointer of between $3.9 million at the low end and $35.5 million at the high end (including funds from the sale of part of his stake in the fund in 2012.) He sold the rest of his stake in 2014 and reported a cash receivable from Pointer of between $5 million and $25 million that year.
According to Warner’s disclosure forms, he first invested in Pointer in 2007. He assigned his stake the same value range as Corker did his: between $5 million to $25 million. Warner, who sold his entire position in 2012, reported total income from Pointer of between $1.5 million and $10 million. There’s no evidence that either senator knew that a fund in which they had invested was shorting the real estate market.
A letter from Pointer’s chief compliance officer says that Corker “can neither exercise control nor have the ability to exercise control over the financial interest held by Pointer.” Nonetheless, Corker and the principals of Pointer have known each other for a long time. According to the Campaign for Accountability, in 2004, Corker named Joseph Davenport among his co-chairs of his campaign committee ahead of his 2006 election; Pointer employees and their spouses have contributed $76,840 to Corker’s campaigns and $55,000 to his Rock City PAC, says CfA. And several business entities tied to Corker list the same address as Pointer. There aren’t any obvious ties between Warner and Pointer.
Pointer did not return a call for comment. A spokesperson for Warner declined to comment. Corker’s spokesperson says, “This is yet another ridiculous narrative being peddled by a politically-motivated special interest group that refuses to disclose its donors. This dark money entity has an abysmal track record for accuracy, and just like the other unfounded claims they have leveled against Senator Corker, this too is completely baseless.” (They are apparently referring to the Campaign for Accountability, although this story was sourced from publicly available documents.)
It’s also a little ironic that Corker and Warner were the co-sponsors of the Corker Warner bill, which set out to reform the housing finance system. Let’s give them some credit. Since they already benefited from the last crisis, maybe they’re trying to protect us from the next one?
Billionaire Steve Wynn finally found a buyer for his Bel-Air home when he dropped the asking price to $15.95 million, or $300,000 less than what he bought it for in 2014. (Redfin)
A cooling market for the most expensive homes is costing hotel and casino magnate Steve Wynn some money.
Two years ago, Wynn paid $16.25 million for an 11,000-square-foot mansion perched on nearly an acre above the Bel-Air Country Club. Less than a year later, he sought to unload the home with a paneled library and staff bedroom for $20 million.
No luck. Then he tried $17.45 million. No luck again.
In May, Wynn dropped his price to $15.95 million, $300,000 less than what he paid for the property in 2014. The home went into escrow “very close” to that price last month, said Coldwell Banker agent Mary Swanson, who confirmed Wynn would be taking a loss.
It’s not just Wynn who isn’t getting as much money as he hoped.
Even before Britain’s vote last week to leave the European Union jolted investors worldwide, there were reports of a slowdown in the ultra-luxury housing market.
In Los Angeles, agents were seeing more price cuts. Condo sales on New York’s Billionaires’ Row were slowing. Luxury developers shelved projects in Miami. And prices at the tip-top end of the London market were on their way down.
Blame it on the global economy, which has displayed weakness in the past year, choking off the spigot of international millionaires and billionaires seeking a pied-à-terre, or two, in glamorous locales.
So far, in Los Angeles, Wynn’s experience aside, the effect has been minimal, given the nature of Southern California ultra-luxury development – which largely consists of one dramatic hillside estate at a time, rather than a condo tower with multiple units.
But a spate of new construction is on the horizon. By one estimate, there are about 30 new hillside homes priced above $30 million that could hit the market in the next year and a half.
The so-called Brexit vote may not help matters. It has sown economic uncertainty on a global scale and caused the dollar to strengthen against major currencies – potentially leading international buyers to trim their purchases in the United States.
“The price of real estate here in California and the U.S. has gotten more expensive,” said Jordan Levine, an economist with the California Assn. of Realtors.
In Manhattan, the slowdown has taken a sharp toll. The number of previously owned homes that sold in the first quarter for $10 million or more fell 40% from a year earlier to 15, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel.
One builder, Extell Development Co., trimmed $162 million in projected revenue from its One57 condo-and-hotel project, a 1,000-foot tower on Manhattan’s 57th Street originally slated to bring in $2.73 billion, according to a March regulatory filing.
It features more than 90 units, with several reportedly selling for more than $40 million and one bought by an investment group for about $90 million.
“More has been constructed in New York,” said Stephen Kotler, chief revenue officer of real estate brokerage Douglas Elliman. “You have some sellers [in Los Angeles] getting more realistic, but in New York you are seeing more.”
In Los Angeles County, by comparison, $10-million plus sales ticked up by one to 17 in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, according to the California Assn. of Realtors, whose data largely covers resale transactions.
But over a longer timeline, it appears the market has begun to stall. The number of sales of $10 million or more in L.A. County has dipped in three of the last five quarters for which data is available, even as inventory has steadily grown, according to the Realtors group.
And, brokers say, the slowdown is more pronounced the higher the price.
As of mid-June, nine homes in the county had sold this year for $20 million or more, compared with 18 during the same period last year, according to Loren Goldman a vice president with First American Title Co.
Michael Nourmand, president of L.A. luxury brokerage Nourmand & Associates Realtors, said the slowdown will probably bleed into the rest of the market eventually, but that’s not likely to happen “any time soon.”
Like elsewhere, local agents put much of the blame on a pullback by international buyers who had flooded Los Angeles in recent years. Turmoil in their economies, along with a strong dollar, have many from Russia, the Middle East and China second-guessing a purchase here.
“It used to be, if they like it they buy it, or more like, if they like it they buy two,” said Cindy Ambuehl, director of residential estates for the Agency. “Now they are keeping their hands in their pockets and they are waiting.”
Nourmand has seen that first-hand.
A client from the Middle East recently hoped to pull the trigger on a nearly $40-million estate in Bel Air – one set behind gates with a driveway that took “one to two minutes” to walk from street to front door.
But the buyer got cold feet in February and backed out, Nourmand said, explaining that her family’s businesses had taken a beating along with the price of oil, which plunged last year.
“You have a shrinking buyer pool for the really expensive stuff,” he said.
Daren Metropoulos plans to reconnect the Playboy Mansion, above, to his estate next door, creating a 7.3-acre compound. (Jim Bartsch)
Unlike other brokers, Adam Rosenfeld, founding partner of brokerage Mercer Vine, said he thinks the market is still strong and pointed to some recent mega-deals that went into escrow, including the Playboy Mansion, which is being purchased by the son of a billionaire food magnate for $105 million – a record for L.A. County.
(Though that’s half the asking price of $200 million, agents who know the market say they didn’t expect the mansion to sell for that astronomical, headline-grabbing figure.)
But even Rosenfeld said it was unclear how well the upcoming flood of high-end homes will sell.
“There are only so many buyers that can afford a $30-million plus house,” he said. “The [developers] that do them the best probably will make a killing. Guys who don’t … some of those people might lose their shirts.”
Levine, of the Realtors association, said that one dynamic has yet to play out – whether the strong dollar deters international investors from entering the U.S. real estate market, or as their own home country currencies weaken, they come to increasingly view it as a haven.
“It’s not necessarily clear which one of those two is going to win out,” he said.
The UK voters have been conned, the costs of Brexit are prohibitive.
They will either have to vote again (either in a new referendum or a general election) or there will be a ‘Brexit light’.
The latter option will make a mockery of the promises to Brexit voters, but it will limit the economic dangers.
Still, the saga has increased the risks in the world economy, especially in the EU.
We sold everything on the Friday after Brexit, as we saw little upside, and many festering risks in the world economy. Risks which Brexit would clearly increase, most notably the risks of an economic slowdown in the EU, causing further political turmoil.
But these are by no means the only pressure points in the world economy, as we described in the previous article.
But markets rallied back (we didn’t expect an immediate crash as a result of Brexit), and it slowly dawned upon us that the most logical explanation is that there will be no Brexit.
Why? In essence, it’s fairly simple. The price of the promises made by the Brexit camp, most notably to control immigration, to pay much less to Brussels and to ‘take back control’ cannot really be achieved at anywhere near acceptable cost.
Let’s start with immigration. The UK wasn’t part of Schengen (which abolished internal border controls), but it was bound by the four freedoms of the internal market, most notably the freedom for EU citizens to live anywhere in the EU.
In order to escape that (the UK is a popular destination for East Europeans, most notably Polish) the UK would really have to get out of the single market. But this opens up a Pandora’s box of problems.
First, since the EU is the UK’s most important market, it would have to negotiate access to the single market, and do that within the two years given by Article 50 (the EU has made it clear no negotiations will start before Article 50 is triggered).
Not only that, it would have to deal with negotiating multiple other trade deals, perhaps as many as 50, basically with much of the rest of the world.
The UK isn’t equipped to do that (trade has been an EU prerogative), let alone in any amount of acceptable time. The resulting uncertainty isn’t exactly good for business. This will affect inward investment, location decisions, job creation, etc.
That alone is already too high a price to pay. But there are other implications, like (Bloomberg):
Britain has voted to exit the EU and Xi’s being forced to reassess his strategy for the 28-member bloc, China’s second-biggest trading partner, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The U.K. has been a key advocate for China in Europe, from building trade-and-financial links to supporting initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Beijing’s leaders were counting on the U.K’s backing later this year when the bloc decides whether to grant China market-economy status. “One major reason why China attaches great importance to its relations with the U.K. is to leverage EU policy via the U.K.,” said Xie Tao, a professor of political science at Beijing Foreign Studies University. London’s value as a “bridgehead” to Europe has been lost with Brexit, Xie said, leaving China to turn its focus to Germany.
Perhaps even more important is London’s status as a financial center. From Business Insider:
First, international banks are likely to move staff out of London and do less business in the UK. Long before the vote, rival financial centers like Paris began campaigns to woo those bankers. JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon told an audience of bank employees in Bournemouth, one of many regional financial centers in the UK, that as many as 4,000 jobs may be affected by a Brexit before the vote… It isn’t just a question of whether staff move from London to another financial center, either. New jobs are less likely to be created in London. M&G Investments, the fund arm of insurer Prudential, is looking at expanding its operations in Dublin, according to Reuters. The proposed merger between the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Borse, which would have seen the combined group based in London, now looks to be on shaky ground. Germany’s financial regulator has also said that London will no longer be the center of euro-denominated trading.
There are myriad other costs and awkward consequences, but this suffices to highlight the fact that it’s not a good idea to actually leave.
Ergo, powers will awake to prevent this and keep the UK in the single market. We can’t see the UK’s economic, financial and political elite shoot themselves in the foot without regrouping and giving this a mighty fight.
It’s fortunate that there is a cooling off period, in which calmer heads can prevail. First the governing Conservative Party has to choose a new leader.
Then they will have to work out a plan and trigger (or not) Article 50, the formal request to leave the EU.
Two outcomes seem likely, either things stay as they are, or the UK opts for membership of the EEA, which guarantees access to the single market. Perhaps they manage some symbolic concessions.
Both of these options amount to betraying the Brexit voters, one could even say they have been conned. It’s obvious if the referendum is simply ignored by Parliament, after all there already is a Parliamentary majority of 350 for remaining in the EU.
But EEA membership, like Norway, would also betray the Brexit voters and we doubt it’s any more attractive than simply remain in the EU. The UK would continue to have access to the single market, but not be a part of setting its rules.
The UK would continue to be bound by the freedom for people to live and work anywhere within the EU, making a mockery of the promise to control immigration.
Even the budgetary consequences aren’t really that much better (Yahoo):
But the fees in Norway, the nearest analog to the UK, are almost as high as what the UK pays to the EU now, and Norway has no say at all in EU decisions.
So either there will be no Brexit (a new referendum or new elections, with the winning side clearly having a mandate for remaining in the EU will be necessary), or it will be a Brexit light (EEA membership), making a mockery of the promises to the Brexit voters.
The economic consequences of the latter are much less damaging, so did we sell in vain? Not necessarily. The whole Brexit saga is still increasing the risks in the world economy, of which there are many, especially in the eurozone.
Stocks are still expensive (especially on a GAAP basis), we see limited upside, and might very well go short when stocks start approaching their all-time highs again. It’s more of a trader’s market, in our opinion.
As we explained then “the bank with the single largest derivative exposure is not located in the US at all, but in the heart of Europe, and its name, as some may have guessed by now, is Deutsche Bank. The amount in question? €55,605,039,000,000. Which, converted into USD at the current EURUSD exchange rate amounts to $72,842,601,090,000…. Or roughly $2 trillion more than JPMorgan’s.”
So here we are three years later, when not only did Deutsche Bank just flunk the Fed’s stress test for the second year in a row, but moments ago in a far more damning analysis, none other than the IMF disclosed that Deutsche Bank poses the greatest systemic risk to the global financial system, explicitly stating that the German bank “appears to be the most important net contributor to systemic risks.”
Yes, the same bank whose stock price hit a record low just two days ago.
Here is the key section in the report:
Domestically, the largest German banks and insurance companies are highly interconnected. The highest degree of interconnectedness can be found between Allianz, Munich Re, Hannover Re, Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and Aareal bank, with Allianz being the largest contributor to systemic risks among the publicly-traded German financials. Both Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank are the source of outward spillovers to most other publicly-listed banks and insurers. Given the likelihood of distress spillovers between banks and life insurers, close monitoring and continued systemic risk analysis by authorities is warranted.
Among the G-SIBs, Deutsche Bank appears to be the most important net contributor to systemic risks, followed by HSBC and Credit Suisse. In turn, Commerzbank, while an important player in Germany, does not appear to be a contributor to systemic risks globally. In general, Commerzbank tends to be the recipient of inward spillover from U.S. and European G-SIBs. The relative importance of Deutsche Bank underscores the importance of risk management, intense supervision of G-SIBs and the close monitoring of their cross-border exposures, as well as rapidly completing capacity to implement the new resolution regime.
The IMF also said the German banking system poses a higher degree of possible outward contagion compared with the risks it poses internally. This means that in the global interconnected game of counter party dominoes, if Deutsche Bank falls, everyone else will follow.
Notwithstanding moderate cross-border exposures on aggregate, the banking sector is a potential source of outward spillovers. Network analysis suggests a higher degree of outward spillovers from the German banking sector than inward spillovers. In particular, Germany, France, the U.K. and the U.S. have the highest degree of outward spillovers as measured by the average percentage of capital loss of other banking systems due to banking sector shock in the source country.
The IMF concluded that Germany needs to urgently examine whether its bank resolution, i.e., liquidation, plans are operable, including a timely valuation of assets to be transferred, continued access to financial market infrastructures, and whether authorities can ensure control over a bank if resolution actions take a few days, if needed, by imposing a moratorium:
Operationalization of resolution plans and ensuring funding of a bank in resolution is a high priority. The authorities have identified operational challenges (e.g., the timely valuation of assets to be transferred, continued access to financial market infrastructures) and are working to surmount them. In some cases, actions to effect resolution may require a number of days to implement, and the authorities should ensure they can maintain control over the bank during this period, including by using their powers to impose a more general moratorium for a specific bank.
Here is the IMF’s chart showing the key linkages of the world’s riskiest bank:
And while DB is number 1, here are the other banks whose collapse would likewise lead to global contagion.
Considering two of the three most “globally systemically important”, i.e., riskiest, banks just saw their stock price scrape all time lows earlier this week, we wonder just how nervous behind their calm facades are the executives at the ECB, the IMF, and the rest of the handful of people who realize just close to the edge of collapse this world’s most riskiest bank (whose market cap is less than the valuation of AirBnB) finds itself right now.
Pending home sales slipped in May after three months of gains as demand outstrips supply amid rising prices.
The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that its pending home sales index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, slid 3.7 percent to 110.8 in May, from 115 in April.
While the reading is still the third highest in the past year, the contract signings declined year-over-year for the first time since August 2014.
All four major regions also saw a decrease in contract activity last month.
“With demand holding firm this spring and homes selling even faster than a year ago, the notable increase in closings in recent months took a dent out of what was available for sale in May and ultimately dragged down contract activity,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist.
“Realtors are acknowledging with increasing frequency lately that buyers continue to be frustrated by the tense competition and lack of affordable homes for sale in their market,” Yun said.
Meanwhile, mortgage rages are hovering around three-year lows — below 4 percent — keeping prospective buyers in the market despite the headwinds.
Together, scant supply and swiftly rising home prices — which surpassed their all-time high last month — are creating an availability and affordability crunch that is weighing on the pace of sales, Yun said.
“Total housing inventory at the end of each month has remarkably decreased year-over-year now for an entire year,” Yun said.
“There are simply not enough homes coming onto the market to catch up with demand and to keep prices more in line with inflation and wage growth,” he said.
The United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union has injected some uncertainty into the U.S. housing market; the turbulence in financial markets and a shift into safer investments like Treasuries could lead to lower mortgage rates.
The flip side, though, is that any “prolonged market angst” could negatively affect the economy and temper the interest from potential buyers.
Despite the pullback in contract signings, existing-home sales this year are still expected to reach 5.44 million, 3.7 percent above 2015.
After accelerating to 6.8 percent a year ago, national median existing-home price growth is forecast to moderate to between 4 and 5 percent.
Regionally, contract signings fell in the Northeast 5.3 percent, the index in the Midwest slipped 4.2 percent, signings dropped 3.1 percent in the South and by 3.4 percent in the West.
Big banks have drastically reduced their share of the Federal Housing Administration market, a massive shift that has big implications, according to new analysis by the American Enterprise Institute.
Large banks — which had a 60% share of FHA refinancings in late 2013 — had a 6% share as of May 31, according to Stephen Oliner, a resident scholar at AEI. Nonbank lenders currently originate 90% of FHA-insured refinancings, according to new data released by the group.
Large banks also had a 65% share of the FHA purchase market in 2012, which is now down to 20%, according to AEI.
“The shift away from large banks to non-banks and mortgage brokers has been truly massive,” Oliner said.
The recent drop in interest rates is expected to spur another surge in refinancings due to Britain’s unexpected decision to leave the European Union.
But the large banks have decided that refinancing FHA loans is “not a good business” due to the regulatory environment and litigation risk, Oliner said.
“They are getting out,” he said, noting that many FHA lenders have been sued under the False Claims Act and had to pay huge fines to the Justice Department.
Banks also don’t get Community Reinvestment Act credit for refinancings. “So this is pretty much a lose-lose business for them,” Oliner said.
Bank CEOs took home millions in pay and compensation in 2015
The list of top-paid executives in the U.S. banking industry offers few surprises, with one notable exception. The king of the compensation mountain doesn’t work for the most famous nor the biggest bank, but for an institution that’s little known on the national stage.
Kevin Cummings, chief executive of Investors Bancorp Inc. ISBC, +1.12% beat bigwigs at more dominant players in the industry to be the top-earning bank CEO in 2015, according to an analysis by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Cummings took home roughly $20 million in salary and bonus last year to edge out John Stumpf at Wells Fargo & Co. WFC, +2.42% who received $19.3 million. Cummings saw his compensation package skyrocket 620% year-over-year after the regional institution in 2015 converted from a mutually held bank to a fully public company with a market capitalization of $3.4 billion, helping its stock surge 11% last year.
Investors Bancorp
Kevin Cummings
James Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM, +3.32% was third with total $18.22 million in compensation while Richard Fairbank of Capital One Financial Corp. COF, +2.60% in fourth place earned $18.01 million. Citigroup Inc.’s C, +5.09% Michael Corbat came in fifth with $14.60 million while Brian Moynihan of Bank of America Corp. BAC, +0.08% made a few bucks less at $13.72 million.
CEOs at Bank of New York Mellon Corp. BK, +2.54% Flagstar Bancorp Inc. FBC, +6.55% Northern Trust Corp. NTRS, +3.08% and PNC Financial Services Group Inc. PNC, +1.40% rounded out the remaining spots in the list.
S&P Global’s data showed only three of the 10 chief executives on the list getting pay cuts in a year that witnessed the financial sector significantly under perform the broader market. Financial stocks fell 3.5% in 2015 and are down nearly 9% this year as banks struggle to boost profitability in a low interest rate environment. The S&P 500 slid 0.7% last year and fell 1.1% year to date.
The CEOs’ multimillion compensation packages also highlight the gap in pay between those in the C-suite and the lowly bank employee toiling away in the front office. The average branch manager earned $54,820 a year while personal bankers made $35,937, according to PayScale.
April was not a good month for home prices – despite hopeful signs from seasonally adjusted sales data. S&P Case-Shiller 20-City index rose just 0.45% MoM (well below expectations and March’s 0.85% gain) – the weakest rise since Aug 2015. The broader Home Price Index hovered near unchanged for the 2nd month – the weakest since January 2012. Most worrisome, perhaps, is the 18.16% YoY plunge in San Francisco home sales… as perhaps the bubble is finally bursting.
Dealing with a Financial Crisis under cover of Brexit Chaos
Remember TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program that the US Congress approved to bail out banks and other companies during the Financial Crisis? $700 billion were authorized, later reduced to $475 billion. The Treasury eventually dispersed $432 billion. I bring this up because the ECB bailed out the European banks with more than TARP, in just one day: on Brexit Black Friday.
The ECB saw what was happening to the shares of the largest banks on that propitious day. It saw a blooming financial crisis:
Top UK Banks:
HSBC, the apparent winner in this fiasco, perhaps because of its exposure to Asia, -1.4%
Barclays: -17.7%
Royal Bank of Scotland: -18.0%
Lloyds Banking Group: -21.0%
Top German Banks:
Deutsche Bank: -15.9% to €13.25, down 59% from April last year, possibly on the way to zero.
Commerzbank: -13.6%, to €6.20. The German government still owns nearly 16% of it as a result of the bailout during the Financial Crisis.
The third-largest German bank, KfW, is a state-owned institution, so taxpayers are automatically on the hook.
The fiasco that happened to the Spanish and Italian banks was so enormous that it sent stock markets into their largest one-day plunges on record, of over 12% [ Brexit Blowback Hits Italian and Spanish Banks].
The Stoxx 600 banking index, which covers the largest European banks, plunged 14.5% on Friday. It’s down 29.3% year-to-date, 42% from its 52-week high, and 76% from its all-time high in May 2007 before the Financial Crisis and the euro debt crisis knocked the hot air out of the banks.
But to keep panic at bay, Brexit and the resulting political crisis are used to cover up the blooming financial crisis.
And what a political crisis it is, not just for the UK, but for the EU. No one knows how this will end up. Businesses need certainty. They need to know what money they’re going to use next year, and what the trade and legal frameworks will be. They like to take those things for granted. But now, in the EU, no one can take anything for granted anymore.
Companies with cross-border operations – this includes all major banks and brokerages – have gigantic headaches, and the UK’s 2.2 million financial-sector employees are fidgeting on the edge of their chairs. It might take a couple of years for the UK to actually exit the EU, if it even happens at all, so there’s a little breathing room.
But where there’s apparently no longer any breathing room is with banks, and the ECB went into panic mode.
With bank stocks collapsing on Brexit Black Friday, the frazzled folks at the ECB decided it was high time to start bailing out the banks – and not dabble at the margins, but pull out the whatever-it-takes money-printing machine, and do so under the cover of Brexit chaos when no one was supposed to pay attention.
On Friday, the ECB pulled a huge magic trick, larger than TARP. Under one of its alphabet-soup programs – long-term refinancing operations (LTRO) – it handed teetering banks $399.3 billion, or $444 billion.
€399.3 billion – like a used car is advertised for €19,999.99 – because €400 billion might have been too much of a sticker shock. So let’s round it to €400 billion.
And as central banks do, it didn’t ask legislators for permission. It just did it. Here’s a screenshot of the ECB’s disclosure, with my annotations:
Settlement date is Wednesday. This money is going to go somewhere.
Part of it may be mopped up by the liquidity crisis the ECB sees unfolding at the banks.
And part of it might end up in other assets. This sort of thing is supposed to prop stock markets, particularly bank stocks. But since April last year, European stock markets have swooned, despite all the efforts by the ECB. Its flood of liquidity went into bonds, real estate, and into US assets.
This money might pump up prices, perhaps in the most unexpected places, if only briefly. It might even pump up bank stocks. Short sellers should take note.
And the day before Brexit Black Friday, with impeccable timing, the ECB pulled another big one: it leaked to Reuters that it was addressing the nonperforming-loan epidemic among Eurozone banks by sweeping it further under the rug.
The ECB, which regulates 129 Eurozone banks, has estimated that these banks are bogged down in €900 billion ($1 trillion) of bad loans, or 7.1% of all Eurozone bank loans. At some banks, NPLs have reached catastrophic levels: for example, 15% at Italy’s UniCredit.
So instead of forcing the banks to finally take the losses, raise a lot of new capital or topple, the ECB will merely give them “non-binding guidance” by the end of 2016 or early 2017, and some of this “guidance” won’t even be in writing, sources told Reuters with perfect timing the day before Brexit sank these banks.
The ECB doesn’t want to hurt fake earnings. And this leak to Reuters was supposed to have soothed the markets and helped prop up bank stocks.
The thing is, banks that need to raise equity capital must have inflated stock prices or else existing investors get crushed. If Deutsche Bank has to raise €30 billion in capital by issuing shares at €3 a share, existing shareholder will essentially be wiped out, and raising equity capital may no longer be possible. So the name of the game is to manipulate up bank stocks before issuing new shares. But it may be too late.
European Banks Get Crushed, Worst 2-Day Plunge Ever, Italian Banks to Get Taxpayer Bailout, Contagion Hits US Banks
European bank stocks just experienced their worst two-day plunge ever in the post-Brexit fallout that rained down on the already blooming European banking crisis.
Healthy big banks would get over Brexit and the political turmoil it is spawning, particularly non-UK banks. But there are no healthy big banks in Europe. And non-UK banks are crashing just as hard, and some harder. This is about a banking crisis morphing into a financial crisis, that has gotten so bad that on Friday, the ECB tried to bail out the banks in its bailiwick with €400 billion – more than the entirety of TARP – in just one day.
These bank stocks got crushed on Friday. And they got crushed again today. Italian banks have been reduced to penny stocks. Spanish banks are getting closer. Commerzbank, Germany’s second largest bank, and still partially owned by the German government as a consequence of the last bailout, is well on the way.
The two-day losses are just breathtaking. This table shows the largest banks by country with their percentage losses for today and for the two-day period:
Note that the European Stoxx 600 banking index fell 7.6% today for a 21.1% two-day plunge! It isn’t just a few banks whose stocks are collapsing!
Deutsche Bank’s infamous CoCo bonds deserve a special word. These hybrid bonds that are just above equity on the capital totem pole had spiraled down, with the 6% CoCos hitting 70 cents on the euro in February. At that point, they and all other Deutsche Bank bonds were propped up by government verbiage and bank money. The bank ingeniously announced it would buy back its own bonds! Like all these transparent market manipulations, the market ate it up, and even the CoCo bonds jumped to 87 cents on the euro. But that didn’t last long. They have since lost 11.5%, including today’s 3.7% plunge to 77 cents on the euro.
In Italy, the banking crisis that has been growing for years has reduced all major Italian banks to penny stocks. It has triggered bailouts of some banks, including the third largest publicly traded bank, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Now the taxpayer is going to get shanghaied into bailing them out to put a floor under the collapsing share prices and prevent them from going to zero.
Italian banks are bogged down in a sea of bad debt whose true dimensions are still unknown publicly, and that the ECB publicly estimates to be €360 billion, but every time someone looks at it, it gets larger.
According to “a banking source familiar with the government’s thinking,” as Reuters put it, the Italian government is now fretting about a hedge fund attack on these zombies, following the Brexit turmoil! To counter this attack, the government is trying to figure out how to “protect its banks from a destabilizing sell-off of their shares” that “could tip them into full-blown crisis.”
(I have some news for the Italian government: Your banks have been in full-blown crisis for years!)
The government is thinking about using some kind of taxpayer guarantee and taking a stake in these banks, funded by about €40 billion in new government debt, issued by the second-most indebted government in the Eurozone, after Greece.
According to media reports in Italy, cited by Reuters, the government is already in talks with the European Commission about this sort of bailout. European rules are supposed to end state aid to tottering companies, and collapsing banks are supposed to be wound down involving losses for stock holders and junior bondholders (the bail-ins).
But the government is invoking the exemption in these rules in case of “exceptional events,” which would be the crash of bank stocks, as a consequence of investors figuring out that these Italian banks are toast.
That doesn’t mean that bottom fishers and falling-knife catchers aren’t jostling for position to pick up “bargains” among these European banks, as they have done so many times before, only to see banks stocks, after a brief rally, fall once again to new lows.
Contagion is infecting US banking stocks. As I’m writing this, Goldman Sachs is down -1.1%, Wells Fargo -1.3%, JPMorgan -3.1%, Morgan Stanley -3.1%, Citibank -3.5%, and Bank of American -5.3%.
These wounds among US banks are just cosmetic compared to the bank massacre happening in Europe, where the ECB is now fully engaged in trying to deal with a Financial Crisis under the cover of Brexit Chaos.
Questions. Sometimes they’re as innocuous as “What’s up?” and other times they get our hearts pumping and our mouths stuttering.
Part of being a man is knowing how to improvise, and part of improvisation is being able to think on your feet. It’s a skill that includes the ability to give impromptu remarks, as well as to answer unexpected and difficult questions.
People ask pointed questions to obtain information, but there are often other reasons behind their queries as well. What they really want, in many cases, is to get a feel for your attitude towards a certain subject, and how calm, confident, and trustworthy you seem.
So the ability to answer difficult questions is built on two tenets: 1) possessing ample knowledge and giving the right information, and 2) delivering that information in a poised manner.
The number of potential questions you might be asked is so infinite and context-specific that it’s not possible to learn a scripted response for each. But it is possible to hone your improvisation skills by learning methods that will allow you to give a smooth answer, no matter what you’re asked.
These methods come from the surprisingly handy Thinking on Your Feet by Marian K. Woodall and we’ll be sharing them with you today.
The Overarching Plan: Always Buy Yourself More Time
When someone aims a question our way, we’re tempted to jump on it as if it’s a live grenade. We fear that even a bit of silence will be read as hesitation, and perhaps even shiftiness. So we rush in…only to be forced to stick our feet in our mouths.
The answer you blurt out on impulse is unlikely to be the best response, and you’ll kick yourself later while mulling over the things you wished you had said.
So the biggest thing you can do to improve your responses to difficult questions is to buy yourself more time to come up with answers. Even a few extra nanoseconds gives your brain a chance to do a little more processing and pull out the pertinent information and needed words.
Allowing yourself a tiny pause to collect your thoughts is completely fine. Just don’t fill that gap with an “Uhhh…” or “Ummm…” which makes you sound halting and unsure. A moment of silence, on the other hand, will lend you a thoughtful air.
You can also repeat the question before launching into your answer. Speaking the question and then the answer offers a fuller response; it also helps others in a large audience who may not have heard the question when it was first asked.
In addition to embracing the silent pause or repeating the question, there are other techniques that will not only buy yourself extra processing time, but have other benefits as well. Let’s take a look at how they work.
Dealing With Vague, Complex Questions: The Art of Getting a Better Question
Questions come in many forms, and you’re not always lucky enough to get the short, clear, focused variety; sometimes, you’re presented with a vague, complex, rambling, and downright impenetrable query.
Don’t guess at what information the inquirer is looking for; misinterpreting their question may end up causing offense, or at least invoking an irritable response: “That’s not what I asked you.”
The much more effective approach is to clarify the question — to essentially get yourself a better one — before giving your response. This will not only make the question easier to answer, but will create a delay that gives your brain more time to think.
Woodall recommends several ways to nudge the inquirer into giving you a better, easier-to-handle question:
1. Ask them to repeat the question.
Just as you often wish you could take back an answer, people frequently wish they could reword their question because they aren’t happy with how it came out. Here you give them the chance for a do-over. Their second take is likely to be shorter, clearer, and more focused than the first.
Asking to have a question repeated has something of a formal air; I suppose we associate it with job interviews or courtrooms or something. So keep in mind that this is a tactic which is more natural in professional settings than casual conversation.
“Would you mind repeating the question? I want to make sure I got all of it.”
2. Ask for clarification.
If a question is vague and/or all over the place, respond with a question of your own that seeks to clarify and specify what the seeker is trying to get at. Which product is he referring to? What timeframe does she have in mind? Which aspect of something are they thinking about?
“There are several different insurance packages available. Which one were you interested in specifically?”
“Motivation is a broad subject. Is there something in particular you’re looking for advice on?”
“The subject of tax reform is quite complex. Is there an area that you’d particularly like me to address?
An especially effective way to focus the question is by asking the inquirer to select between choices:
“Are you concerned about the sales numbers for 2013 or 2014?”
“Was it what I said to you before the party or in the car afterwards that made you upset?”
3. Ask for a definition.
Even when everyone is using the same words, they can mean different things to different people. To avoid talking past each other, ask the questioner how they define key words in their inquiry.
“Before I answer that, can you tell me what you mean by ‘negligent?’”
“I’m totally open to this discussion, but before we have it, tell me what it means to you for us to be ‘officially dating.’”
Woodall points out that when someone has asked a question with the purpose of cornering you, asking them to define their terms can turn the tables and stump the stumper. For example, someone may ask, “Why do you think hunting is manly?” To which you reply, “Well, first of all, how do you define manliness?” Oftentimes, the person isn’t actually sure what they’re asking, in which case they may either withdraw the question, or, tangle themselves up in such knots that the original question is forgotten. If they do come up with a definition, well, now you’re both on the same page, and you gained extra time to think about your response.
4. Clarify or define a point yourself.
One way to take greater control of an interaction is to define the question as you see it within your response:
“Why was your pitch to Acme Co. a failure?”
“If by failure, you mean that nothing good came out of it, then I don’t think it was. We didn’t connect on this deal, but we established a good relationship and they’re open to future projects.”
“Why are you going out with her if we’re dating?”
“Dating simply means that we see each other regularly, not that we’re in an exclusive relationship.”
The downside of asserting your own definition of things is that the other party may not see it that way, and may become frustrated by your response.
Dealing With Inappropriate Questions: The Art of the Hedge
Sometimes questions are relatively clear, but they’re inappropriate, and you don’t wish, for various reasons, to answer them in full. Your response must then be hedged. Hedging has a somewhat unsavory reputation, as it’s associated with dishonesty and manipulation. But it need not be used for nefarious purposes. Sometimes you really can’t give someone the answer they seek, whether it’s because that information is classified, private, sensitive, or isn’t appropriate for a particular audience. You’re not obligated to talk about private things you don’t want to talk about.
Furthermore, sometimes people ask questions that have a hidden agenda or are simply off-topic, and will sidetrack you from your own agenda in a meeting or class. It’s important to know how to keep your remarks on track with what you want to accomplish.
Yet, you also typically don’t desire to offend or make the inquirer feel embarrassed. So, while a straight “That’s none of your business,” is all that’s needed in some scenarios, it’s oftentimes in your best interest to deliver your “noneya” in much more diplomatic terms. An artful hedge will at the least spare the inquirer from feeling like a toad, and at best, leave the seeker feeling that their question was in fact answered.
Here are techniques Woodall recommends for pulling off a successful indirect response:
1. Respond to one aspect of the question/line of questioning.
If a question is multi-faceted, and there are some aspects you don’t want to address, but at least one you’re comfortable speaking to, focus your response on that part:
“I’ve heard that there may be a new round of layoffs coming up. I also heard that a pay cut is being considered. I’ve even noticed that the free soda has disappeared from the break room; is that connected to the company’s declining profits?”
“I can assure you that there are not going to be any layoffs in the next six months. And contrary to what you heard, the company is quite strong and our earnings were higher than expected this quarter.”
“How’s your new gig going? How much are they paying you over there?”
“It’s going really well. It’s amazing how much different the office culture is. Every Friday we end work early and drink beer and play softball. Have you been playing much this spring?” (Ending with a question will help move the conversation away from the question you’d rather not answer.)
While you might think failing to answer each of a seeker’s questions will leave them unappeased, you’d be surprised how often they’ll let it go at your single answer. Sometimes an inappropriate question slips out, and the inquirer is actually relieved when you ignore it. And oftentimes folks who ask a particularly long-winded, multi-faceted question aren’t exactly sure what they want to know; they’re just feeling generally concerned. A simple answer that demonstrates positivity and confidence will leave them satisfied.
If the seeker is not satisfied, however, and wants to circle back to the unanswered parts of their question, that’s fine; by forwarding the initial exchange, you gave your brain a couple more minutes of subconscious processing time to figure out how to respond to the more difficult bits.
2. Refocus the question.
If there’s a part of a question you can’t, or don’t think it’s a good idea to speak to, focus on an aspect that you are able to discuss. You do that, Woodall writes, by taking “one word from the question (usually not the main topic word) which you are willing to talk about, and [building] a strong, supported response around it.”
“Have you heard anything about whether they’re considering me for the position? I really felt like I showed a lot of confidence during my interviews and was able to knock all their questions out of the park.”
“For sure. Frank said everyone was really impressed with your confidence and how prepared you seemed.” (You’re focusing on the confidence aspect, while choosing not to answer about the position specifically.)
“Why do you think I’m not getting ahead? I feel really stuck in life, and I feel like in every job I have the boss doesn’t appreciate me. I don’t want to sound prideful, but I’m really smart. Yet I don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”
“You are really smart, man. And when you’ve been intentional about applying your mind, you do really well. What do you think are some ways you could be more consistent about following through on the ideas you’ve started on?” (Instead of listing off his flaws, you’re focusing on the fact that he is indeed smart, and positioning your response in a positive direction.)
“Why are you breaking up with me? You can’t deny the passion we feel for each other.”
“The passion is definitely real. But sometimes it takes more than passion to make a relationship work.” (Focusing on the inadequacy of passion, while not necessarily going into other reasons.)
3. “Discuss” the question.
Sometimes it seems like people are looking for a specific answer to a question, when really they just want to have their question discussed. There really isn’t a singular answer to give. They want to hear both sides of an idea, or they just want to know that you’ve been thinking about it too, or they simply want acknowledgement that their question is something it’s okay to wonder about. In many cases, these inquiries are answered with a question that tries to probe deeper into the topic at hand.
“Why isn’t the school board reaching out more to get feedback from parents about this issue?”
“We are reaching out more than you might think. We just sent out a survey to 500 households. But the situation is complicated; parents of older kids want different things than parents of younger students. We’re carefully considering all opinions and options, and looking for a way we can compromise.”
“Where do babies come from?”
“What do you think?” or “What do you already know about where babies come from?”
“Why aren’t you happy in our relationship?”
“What’s given you the impression that I’m unhappy?”
4. Build a bridge.
With this technique you build a bridge from what the question asked to what you really want to talk about. This technique is similar to the refocusing strategy, but the break between the content of the question and that of your answer is sharper.
If you’ve ever watched politicians on TV news shows and candidates in debates, you’ll be very familiar with the bridging technique. A politician will be asked about their stance on the war, and they’ll answer, “The war is an important issue that needs to be addressed. But I really want to talk about the tax hike my opponent is proposing.”
The bridge response can be infuriating, and I certainly don’t recommend dodging important questions with it. But it can also be essential in sticking to your agenda when you’re presented with off-topic queries in a meeting you’re leading, a Q&A you’re facilitating, or a lecture you’re giving.
The trick is to bridge to your talking points as smoothly as possible so the transition isn’t very awkward or noticeable. To do this, first acknowledge the significance of the question’s subject, and then look for a logical pivot point towards what you think is the more important issue:
“What about Area 51? Didn’t the government take possession of UFOs there during the 50s?”
“UFO sightings were certainly one of the consequences of the overall paranoia that prevailed during the Cold War period. What most Americans feared was a nuclear bomb though. As I was saying, the Soviets tested their H-bomb in 1953…”
“Why would I sign on with you, when your competitor’s services are significantly cheaper?”
“Price is certainly an important factor to consider. But quality is crucial too. We can deliver a much faster and more secure experience….”
5. Use a funnel.
With the bridge technique, you pivot entirely away from the question’s main subject. But sometimes you just want to narrow the field of discussion, while also encouraging follow-up questions and continued conversation on one certain aspect. With the funnel approach, you can accomplish this by acknowledging the larger issue and then using narrowing words to direct your audience’s attention to the area you most want to spotlight:
“What work experience do you have that makes you a good candidate for this job?”
“I have experience in the hospitality business and as a customer service representative, but the experience that most aligns with what you’re looking for is the five years I spent managing social media for one of your competitors.”
“Do you have a plan for how you will execute this project?”
“We do, and the most crucial step will be securing funding for it. As you can see from this chart, we’ve already raised half the money we need.”
The key with all these hedging strategies is delivery. Hesitating and acting sheepish will render them wholly ineffective. Demonstrating confidence and strength will lend you the air of a captain directing a tour boat; people will enjoy coming along for the ride. Remember, when people ask questions, they’re not just looking for answers; they want to get a sense for what you’re like and how you handle pressure.
Sometimes Straightforward Is Best: The Art of Shooting from the Hip
Sometimes the best way to answer a difficult question is to give a totally straightforward answer. This forthrightness can be refreshing and disarming.
Now, I know some of you are thinking (in a cowboy drawl voice): “You should always shoot from the hip! A real man doesn’t hedge.”
That certainly sounds nice, but as with most bumper-sticker-esque maxims, it’s basically complete poppycock.
We all hedge our answers to questions every single day. Else, when someone asks, “How’s it going?” you answer with, “Well, I had a big fight with my wife last night, and my truck needs new brakes…” We all refocus and only partially answer the questions that are regularly put to us.
The art of improvisation simply requires knowing how and how much to respond in widely varying circumstances; when to pull the accordion out, and when to contract it. Learning this skill, and buying yourself extra time to deploy it, assures that you won’t blurt out answers you’ll spend the next month wishing you could take back, and that your confident, smooth responses will help you navigate your relationships and career like a sir.
Home ownership is at a 48-year low, driven in part by a shocking pattern of foreclosure that put 9.4 million out of their homes during the recent recession, according to a Harvard survey.
In its “State of the Nation’s Housing 2016,” Harvard said that “the U.S. homeownership rate has tumbled to its lowest level in nearly a half-century.”
Figures from the St. Louis Fed showed a home ownership rate of 63.5 percent. The last time it was lower was in 1967.
“A critical but often overlooked factor is the role of foreclosures in depleting the ranks of homeowners. Indeed, CoreLogic estimates that more than 9.4 million homes (the majority owner-occupied) were forfeited through foreclosures, short sales, and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure from the start of the housing crash in 2007 through 2015,” said the report.
The report also noted that the number of people using at least 30 percent of their income for housing rose, as our Joseph Lawler reported this week. It said, “40.9 million Americans, both homeowners and renters, spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, including 19.8 million who spend over half of their income for housing.”
At the same time, said Harvard, the drive for the American Dream has been braked by low incomes, higher prices and bad credit.
Harvard:
“Just as exits from homeownership have been high, transitions to owning have been low. Tight mortgage credit is one explanation, with essentially no home purchase loans made to applicants with subprime credit scores (below 620) since 2010 and a sharp retreat in lending to applicants with scores of 620–660 compared with the early 2000s. And given that the homeownership rate tends to move in tandem with incomes, the 18 percent drop in real incomes among 25–34 year olds and the 9 percent decline among 35–44 year olds between 2000 and 2014 no doubt played a part as well.”
Apparently the biggest banks in the US didn’t learn their lesson the first time around…
Because a few days ago, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and many of the usual suspects made a stunning announcement that they would start making crappy subprime loans once again!
I’m sure you remember how this all blew up back in 2008.
Banks spent years making the most insane loans imaginable, giving no-money-down mortgages to people with bad credit, and intentionally doing almost zero due diligence on their borrowers.
With the infamous “stated income” loans, a borrower could qualify for a loan by simply writing down his/her income on the loan application, without having to show any proof whatsoever.
Fraud was rampant. If you wanted to qualify for a $500,000 mortgage, all you had to do was tell your banker that you made $1 million per year. Simple. They didn’t ask, and you didn’t have to prove it.
Fast forward eight years and the banks are dusting off the old playbook once again.
Here’s the skinny: through these special new loan programs, borrowers are able to obtain a mortgage with just 3% down.
Now, 3% isn’t as magical as 0% down, but just wait ‘til you hear the rest.
At Wells Fargo, borrowers who have almost no savings for a down payment can actually qualify for a LOWER interest rate as long as you go to some silly government-sponsored personal finance class.
I looked at the interest rates: today, Wells Fargo is offering the exact same interest rate of 3.75% on a 30-year fixed rate, whether you have bad credit and put down 3%, or have great credit and put down 30%.
But if you put down 3% and take the government’s personal finance class, they’ll shave an eighth of a percent off the interest rate.
In other words, if you are a creditworthy borrower with ample savings and a hefty down payment, you will actually end up getting penalized with a HIGHER interest rate.
The banks have also drastically lowered their credit guidelines as well… so if you have bad credit, or difficulty demonstrating any credit at all, they’re now willing to accept documentation from “nontraditional sources”.
In its heroic effort to lead this gaggle of madness, Bank of America’s subprime loan program actually requires you to prove that your income is below-average in order to qualify.
Think about that again: this bank is making home loans with just 3% down (because, of course, housing prices always go up) to borrowers with bad credit who MUST PROVE that their income is below average.
[As an aside, it’s amazing to see banks actively competing for consumers with bad credit and minimal savings… apparently this market of subprime borrowers is extremely large, another depressing sign of how rapidly the American Middle Class is vanishing.]
Now, here’s the craziest part: the US government is in on the scam.
The federal housing agencies, specifically Fannie Mae, are all set up to buy these subprime loans from the banks.
Wells Fargo even puts this on its website: “Wells Fargo will service the loans, but Fannie Mae will buy them.” Hilarious.
They might as well say, “Wells Fargo will make the profit, but the taxpayer will assume the risk.”
Because that’s precisely what happens.
The banks rake in fees when they close the loan, then book another small profit when they flip the loan to the government.
This essentially takes the risk off the shoulders of the banks and puts it right onto the shoulders of where it always ends up: you. The consumer. The depositor. The TAXPAYER.
You would be forgiven for mistaking these loan programs as a sign of dementia… because ALL the parties involved are wading right back into the same gigantic, shark-infested ocean of risk that nearly brought down the financial system in 2008.
Except last time around the US government ‘only’ had a debt level of $9 trillion. Today it’s more than double that amount at $19.2 trillion, well over 100% of GDP.
In 2008 the Federal Reserve actually had the capacity to rapidly expand its balance sheet and slash interest rates.
Today interest rates are barely above zero, and the Fed is technically insolvent.
Back in 2008 they were at least able to -just barely- prevent an all-out collapse.
This time around the government, central bank, and FDIC are all out of ammunition to fight another crisis. The math is pretty simple.
Look, this isn’t any cause for alarm or panic. No one makes good decisions when they’re emotional.
But it is important to look at objective data and recognize that the colossal stupidity in the banking system never ends.
So ask yourself, rationally, is it worth tying up 100% of your savings in a banking system that routinely gambles away your deposits with such wanton irresponsibility…
… especially when they’re only paying you 0.1% interest anyhow. What’s the point?
There are so many other options available to store your wealth. Physical cash. Precious metals. Conservative foreign banks located in solvent jurisdictions with minimal debt.
You can generate safe returns through peer-to-peer arrangements, earning up as much as 12% on secured loans.
(In comparison, your savings account is nothing more than an unsecured loan you make to your banker, for which you are paid 0.1%…)
There are even a number of cryptocurrency options.
Bottom line, it’s 2016. Banks no longer have a monopoly on your savings. You have options. You have the power to fix this.
Last night, our nation was attacked by a radical Islamic terrorist. It was the worst terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11, and the second of its kind in 6 months. My deepest sympathy and support goes out to the victims, the wounded, and their families.
In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words ‘Radical Islam’. For that reason alone, he should step down. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words ‘Radical Islam’ she should get out of this race for the Presidency.
If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen – and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can’t afford to be politically correct anymore.
The terrorist, Omar Mir Saddique Mateen, is the son of an immigrant from Afghanistan who openly published his support for the Afghanistani Taliban and even tried to run for President of Afghanistan. According to Pew, 99% of people in Afghanistan support oppressive Sharia Law.
We admit more than 100,000 lifetime migrants from the Middle East each year. Since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States. Hillary Clinton wants to dramatically increase admissions from the Middle East, bringing in many hundreds of thousands during a first term – and we will have no way to screen them, pay for them, or prevent the second generation from radicalizing.
We need to protect all Americans, of all backgrounds and all beliefs, from Radical Islamic Terrorism – which has no place in an open and tolerant society. Radical Islam advocates hate for women, gays, Jews, Christians and all Americans. I am going to be a President for all Americans, and I am going to protect and defend all Americans. We are going to make America safe again and great again for everyone.
German, Japanese, and British bond yields are plumbing historic depths as low growth outlooks combined with event risk concerns (Brexit, elections, etc.) have sent investors scurrying for safe-havens (away from US Biotechs).
At 2.0bps, 10Y Bunds are inching ever closer to the Maginot Line of NIRP which JGBs have already crossed, and all of this global compression is dragging US Treasury yields to their lowest levels since February’s flash-crash… back below 10Y’s lowest close level since 2013.
As Bloomberg reports, the rush into government bonds during 2016 shows no sign of reversing as a weakening global economic outlook fuels demand for perceived havens.
Bonds are off to their best start to a year since at least 1997, according to a broad global gauge of investment-grade debt that has gained 4.6 percent since the end of December, based on Bank of America Corp. data. They rallied most recently after the weakest U.S. payrolls data in almost six years was reported June 3, damping expectations the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in the next few months.
At the same time, polls indicate Britain’s vote on remaining or exiting the European Union is too close to call. Billionaire investor George Soros was said to be concerned large market shifts may be at hand.
“The environment is fundamentally supportive of these low yields, and there is nothing in sight, at least in the short term, that could trigger a trend reversal,” said Marius Daheim, a senior rates strategist at SEB AB in Frankfurt. “The labor market report was one thing which has driven the Treasury market and has supported other markets. If you look in the euro zone, you have Brexit risks that have risen recently, and that is also creating safe-haven flows.”
10Y Japanese Government bonds plunged to record lows at -15bps!
With Gilts down 9 days in a row…
The World Bank this week cut its outlook for global growth as business spending sags in advanced economies including the U.S., while commodity exporters in emerging markets struggle to adjust to low prices.
The yield on the Bloomberg Global Developed Sovereign Bond Index dropped to a record 0.601 percent Thursday.
The jobs data in the US has recently taken a nasty spill. Last week it was an ugly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It could bounce off next month, and the current data could be revised higher, but we’re not seeing the signs of this sort of hiring momentum.
Instead, we’re confronted with a sharp and ongoing deterioration of a leading indicator of the labor market: temporary jobs. They rise and fall months ahead of the overall number of jobs. The sector peaked in December 2015 at 2.94 million. It shed 21,000 jobs in May, and 63,800 since December. This is also what happened in 2007 and 2000, at the eve of recessions.
This week, it was the Fed’s very own Labor Market Conditions Index which dropped to the worst level since the Financial Crisis, a level to which it typically drops shortly before the onset of a recession – and shortly before employment gives way altogether. It still could bounce off as it had done in early 2003, but it better do so in a hurry
So now comes LinkedIn, or rather MKM Partners, an equity and economics research firm, with a report in Barron’s about LinkedIn – “While we like LinkedIn’s long-term prospects and believe that sentiment on the company’s opportunity is overly negative, we remain at Neutral on the stock,” it says. Rather than disputing the deterioration in the labor market or throwing some uplifting tidbits into the mix, the report highlights yet another 2009-type super-ugly data point.
LinkedIn has some, let’s say, issues. Its stock has gotten hammered, including a dizzying plunge in February. It’s now down over 50% from its high in February 2015. The company lost money in 2014, 2015, and in the first quarter 2016 despite soaring revenues. And that revenue growth may now be at risk.
But we aren’t concerned about the stock or the company. We’re concerned about that 2009-type super-ugly employment data point.
MKM Partners discussed that data point because it’s worried that investors might misconstrue it as weakness at LinkedIn, rather than what’s happening in the labor market and the overall economy:
We believe that LinkedIn is a unique network, the de facto in Recruiting with promising opportunities in Sales and Learning. We are concerned that the jobs tailwind over the past six-years is becoming a headwind and that any further softness in Hiring revenue would incorrectly be perceived as a TAM (total addressable market) issue vs. a macro issue.
The online jobs data is getting “incrementally worse,” the report explained (emphasis added):
After 73 consecutive months of year-over-year growth, online jobs postings have been in decline since February. May was by far the worst month since January 2009, down 285k from April and down 552k from a year ago.
Online job postings are not a direct revenue driver for LinkedIn. We do however believe it is a reflection of overall hiring activity and should be considered a check on demand vibrancy.
And the report frets that “further deterioration” could trigger a “revenue shortfall” in the second half.
LinkedIn caters to professionals, people with well-paid jobs, or people looking for well-paid jobs. They’re software developers, program managers, petroleum engineers, executives of all kinds, marketing professionals, sales gurus…. They span the entire gamut. And companies use LinkedIn to recruit those folks.
So with online job postings on LinkedIn plunging since February, and with May clocking in as “by far the worst month since January 2009,” then by the looks of it, businesses are slashing their recruiting efforts in those professional categories.
If that bears out, it would be another sign that not only the labor market but the overall US economy have taken a major hit recently, that businesses have started to respond to sales which have been falling since mid-2014 and to profits which have been falling since early 2015, and to productivity which declined in Q1 and has been weak for years – and that they’ve begun to look at their workforce for savings. And if this bears out, they will confront the possibility of a looming recession with even steeper cuts.
The dollar extended its slide for a second day as traders ruled out the possibility that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at its meeting next
The currency fell against all of its major peers, depressed by tepid U.S. job growth and comments by Fed Chair Janet Yellen that didn’t signal timing for the central bank’s next move. Traders see a zero percent chance the Fed will raise rates at its June 15 meeting, down from 22 percent a week ago, futures contracts indicate. The greenback posted its largest losses against the South African rand, the Mexican peso and the Brazilian real.
“There’s a bias to trade on the weaker side in the weeks to come” for the dollar, which will probably stay in its recent range, said Andres Jaime, a foreign-exchange and rates strategist at Barclays Plc in New York. “June and July are off the table — the probability of the Fed deciding to do something in those meetings is extremely low.”
The greenback resumed its slide this month as a lackluster jobs report weakened the case for the Fed to boost borrowing costs and dimmed prospects for policy divergence with stimulus increases in Europe and a Asia. The losses follow a rally in May, when policy makers including Yellen said higher rates in the coming months looked appropriate.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index declined 0.5 percent as of 9:31 a.m. New York time, reaching the lowest level since May 4. The U.S. currency slipped 0.4 percent against the euro to $1.1399 and lost 0.5 percent to 106.83 yen.
There’s a 59 percent probability the central bank will hike by year-end, futures data showed. The Federal Open Market Committee will end two-day meeting on June 15 with a policy statement, revised economic projections and a news conference.
“Until the U.S. economy can make the case for a rate rise, the dollar will be at risk of slipping further,” said Joe Manimbo, an analyst with Western Union Business Solutions, a unit of Western Union Co., in Washington. The Fed’s “economic projections are going to be key, as well as Ms. Yellen’s news conference — if they were to sketch an even shallower path of rate rises next week, that would add fuel to the dollar’s selloff.”
Do you have outstanding debt from a federal student loan? If so, the chances are significant that you are behind on your payments or have not even tried to make any payments at all. As of the beginning of the year, there were approximately 22 million Americans with student loans — and, according to information from the Department of Education, only 12.5 million of them are current with their loan payments.
Around 3 million student loan holders are in some form of postponement on their debt. Through a deferment or forbearance, they have permission to delay their loan payments due to a hardship such as unemployment or other financial emergency. Approximately $110 billion in student loan balances are in some form of postponement.
Another 3 million more student loan borrowers were delinquent, meaning they were between one month and a year behind on their loans. 3.6 million borrowers are at least a year behind on their payments and are considered to be in default. Government officials are concerned that many of the borrowers in default do not intend ever to attempt to pay back their student loans.
The combined balance in delinquent and defaulted loans is approximately $122 billion, meaning that around $232 billion of the over $1.2 trillion student loan portfolio is in some form of distress. Other types of loans with traditional banks would not tolerate such a ratio — but what bank would loan money without credit checks, cosigners, or any evidence that the loan will ever be paid back? Essentially, that’s how student loans work. The government also has no collateral; they cannot repossess your education (yet).
There is at least some silver lining, as a 43% non-repayment rate represents an improvement over last year’s rate of 46%. The Wall Street Journal attributes much of the change to programs that allow some borrowers to lower their student loan payments by connecting them to a percentage of the borrower’s income (also known as income-driven repayment). The number of borrowers taking advantage of these programs nearly doubled over the past year to 4.6 million.
Fortune notes that the Department of Education has blogged that those who do not pay back federal student loans will not be arrested, but they will suffer problems in their financial future and will certainly have difficulties establishing good credit. Unfortunately, evidence shows that some borrowers may not care. The attitude may be that the government will eventually write off these loans or that the potential punishments are not worth a repayment effort compared to other priorities.
Data from student loan servicer, Navient Corp. shows that the average attempts to reach borrowers in delinquency are between 230 and 300, or more than once every other day. Regardless of format — calls, letters, text messages, and e-mails — 90% never respond. Over half never even attempt to make a payment prior to default.
Income-driven repayment is the preferred compromise path that allows repayment without punishing those who legitimately cannot find work and afford repayment. There are four such programs offered through the Federal Student Aid website: REPAYE, PAYE, IBR, and ICR. If you find yourself among the 43%, consider income-driven repayment plans as a way to repay your debt without overburdening your budget.
If you are among those who are simply ignoring your obligation to repay, don’t. Just because you may never be jailed because of default does not mean that there are not consequences — and do not expect the government to bail you out. Even if the rules are changed, they may not be retroactive. Do the responsible thing and set up a program to pay as you can.
Blockchain technology will revolutionize far more than money: it will change your life. Here’s how it actually works,
The impact of record-keeping on the course of history cannot be overstated. For example, the act of preserving Judaism and Christianity in written form enabled both to outlive the plethora of other contemporary religions, which were preserved only orally. William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book, compiled in 1086, was still being used to settle land disputes as late as the 1960s. Today there is a new system of digital record-keeping. Its impact could be equally large. It is called the blockchain.
Imagine an enormous digital record. Anyone with internet access can look at the information within: it is open for all to see. Nobody is in charge of this record. It is not maintained by a person, a company or a government department, but by 8,000-9,000 computers at different locations around the world in a distributed network. Participation is quite voluntary. The computers’ owners choose to add their machines to the network because, in exchange for their computer’s services, they sometimes receive payment. You can add your computer to the network, if you so wish.
All the information in the record is permanent – it cannot be changed – and each of the computers keeps a copy of the record to ensure this. If you wanted to hack the system, you would have to hack every computer on the network – and this has so far proved impossible, despite many trying, including the US National Security Agency’s finest. The collective power of all these computers is greater than the world’s top 500 supercomputers combined.
New information is added to the record every few minutes, but it can be added only when all the computers signal their approval, which they do as soon as they have satisfactory proof that the information to be added is correct. Everybody knows how the system works, but nobody can change how it works. It is fully automated. Human decision-making or behavior doesn’t enter into it.
If a company or a government department were in charge of the record, it would be vulnerable – if the company went bust or the government department shut down, for example. But with a distributed record there is no single point of vulnerability. It is decentralized. At times, some computers might go awry, but that doesn’t matter. The copies on all the other computers and their unanimous approval for new information to be added will mean the record itself is safe.
This is possibly the most significant and detailed record in all history, an open-source structure of permanent memory, which grows organically. It is known as the block chain. It is the breakthrough tech behind the digital cash system, Bitcoin, but its impact will soon be far wider than just alternative money.
Many struggle to understand what is so special about Bitcoin. We all have accounts online with pounds, dollars, euros or some other national currency. That money is completely digital, it doesn’t exist in the real world – it is just numbers in a digital ledger somewhere. Only about 3 per cent of national currency actually exists in physical form; the rest is digital. I have supermarket rewards points and air miles as well. These don’t exist physically either, but they are still tokens to be exchanged for some kind of good or service, albeit with a limited scope; so they’re money too. Why has the world got so excited about Bitcoin?
To understand this, it is important to distinguish between money and cash.
If I’m standing in a shop and I give the shopkeeper 50 pence for a bar of chocolate, that is a cash transaction. The money passes straight from me to him and it involves nobody else: it is direct and frictionless. But if I buy that bar of chocolate with a credit card, the transaction involves a payment processor of some kind (often more than one). There is, in other words, a middle man.
The same goes for those pounds, dollars or euros I have in the accounts online. I have to go through a middle man if I want to spend them – perhaps a bank, PayPal or a credit-card company. If I want to spend those supermarket rewards points or those air miles, there is the supermarket or airline to go through.
Since the early 1980s, computer coders had been trying to find a way of digitally replicating the cash transaction – that direct, frictionless, A-to-B transaction – but nobody could find a way. The problem was known as the problem of ‘double-spending’. If I send you an email, a photo or a video – any form of computer code – you can, if you want, copy and paste that code and send it to one or a hundred or a million different people. But if you can do that with money, the money quickly becomes useless. Nobody could find a way around it without using a middle man of some kind to verify and process transactions, at which point it is no longer cash. By the mid 2000s, coders had all but given up on the idea. It was deemed unsolvable. Then, in late 2008, quietly announced on an out-of-the-way mailing list, along came Bitcoin.
On a dollar bill you will see the words: ‘In God we trust.’ Bitcoin aficionados are fond of saying: ‘In proof we trust’
By late 2009, coders were waking up to the fact that its inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, had cracked the problem of double spending. The solution was the block chain, the automated record with nobody in charge. It replaces the middle man. Rather than a bank process a transaction, transactions are processed by those 8,000-9,000 computers distributed across the Bitcoin network in the collective tradition of open-source collaboration. When those computers have their cryptographic and mathematical proof (a process that takes very little time), they approve the transaction and it is then complete. The payment information – the time, the amount, the wallet addresses – is added to the database; or, to use correct terminology, another block of data is added to the chain of information – hence the name block chain. It is, simply, a chain of information blocks.
Money requires trust – trust in central banks, commercial banks, other large institutions, trust in the paper itself. On a dollar bill you will see the words: ‘In God we trust.’ Bitcoin aficionados are fond of saying: ‘In proof we trust.’ The block chain, which works transparently by automation and mathematical and cryptographic proof, has removed the need for that trust. It has enabled people to pay digital cash directly from one person to another, as easily as you might send a text or an email, with no need for a middle man.
So the best way to understand Bitcoin is, simply: cash for the internet. It is not going to replace the US dollar or anything like that, as some of the diehard advocates will tell you, but it does have many uses. And, on a practical level, it works.
Testament to this is the rise of the online black market. Perhaps £1 million-worth of illegal goods and services are traded through dark marketplaces every day and the means of payment is Bitcoin. Bitcoin has facilitated this rapid rise. (I should stress that even though every Bitcoin transaction, no matter how small, is recorded on the blockchain, the identity of the person making that transaction can be hidden if desired – hence its appeal). In the financial grand scheme of things, £1 million a day is not very much, but the fact that ordinary people on the black market are using Bitcoin on a practical, day-to-day basis as a way of paying for goods and services demonstrates that the tech works. I’m not endorsing black markets, but it’s worth noting that they are often the first to embrace a new tech. They were the first to turn the internet to profit, for example. Without deep pools of debt or venture capital to fall back on, black markets have to make new tech work quickly and practically.
But Bitcoin’s potential use goes far beyond dark markets. Consider why we might want to use cash in the physical world. You use it for small payments – a bar of chocolate or a newspaper from your corner shop, for example. There is the same need online. I might want to read an article in The Times. I don’t want to take out an annual subscription – but I do want to read that article. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a system where I could make a micropayment to read that article? It is not worth a payment processor’s time to process a payment that small, but with internet cash, you don’t need a processor. You can pay cash and it costs nothing to process – it is direct. This potential use could usher in a new era of paid content. No longer will online content-providers have to be so squeezed, and give out so much material for nothing in the hope of somehow recouping later, now that the tech is there to make and receive payment for small amounts in exchange for content.
We also use cash for quick payments, direct payments and tipping. You are walking past a busker, for example, and you throw him a coin. Soon you will able to tip an online content-provider for his or her YouTube video, song or blog entry, again as easily and quickly as you click ‘like’ on the screen. Even if I pay my restaurant bill with a card, I’ll often tip the waiter in cash. That way I know the waiter will receive the money rather than some unscrupulous employer. I like to pay cash in markets, where a lot of small businesses start out because a cash payment goes directly to the business owner without middle men shaving off their percentages. The same principle of quick, cheap, direct payment will apply online. Cheap processing costs are essential for low-margin businesses. Internet cash will have a use there, too. It also has potential use in the remittance business, which is currently dominated by the likes of Western Union. For those working oversees who want to send money home, remittance and foreign exchange charges can often amount to as much as 20 per cent of the amount transferred. With Bitcoin that cost can be removed.
Some of us also use cash for payments we want kept private. Private does not necessarily mean illegal. You might be buying a present for your wedding anniversary and don’t want your spouse to know. You might be making a donation to a cause or charity and want anonymity. You might be doing something naughty: many of those who had their Ashley Madison details leaked would have preferred to have been able to pay for their membership with cash – and thus have preserved their anonymity.
More significantly, cash is vital to the 3.5 billion people – half of the world’s population – who are ‘un-banked’, shut out of the financial system and so excluded from e-commerce. With Bitcoin, the only barrier to entry is internet access.
Bitcoin is currently experiencing some governance and scalability issues. Even so, the tech works, and coders are now developing ways to use block chain tech for purposes beyond an alternative money system. From 2017, you will start to see some of the early applications creeping into your electronic lives.
One application is in decentralized messaging. Just as you can send cash to somebody else with no intermediary using Bitcoin, so can you send messages – without Gmail, iMessage, WhatsApp, or whoever the provider is, having access to what’s being said. The same goes for social media. What you say will be between you and your friends or followers. Twitter or Facebook will have no access to it. The implications for privacy are enormous, raising a range of issues in the ongoing government surveillance discussion.
We’ll see decentralized storage and cloud computing as well, considerably reducing the risk of storing data with a single provider. A company called Trustonic is working on a new block chain-based mobile phone operating system to compete with Android and Mac OS.
Just as the block chain records where a bitcoin is at any given moment, and thus who owns it, so can block chain be used to record the ownership of any asset and then to trade ownership of that asset. This has huge implications for the way stocks, bonds and futures, indeed all financial assets, are registered and traded. Registrars, stock markets, investment banks – disruption lies ahead for all of them. Their monopolies are all under threat from block chain technology.
Land and property ownership can also be recorded and traded on a block chain. Honduras, where ownership disputes over beachfront property are commonplace, is already developing ways to record its land registries on a block chain. In the UK, as much as 50 per cent of land is still unregistered, according to the investigative reporter Kevin Cahill’s book Who Owns Britain? (2001). The ownership of vehicles, tickets, diamonds, gold – just about anything – can be recorded and traded using block chain technology – even the contents of your music and film libraries (though copyright law may inhibit that). Block chain tokens will be as good as any deed of ownership – and will be significantly cheaper to provide.
The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto Polar has won many prizes for his work on ownership. His central thesis is that lack of clear property title is what has held back so many in the Third World for so long. Who owns what needs to be clear, recognized and protected – otherwise there will be no investment and development will be limited. But if ownership is clear, people can trade, exchange and prosper. The block chain will, its keenest advocates hope, go some way to addressing that.
Smart contracts could disrupt the legal profession and make it affordable to all, just as the internet has done with music and publishing
Once ownership is clear, then contract rights and property rights follow. This brings us to the next wave of development in block chain tech: automated contracts, or to use the jargon, ‘smart contracts’, a term coined by the US programmer Nick Szabo. We are moving beyond ownership into contracts that simultaneously represent ownership of a property and the conditions that come with that ownership. It is all very well knowing that a bond, say, is owned by a certain person, but that bond may come with certain conditions – it might generate interest, it might need to be repaid by a certain time, it might incur penalties, if certain criteria are not met. These conditions could be encoded in a block chain and all the corresponding actions automated.
Whether it is the initial agreement, the arbitration of a dispute or its execution, every stage of a contract has, historically, been evaluated and acted on by people. A smart contract automates the rules, checks the conditions and then acts on them, minimizing human involvement – and thus cost. Even complicated business arrangements can be coded and packaged as a smart contract for a fraction of the cost of drafting, disputing or executing a traditional contract.
One of the criticisms of the current legal system is that only the very rich or those on legal aid can afford it: everyone else is excluded. Smart contracts have the potential to disrupt the legal profession and make it affordable to all, just as the internet has done with both music and publishing.
This all has enormous implications for the way we do business. It is possible that block chain tech will do the work of bankers, lawyers, administrators and registrars to a much higher standard for a fraction of the price.
As well as ownership, block chain tech can prove authenticity. From notarization – the authentication of documents – to certification, the applications are multi fold. It is of particular use to manufacturers, particularly of designer goods and top-end electrical goods, where the value is the brand. We will know that this is a genuine Louis Vuitton bag, because it was recorded on the block chain at the time of its manufacture.
Block chain tech will also have a role to play in the authentication of you. At the moment, we use a system of usernames and passwords to prove identity online. It is clunky and vulnerable to fraud. We won’t be using that for much longer. One company is even looking at a block chain tech system to replace current car- and home-locking systems. Once inside your home, block chain tech will find use in the internet of things, linking your home network to the cloud and the electrical devices around your home.
From identity, it is a small step to reputation. Think of the importance of a TripAdvisor or eBay rating, or a positive Amazon review. Online reputation has become essential to a seller’s business model and has brought about a wholesale improvement in standards. Thanks to TripAdvisor, what was an ordinary hotel will now treat you like a king or queen in order to ensure you give it five stars. The service you get from an Uber driver is likely to be much better than that of an ordinary cabbie, because he or she wants a good rating.
There will be no suspect recounts in Florida! The block chain will also usher in the possibility of more direct democracy
The feedback system has been fundamental to the success of the online black market, too. Bad sellers get bad ratings. Good sellers get good ones. Buyers go to the sellers with good ratings. The black market is no longer the rip-off shop without recourse it once was. The feedback system has made the role of trading standards authorities, consumer protection groups and other business regulators redundant. They look clunky, slow and out of date.
Once your online reputation can be stored on the block chain (ie not held by one company such as TripAdvisor, but decentralized) everyone will want a good one. The need to preserve and protect reputation will mean, simply, that people behave better. Sony is looking at ways to harness this whereby your education reputation is put on the block chain – the grades you got at school, your university degree, your work experience, your qualifications, your resumé, the endorsements you receive from people you’ve done business with. LinkedIn is probably doing something similar. There is an obvious use for this in medical records too, but also in criminal records – not just for individuals, but for companies. If, say, a mining company has a bad reputation for polluting the environment, it might be less likely to win a commission for a project, or to get permission to build it.
We are also seeing the development of new voting apps. The implications of this are enormous. Elections and referenda are expensive undertakings – the campaigning, the staff, the counting of the ballot papers. But you will soon be able to vote from your mobile phone in a way that is 10 times more secure than the current US or UK systems, at a fraction of the cost and fraud-free. What’s more, you will be able to audit your vote to make sure it is counted, while preserving your anonymity. Not even a corrupt government will be able to manipulate such a system, once it is in place. There will be no suspect recounts in Florida! The block chain will also usher in the possibility of more direct democracy: once the cost and possibility of fraud are eliminated, there are fewer excuses for not going back to the electorate on key issues.
Few have seen this coming, but this new technology is about to change the way we interact online. The revolution will not be televised, it will be cryptographically time-stamped on the block chain. And the block chain, originally devised to solve the conundrum of digital cash, could prove to be something much more significant: a digital Domesday Book for the 21st century, and so much more.
There was a small ray of hope just after the Lehman collapse that one of the most lamentable characteristics of US society – the relentless urge to build massive McMansions (funding questions aside) – was fading. Alas, as the Census Bureau confirmed this week, that normalization in the innate American desire for bigger, bigger, bigger not only did not go away but is now back with a bang.
According to just released data, both the median and average size of a new single-family home built in 2015 hit new all time highs of 2,467 and 2,687 square feet, respectively.
And while it is known that in absolute number terms the total number of new home sales is still a fraction of what it was before the crisis, the one strata of new home sales which appears to not only not have been impacted but is openly flourishing once more, are the same McMansions which cater to the New Normal uber wealthy (which incidentally are the same as the Old Normal uber wealthy, only wealthier) and which for many symbolize America’s unbridled greed for mega housing no matter the cost.
Not surprisingly, as size has increased so has price: as we reported recently, the median price for sold new single-family homes just hit record a high of $321,100.
The data broken down by region reveals something unexpected: after nearly two decades of supremacy for the Northeast in having the largest new homes, for the past couple of years the region where the largest homes are built is the South.
While historically in the past the need for bigger housing could be explained away with the increase in the size of the US household, this is no longer the case, and as we showed last week, household formation in the US has cratered. In fact, for the first time In 130 years, more young adults live with parents than with partners…
…so the only logical explanation for this latest push to build ever bigger houses is a simple one: size matters.
Furthermore it turns out it is not only size that matters but amenities. As the chart below shows, virtually all newly-built houses have A/Cs, increasingly more have 3 or more car garages, 3 or more bathrooms, and for the first time, there were more 4-bedroom than 3-bedroom new houses built.
In conclusion it is clear that the desire for McMansions has not gone away, at least not among those who can afford them. For everyone else who can’t afford a mega home or any home for that matter: good luck renting Blackstone’s McApartment, whose price incidentally has soared by 8% in the past year.
For those curious for more, here is a snapshot of the typical characteristics of all 2015 new housing courtesy of the Census Bureau:
453,000 were detached homes, 49,000 were attached homes.
327,000 had a 2-car garage and 131,000 had a garage for 3 cars or more.
200,000 had one story, 278,000 had two stories, and 24,000 had three stories or more.
348,000 were paid for using conventional financing and 42,000 were VA-guaranteed.
The median sales price of new single-family homes sold was $296,400 in 2015, compared with the average sales price of $360,600.
The median size of a new single-family home sold was 2,520 square feet.
The type of foundation was a full or partial basement for 80% percent of the new single-family homes sold in the Midwest compared with 8% in the South.
The local market in March posted 12.3% year-over-year gains in home values, which was the largest increase by a significant margin among the 20 metro areas surveyed. Seattle (10.8%) and Denver (10%) were the only other two regions to post double-digit annual gains.
“It remains a tough home buying season for buyers, with little inventory available among lower-priced homes,” said Svenja Gudell, chief economist at Zillow, in an email. “The competition is locking out some first-time buyers, who instead are paying record-high rents.”
Portland’s inventory has been historically low recently. The latest report from the local Regional Multiple Listing Service showed inventory at a miniscule 1.4 months in April. The figure estimates how long it would take for all current homes on the market to sell at the current pace. (Six months of inventory indicates a balanced market.)
Prices have also reached record highs; the average sale price in the Portland area was $397,700 in April and the median reached $350,000.
Nationally, home values in March posted annual gains of 5.2%, the Case-Shiller report found, down from 5.3% the previous month.
“Home prices are continuing to rise at a 5% annual rate, a pace that has held since the start of 2015,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee, in a news release. “The economy is supporting the price increases with improving labor markets, falling unemployment rates and extremely low mortgage rates.”
Blitzer added that the number of homes currently for sale is “less than two percent of the number of households in the U.S., the lowest percentage seen since the mid-1980s.”
“The Pacific Northwest and the west continue to be the strongest regions,” Blizter said.
Negative interest rate policies elsewhere hit US Treasury yields
The side effects of Negative Interest Rate Policies in Europe and Japan — what we’ve come to call the NIRP absurdity — are becoming numerous and legendary, and they’re fanning out across the globe, far beyond the NIRP countries.
No one knows what the consequences will be down the line. No one has ever gone through this before. It’s all a huge experiment in market manipulation. We have seen crazy experiments before, like creating a credit bubble and a housing bubble in order to stimulate the economy following the 2001 recession in the US, which culminated with spectacular fireworks.
Not too long ago, economists believed that nominal negative interest rates couldn’t actually exist beyond very brief periods. They figured that you’d have to increase inflation and keep interest rates low but positive to get negative “real” interest rates, which might have a similar effect, that of “financial repression”: perverting the behavior of creditors and borrowers alike, and triggering a massive wealth transfer.
But the NIRP absurdity has proven to be possible. It can exist. It does exist. That fact is so confidence-inspiring to central banks that more and more have inflicted it on their bailiwick. The Bank of Japan was the latest, and the one with the most debt to push into the negative yield absurdity — and therefore the most consequential.
But markets are globalized, money flows in all directions. The hot money, often borrowed money, washes ashore tsunami like, but then it can recede and dry up, leaving behind the debris. These money flows trigger chain reactions in markets around the globe.
NIRP is causing fixed income investors, and possibly even equity investors, to flee that bailiwick. They sell their bonds to the QE-obsessed central banks, which play the role of the incessant dumb bid in order to whip up bond prices and drive down yields, their stated policy. Investors take their money and run.
And then they invest it elsewhere — wherever yields are not negative, particularly in US Treasuries. This no-questions-asked demand from investors overseas has done a job on Treasury yields. That’s why the 10-year yield in the US has plunged even though the Fed got serious about flip-flopping on rate increases and then actually raised its policy rate, with threats of more to come.
So here are some of the numbers and dynamics — among the many consequences of the NIRP absurdity — by Christine Hughes, Chief Investment Strategist at OtterWood Capital:
Negative interest rate policies implemented by central banks in Europe and Japan have driven yields on many sovereign debt issues into negative territory.
If you look at the BAML Sovereign Bond index, just 6% of the bonds had negative yields at the beginning of 2015. Since then the share of negative yielding bonds has increased to almost 30% of the index, see below.
With negative yielding bonds becoming the norm, investors are instead reaching for the remaining assets with positive yields (i.e. US Treasuries). Private Japanese investors have purchased nearly $70 billion in foreign bonds this year with the sharpest increase coming after the BoJ adopted negative rates. Additionally, inflows into US Treasuries from European funds have increased since 2014:
“According to an analysis by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, for every $100 currently managed in global sovereign benchmarks, avoiding negative yields would result in roughly $20 being pushed into overweight US Treasuries assets,” wrote Christine Hughes of OtterWood Capital.
That’s a lot of money in markets where movements are measured in trillions of dollars. As long as NIRP rules in the Eurozone and Japan, US Treasury yields will become even more appealing every time they halfheartedly try to inch up just one tiny bit.
So China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia might be dumping their holdings of US Treasuries, for reasons of their own, but that won’t matter, and folks that expected this to turn into a disaster for the US will need some more patience: these Treasuries will be instantly mopped up by ever more desperate NIRP refugees.
In the wake of its recent $1.2 billion settlement with the government, whereby Wells Fargo admitted to deceiving the government into insuring thousands of risky mortgages (yet nobody went to jail), the bank has decided to break with the Federal Housing Administration and offer its own minimal down payment mortgage program.
The new program partners with Fannie Mae in order to allow borrowers with credit scores as low as 620 to make as little as a 3% down payment and use income from family members or renters to qualify. Naturally, the intent is to make more loans to low and middle-income borrowers – in the process pushing up home prices countrywide – without going through the FHA.
As a reminder, the FHA insures mortgages made to buyers who would otherwise have a hard time getting loans, but it has been shunned by banks following a wave of lawsuits by the Justice Department that alleged poor underwriting.
Wells Fargo made $6.3 billion in FHA-backed loans last year, and is a top 20 originator for the FHA according to the WSJ. It’s not just FHA however: as we have shown previously, Wells’ own mortgage origination pipeline has been slowing down in recent years, and as such the corner office of the country’s largest mortgage originator is desperate to find new and innovative ways to boost lending.
After being called out for its deceptive practices, the bank has scaled back on FHA backed mortgage lending in recent years. Wells Fargo accounted for just 2.5% of total FHA mortgages in 2015, down from 13% in 2010, and ultimately coming to this end game where the bank has a path forward without the FHA.
Self-Help Ventures Fund, based out of Durham, NC will now be taking the default risk on these low down payment mortgages originated by Wells Fargo.
Self-Help comprises a state and federally chartered credit union as well as the ventures loan fund, and has a total of $1.6 billion in assets. The “fund” has been partnering with Bank of America on insuring loans from their low down payment loan program since February, and has said it is on track to make between $300 million and $500 million in its BofA mortgage product within the first year.
As the WSJ explains, the new Wells Fargo product could save borrowers money
The new Wells Fargo product might save money for some borrowers who would have otherwise taken out an FHA-backed loan. For example, a borrower who buys a $200,000 home and has a credit score of 715 would pay about $1,040 a month with an FHA loan from Wells Fargo, assuming the borrower includes the FHA program’s upfront costs in the loan amount and makes a 3.5% down payment, the minimum the agency requires. The same borrower under the new program would pay about $994 a month with a 3% down payment.
By taking a housing-education course, the borrower could reduce the mortgage rate by an additional one-eighth of a percentage point, making the payment about $979 a month.
Fannie Mae Vice President of Product Development Jonathan Lawless expects other lenders to develop such programs as well, and that he expects the volume of low down-payment mortgages that Fannie backs to grow.
In summary, Wells Fargo didn’t like being taken to task on its deceptive actions and has decided to continue with risky mortgage origination, but shifting the risk to Self-Help instead of the FHA. This sounds like another New Century style lending blowup in the making, only this time one where there is a far more ambiguous relationship with the sponsor bank, in this case Wells Fargo.
Of course, the fact that the loans will be purchased by Fannie Mae means that the risk is still ultimately on the taxpayer if Self-Help is overwhelmed with defaults as happened during the last bubble, so one can probably say that the problem of taxpayers being once again exposed to risky subprime lending practices has just returned with a vengeance.
On the heels of the 17-sigma beat in new home sales, pending home sales soared 5.1% MoM in April – 6.5 standard deviations above economist estimates of a 0.7% jump. Pending home sales rose for the third consecutive month in April and reached their highest level in over a decade, according to the National Association of Realtors. All major regions saw gains in contract activity last month (with The West surging 11.5% MoM) except for the Midwest, which saw a meager decline.
Best month since 2010…
Which no one saw coming…. Some context for the “beat”…
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says vast gains in the South and West propelled pending sales in April to their highest level since February 2006 (117.4).
“The ability to sign a contract on a home is slightly exceeding expectations this spring even with the affordability stresses and inventory squeezes affecting buyers in a number of markets,” he said. “The building momentum from the over 14 million jobs created since 2010 and the prospect of facing higher rents and mortgage rates down the road appear to be bringing more interested buyers into the market.”
Yun expects sales this year to climb above earlier estimates and be around 5.41 million, a 3.0 percent boost from 2015. After accelerating to 6.8 percent a year ago, national median existing-home price growth is forecast to slightly moderate to between 4 and 5 percent.
While Wall Street looked upon today’s Durable Goods reportwith caution, noting the substantial beat in the headline print which was entirely as a result of a surge in non-defense aircraft orders (read Boeing) which soared by 65%, there was substantial weakness below the surface especially in the core CAPEX print, the capital goods orders non-defense ex-aircraft, which disappointed significantly, sliding 0.8% on expectations of a 0.3% rebound.
However, that was just part of the story. A far bigger part was missed by most because as always Wall Street was focused on the sequential change, and not on the absolute number.
As it turns out, the Department of Commerce decided to quietly revise all the core data going back all the way back to 2014. In doing so it stripped away about 4% from the nominal dollar amount in Durable Goods ex-transports, where the March print was slashed from $154.7 Billion to $148.3 Billion…
… and, worse, the government just confirmed what many had said for years, namely that CAPEX spending had been far lower than reported all along when it revised the capital goods orders non-defense ex-aircraft series lower by a whopping 6%, taking down the March print from $66.9 billion to only $62.4 billion, the lowest absolute number since early 2011.
So how did this downward revision to a critical historical series, and key driver of GDP, change the current GDP estimte? Well, according to the Atlanta Fed, “the GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2016 is 2.9 percent on May 26, up from 2.5 percent on May 17. The forecast for second-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth increased from -0.3 percent to 0.4 percent following this morning’s durable manufacturing release from the U.S. Census Bureau.“
Oddly not a word about the sharp revisions to the core data in main stream media.
China, as current chair of the G-20 group of nations, called on France to organize a very special conference in Paris. The fact such a conference would even take place in an OECD country is a sign of how weakened the hegemony of the US-dominated Dollar System has become.
On March 31 in Paris a special meeting, named “Nanjing II,” was held. People’s Bank of China Governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, was there and made a major presentation on, among other points, broader use of the IMF special basket of five major world currencies, the Special Drawing Rights or SDR’s. The invited were a very select few. The list included German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde discussed the world’s financial architecture together with China. Apparently and significantly, there was no senior US official present.
On the Paris talks, Bloomberg reported: “China wants a much more closely managed system, where private-sector decisions can be managed by governments,” said Edwin Truman, a former Federal Reserve and US Treasury official. “The French have always favored international monetary reform, so they’re natural allies to the Chinese on this issue.”
A China Youth Daily journalist present in Paris noted, “Zhou Xiaochuan pointed out that the international monetary and financial system is currently undergoing structural adjustment, the world economy is facing many challenges…” According to the journalist Zhou went on to declare that China’s aim as current President of the G20 talks is to “promote the wider use of the SDR.”
For most of us, that sounds about as exciting as watching Johnson grass grow in the Texas plains. However, behind that seemingly minor technical move, as is becoming clearer by the day, is a grand Chinese strategy, if it succeeds or not, a grand strategy to displace the dominating role of the US dollar as world central bank reserve currency. China and others want an end to the tyranny of a broken dollar system that finances endless wars on other peoples’ borrowed money with no need to ever pay it back. The strategy is to end the domination of the dollar as the currency for most world trade in goods and services. That’s no small beer.
Despite the wreck of the US economy and the astronomical $19 trillion public debt of Washington, the dollar still makes up 64% of all central bank reserves. The largest holder of US debt is the Peoples Republic of China, with Japan a close second. As long as the dollar is “king currency,” Washington can run endless budget deficits knowing well that countries like China have no serious alternative to invest its foreign currency trade profits but in US Government or government-guaranteed debt. In effect, as I have pointed out, that has meant that China has de facto financed the military actions of Washington that act to go against Chinese or Russian sovereign interests, to finance countless US State Department Color Revolutions from Tibet to Hong Kong, from Libya to Ukraine, to finance ISIS in the Middle East and on and on and on…
Multi-currency world
If we look more closely at all the steps of the Beijing government since the global financial crisis of 2008 and especially since their creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS New Development Bank, the bilateral national currency energy agreements with Russia bypassing the dollar, it becomes clear that Zhou and the Beijing leadership have a long-term strategy.
As British economist David Marsh pointed out in reference to the recent Paris Nanjing II remarks of Zhou, “China is embarking, pragmatically but steadily, towards enshrining a multi-currency reserve system at the heart of the world’s financial order.”
Since China’s admission into the IMF select group of SDR currencies last November, the multi-currency system, which China calls “4+1,” would consist of the euro, sterling, yen and renminbi (the 4), co-existing with the dollar. These are the five constituents of the SDR.
To strengthen the recognition of the SDR, Zhou’s Peoples’ Bank of China has begun to publish its foreign reserves total–the world’s biggest–in SDRs as well as dollars.
A golden future
Yet the Chinese alternative to the domination of the US dollar is about far more than paper SDR currency basket promotion. China is clearly aiming at the re-establishment of an international gold standard, presumably one not based on the bankrupt Bretton Woods Dollar-Gold exchange that President Richard Nixon unilaterally ended in August, 1971 when he told the world they would have to swallow paper dollars in the future and could no longer redeem them for gold. At that point global inflation, measured in dollar terms, began to soar in what future economic historians will no doubt dub The Greatest Inflation.
By one estimate, the dollars in worldwide circulation rose by some 2,500% between 1970 and 2000. Since then the rise has clearly brought it well over 3,000%. Without a legal requirement to back its dollar printing by a pre-determined fixed amount of gold, all restraints were off in a global dollar inflation. So long as the world is forced to get dollars to settle accounts for oil, grain, other commodities, Washington can write endless checks with little fear of them bouncing, stamped “insufficient funds.”
Combined with the fact that over that same time span since 1971 there has been a silent coup of the Wall Street banks to hijack any and all semblance of representative democracy and Constitution-based rules, we have the mad money machine, much like the German poet Goethe’s 18th Century fable, Sorcerers’ Apprentice, or in German, Der Zauberlehrling. Dollar creation is out of control.
Since 2015 China is moving very clearly to replace London and New York and the western gold futures price-setting exchanges. As I noted in a longer analysis in this space in August, 2015, China, together with Russia, is making major strides to back their currencies with gold, to make them “as good as gold,” while currencies like the debt-bloated Euro or the debt-bloated bankrupt dollar zone, struggle.
In May 2015, China announced it had set up a state-run Gold Investment Fund. The aim was to create a pool, initially of $16 billion making it the world’s largest physical gold fund, to support gold mining projects along the new high-speed railway lines of President Xi’s New Economic Silk Road or One Road, One Belt as it is called. As China expressed it, the aim is to enable the Eurasian countries along the Silk Road to increase the gold backing of their currencies. The countries along the Silk Road and within the BRICS happen to contain most of the world’s people and natural and human resources utterly independent of any the West has to offer.
In May 2015, China’s Shanghai Gold Exchange formally established the “Silk Road Gold Fund.” The two main investors in the new fund were China’s two largest gold mining companies–Shandong Gold Group who bought 35% of the shares and Shaanxi Gold Group with 25%. The fund will invest in gold mining projects along the route of the Eurasian Silk Road railways, including in the vast under-explored parts of the Russian Federation.
A little-known fact is that no longer is South Africa the world’s gold king. It is a mere number 7 in annual gold production. China is Number One and Russia Number Two.
On May 11, just before creation of China’s new gold fund, China National Gold Group Corporation signed an agreement with the Russian gold mining group, Polyus Gold, Russia’s largest gold mining group, and one of the top ten in the world. The two companies will explore the gold resources of what is to date Russia’as largest gold deposit at Natalka in the far eastern part of Magadan’s Kolyma District.
Recently, the Chinese government and its state enterprises have also shifted strategy. Today, as of March 2016 official data, China holds more than $3.2 trillion in foreign currency reserves at the Peoples’ bank of China, of which it is believed approximately 60% or almost $2 trillion are dollar assets such as US Treasury bonds or quasi-government bonds such as Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac mortgage bonds. Instead of investing all its dollar earnings from trade surpluses into increasingly inflated and worthless US government debt, China has launched a global asset buying strategy.
Now it happens that prime on the Beijing foreign asset “to buy” shopping list are gold mines around the world. Despite a recent slight rise in the gold price since January, gold is still at 5 year-lows and many quality proven mining companies are cash-starved and forced into bankruptcy. Gold is truly at the beginning of a renaissance.
The beauty of gold is not only what countless gold bugs maintain, a hedge against inflation. It is the most beautiful of all precious metals. The Greek philosopher Plato, in his work The Republic, identified five types of regimes possible–Aristocracy, Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, and Tyranny, with Tyranny the lowest most vile. He then lists Aristocracy, or rule by Philosopher Kings with “golden souls” as the highest form of rule, benevolent and with the highest integrity. Gold has worth in its own right throughout mankind’s history. China and Russia and other nations of Eurasia today are reviving gold to its rightful place. That’s very cool.
The usually strong spring housing market could be far stronger this year, if only there were more homes for sale.
The number of listings continues to drop, as demand outstrips supply and potential sellers bow out, fearing they won’t be able to find something else to buy.
The inventory of homes for sale nationally in April was 3.6 percent lower than in April 2015, according to the National Association of Realtors. Redfin, a real estate brokerage, also recently reported a drop in new listings.
The supply numbers are even tighter in certain local markets: Inventory is down 32 percent in Portland, Oregon, from a year ago; down 22 percent in Kansas City; down 21 percent in Dallas and Seattle; down 17 percent in Charlotte, North Carolina; down 12 percent in Atlanta; down nearly 10 percent in Chicago; and down 8 percent in Los Angeles, according to Zillow. Houston and Miami are seeing big gains in supply, due to economic issues specific to those markets.
“The struggle will continue for home shoppers this summer,” said Zillow chief economist Svenja Gudell. “New construction has been sluggish over the past year; we’re building about half as many homes as we should be in a normal market. There still aren’t enough homes on the market to keep up with the high demand from every type of home buyer.”
The short supply is pushing home prices higher than expected this year. Zillow had predicted 2 percent growth in home values from April 2015 to April 2016, but its latest data show values currently soaring more than twice that, at 4.9 percent.
“In many markets, those looking to buy a home in the bottom or middle of the market will need to be prepared for bidding wars and homes selling for over the asking price. This summer’s selling season’s borders will most likely be blurred again, as many buyers are left without homes and will need to keep searching,” added Gudell.
The inventory drops are most severe in the lower-priced tier of the market. Homes in the top tier are seeing gains and therefore show more price cuts. Sixteen percent of top-tier homes had a price cut over the past year, compared with 11 percent of bottom-tier homes and 13 percent of middle-tier, according to Zillow.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has an amendment that would actually prohibit this implementation of the Affirmative Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation, specifically stopping HUD from attaching zoning changes as a condition for receiving funding, and it deserves every senator’s support.
According to the Federal Register, AFFH directs municipalities “to examine relevant factors, such as zoning and other land-use practices that are likely contributors to fair housing concerns, and take appropriate actions in response” as a condition for receipt of the block grants. It’s right there in the regulation.
On the other hand, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) offers an amendment which merely reiterates current law that the federal government cannot compel the local zoning changes, stating no funds can be used “to direct a grantee to undertake specific changes to existing zoning laws.”
As noted by the National Review’s Stanley Kurtz, “Federal law already forbids HUD from mandating the spending priorities of state and local governments or forcing grant recipients to forgo their duly adopted policies or laws, including zoning laws. AFFH gets around this prohibition by setting up a situation in which a locality can’t get any federal grant money unless it ‘voluntarily’ promises to change its zoning laws and change its housing policies in exactly the way HUD wants.”
Kurtz emphasizes the point: “This trick allows HUD to avoid formally ‘directing’ localities to do anything at all in order to get their HUD grants. But HUD gives localities plenty of informal ‘guidance’ that makes it perfectly clear what they actually have to do to get their federal grants.”
Therefore, even with the Collins amendment, AFFH will still require municipalities to “examine relevant factors, such as zoning and other land-use practices that are likely contributors to fair housing concerns, and take appropriate actions in response” as a condition for receipt of the block grants.
This is an attempt by the Senate to pretend to have acted to stop the federalization of local zoning decisions without actually doing so. The Lee amendment will remove the local zoning strings attached to the funding, plain and simple. The Collins amendment will not.
It is telling that President Obama is threatening a veto of an appropriations bill that has “ideological” content, when the President himself is exercising the power of the purse to compel his ideological vision on our nation’s cities, towns and counties through implementation of AFFH.
The Collins amendment, ironically, will enable and advance this ideological agenda — while offering constituents false comfort that it has been abated when it has not. Only the Lee amendment can stop this HUD driven transformation of our neighborhoods.
The House has already passed the Lee language twice with vocal support from across the Conference ranging from Representatives Paul Gosar to Peter King. Americans for Limited Government urges every senator to vote yes on the Lee amendment to the Transportation-HUD appropriations bill — and stop the federalization of local zoning policiesonce and for all.
Talk about a poisoned chalice. No matter who is elected to the White House in November, the next president will probably face a recession.
The 83-month-old expansion is already the fourth-longest in more than 150 years and starting to show some signs of aging as corporate profits peak and wage pressures build. It also remains vulnerable to a shock because growth has been so feeble, averaging just about 2 percent since the last downturn ended in June 2009.
“If the next president is not going to have a recession, it will be a U.S. record,” said Gad Levanon, chief economist for North America at the Conference Board in New York. “The longest expansion we ever had was 10 years,” beginning in 1991.
The history of cyclical fluctuations suggests that the “odds are significantly better than 50-50 that we will have a recession within the next three years,” according to former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.
Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist for JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York, puts the probability of a downturn during that time frame at about two in three.
The U.S. doesn’t look all that well-equipped to handle a contraction should one occur during the next president’s term, former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder said. Monetary policy is stretched near its limit while fiscal policy is hamstrung by ideological battles.
Previous Decade
This wouldn’t be the first time that a new president was forced to tackle a contraction in gross domestic product. The nation was in the midst of its deepest slump since the Great Depression when Barack Obama took office on January 20, 2009. His predecessor, George W. Bush, started his tenure as president in 2001 with the economy about to be mired in a downturn as well, albeit a much milder one than greeted Obama.
The biggest near-term threat comes from abroad. Former International Monetary Fund official Desmond Lachman said a June 23 vote by the U.K. to leave the European Union, a steeper-than-anticipated Chinese slowdown and a renewed recession in Japan are among potential developments that could upend financial markets and the global economy in the coming months.
“There’s a non-negligible risk that by the time the next president takes office in January you would have the world in a pretty bad place,” said Lachman, who put the odds of that happening at 30 percent to 40 percent.
Investors also might get spooked if billionaire Donald Trump looks likely to win the presidency, considering his staunchly protectionist stance on trade and a seemingly cavalier attitude toward the nation’s debt, added Lachman, now a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Election-Year Jitters
Uncertainty about the election’s outcome may already be infecting the economy at the margin, with companies and consumers in surveys increasingly citing it as a source of concern.
“The views expressed by the various candidates have weighed down” consumer confidence, said Richard Curtin, director of the University of Michigan’s household survey, which saw sentiment slip for a fourth straight month in April.
With growth so slow — it clocked in at a mere 0.5 percent on an annual basis in the first quarter — it wouldn’t take that much to tip the economy into a recession.
“It’s like a bicycle that’s going too slowly. All it takes is a little puff of wind to knock it over,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for consultants IHS Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts.
The economy still has some things going for it, leading Behravesh to conclude that the odds of a downturn over the next couple of years are at most 25 percent.
“Recoveries don’t die of old age,” he said. “They get killed off. And the three killers that we’ve had in the past don’t seem terribly frightening right now.”
The murderers’ row consists of a steep rise in interest rates engineered by the central bank, a sudden spike in oil prices and the bursting of an asset-price bubble. This time around, Fed policy makers have signaled they’re going to raise rates slowly, the oil market is still awash in excess supply and house prices by some measures remain below their 2007 highs.
“The expansion can continue for several more years,” Robert Gordon, a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and a member of the committee of economists that determines the timing of recessions, said in an e-mail.
Balance Sheets
Consumers’ balance sheets are in much better shape than they were prior to the last economic contraction. Household debt as a share of disposable income stood at 105 percent in the fourth quarter, well below the 133 percent reached in the final three months of 2007.
Businesses seem more vulnerable. Corporate profits plunged 11.5 percent in the fourth quarter from the year-ago period, the biggest drop since a 31 percent collapse at the end of 2008 during the height of the financial crisis, according to data compiled by the Commerce Department.
History shows that when earnings decline, the economy often follows into a recession as profit-starved companies cut back on hiring and investment.
“More and more employers are struggling with profits,” Levanon said. “That is resulting in some belt tightening.”
While he doesn’t see that pushing the U.S. into a recession, Levanon expects monthly payroll growth to slow to 150,000 to 180,000 over the balance of this year, compared to an average of 229,000 in 2015.
Though much of the weakness in earnings has been concentrated in the energy industry, companies in general have been struggling with rising labor costs as the tightening jobs market puts upward pressure on wages and worker productivity has lagged.
Peter Hooper, chief economist for Deutsche Bank Securities in New York, sees that leading to a possible recession a couple of years out as companies raise prices, inflation starts to accelerate and Fed policy makers have to jack up interest rates more aggressively in response.
“The slower they go in the near-term, the bigger the risk down the road,” he said of the Fed. “Looking out over the next four years, the chances of a two-quarter contraction are probably above 50 percent.”
Single-family existing home sales rose just 0.6% MoM in April with The South and The West regions seeing notable declines in sales (down 2.7% and down 1.7% respectively). What saved the headline print was a 10.3% surge in Condo sales – among the best monthly spikes since the crisis helped by a spike in sales in The Midwest – where prices are most affordable.
Condos saved the day:
While supply of single-family homes is rising, the demand was again all on condos:
The median price of existing homes:
Single-family home sales inched forward 0.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.81 million in April from 4.78 million in March, and are now 6.2 percent higher than the 4.53 million pace a year ago. The median existing single-family home price was $233,700 in April, up 6.2 percent from April 2015.
Existing condominium and co-op sales jumped 10.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 640,000 units in April from 580,000 in March, and are now 4.9 percent above April 2015 (610,000 units). The median existing condo price was $223,300 in April, which is 6.8 percent above a year ago.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says April’s sales increase signals slowly building momentum for the housing market this spring.
“Primarily driven by a convincing jump in the Midwest, where home prices are most affordable, sales activity overall was at a healthy pace last month as very low mortgage rates and modest seasonal inventory gains encouraged more households to search for and close on a home,” he said.
“Except for in the West — where supply shortages and stark price growth are hampering buyers the most — sales are meaningfully higher than a year ago in much of the country.”
Regionally, the story is very mixed…
April existing-home sales in the Northeast climbed 2.8 percent to an annual rate of 740,000, and are now 17.5 percent above a year ago. The median price in the Northeast was $263,600, which is 4.1 percent above April 2015.
In the Midwest, existing-home sales soared 12.1 percent to an annual rate of 1.39 million in April, and are now 12.1 percent above April 2015. The median price in the Midwest was $184,200, up 7.7 percent from a year ago.
Existing-home sales in the South declined 2.7 percent to an annual rate of 2.19 million in April, but are still 4.3 percent above April 2015. The median price in the South was $202,800, up 6.5 percent from a year ago.
Existing-home sales in the West decreased 1.7 percent to an annual rate of 1.13 million in April, and are 3.4 percent lower than a year ago. The median price in the West was $335,000, which is 6.5 percent above April 2015.
The West is exhibiting a notable trend with low-end sales plunging and higher-end rising…
Which price buckets saw the most transactions:
And Y/Y transactions by bucket:
The NAR’s chief economy Larry Yun warns again:
“The temporary relief from mortgage rates currently near three-year lows has helped preserve housing affordability this spring, but there’s growing concern a number of buyers will be unable to find homes at affordable prices if wages don’t rise and price growth doesn’t slow.”
Finally, it is worth noting that since the data was better than expected, there was no scapegoating of “weather” this time.
Unlike recent months when the Census Bureau reported some fireworks in the New Housing Starts and Permits data, the April update was relatively tame, and saw Starts rise from an upward revised 1,099K to 1,172K, beating expectations of a 1,125K print, mostly as a result of a 36K increase in multi-family units which however remain depressed below recent peaks from early 2015, which will likely stoke even higher asking rents, already at record highs across the nation.
But if starts were better than expected, then the future pipeline in the form of Housing Permits disappointed, with 1,116K units permitted for the month of April, below the 1,135K expected, if a rebound from last month’s downward revised 1,077K.
The issue, as with the starts data, is the multi-family, aka rental units, barely rebounded and remained at severely depressed levels last seen in 2013: at 348K rental units permitted in April, this is a far cry from the recent highs of 598K in June.
One wonders if this is intentional, because based on soaring asking rents, as shown in the chart below, with Americans increasingly unable or unwilling to buy single-family units, rental prices have exploded to 8% Y/Y based on Census data.
Should multi-family permits and starts remain as depressed as it has been in recent months, we expect that this chart of soaring median asking rents will only accelerate in the near future, and will require a whole host of seasonal adjustments from making its way into the already bubbly CPI data.
Private-Equity firm Blackstone Group is planning to acquire Market Center in San Francisco, a 720,000 square-foot complex that consists of a 21-story tower and a 40-story tower.
The seller, Manulife Financial in Canada, had bought the property in September 2010, near the bottom of the last bust. In its press release at the time, it said that it “identified San Francisco as one of several potential growth areas for our real estate business and we are optimistic about the possibilities.” It raved that the buildings, dating from 1965 and 1975, had been “extensively renovated and modernized with state-of-the-art systems in the last few years….” It paid $265 million, or $344 per square foot.
After a six-year boom in commercial real-estate in San Francisco, and with near-impeccable timing, Manulife put the property on the market in February with an asking price of $750 per square foot – a hoped-for gain of 118%!
Now the excellent Bay Area real estate publication, The Registry, reported that Blackstone Real Estate Partners had agreed to buy it for $489.6 million, or $680 per square foot, “according to sources familiar with the transaction.” The property has been placed under contract, but the deal hasn’t closed yet.
If the deal closes, Manulife would still have a 6-year gain of nearly 100%. But here is a sign, one more in a series, that the phenomenal commercial real estate bubble is deflating: the selling price is 9.3% below asking price!
The property is 92% leased, according to The Registry. Alas, among the largest tenants is Uber, which recently acquired the Sears building in Oakland and is expected to move into its new 330,000 sq-ft digs in a couple of years, which may leave Market Center scrambling for tenants at perhaps the worst possible time.
It’s already getting tough
Sublease space in San Francisco in the first quarter “has soared to its highest mark since 2010,” according to commercial real estate services firm Savills Studley. Sublease space is the red flag. Companies lease excess office space because they expect to grow and hire and thus eventually fill this space. They warehouse this space for future use because they think there’s an office shortage despite the dizzying construction boom underway. This space sits empty, looming in the shadow inventory. When pressure builds to cut expenses, it hits the market overnight, coming apparently out of nowhere. With other companies doing the same, it creates a glut, and lease rates begin to swoon.
Manulife might have seen the slowdown coming
Tech layoffs in the four-county Bay Area doubled for the first four months this year, compared to the same period last year, according to a report by Wells Fargo senior economist Mark Vitner, cited by The Mercury News, “in yet another sign of a slowdown in the booming Bay Area economy.”
Announced layoffs in the counties of San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, and Alameda jumped to 3,135, from 1,515 in the same period in 2015, and from 1,330 in 2014 — based on the mandatory filings under California’s WARN Act. But…
The number of layoffs in the tech sector is undoubtedly larger, because WARN notices do not include cuts by many smaller companies and startups. In addition, notices of layoffs of fewer than 50 people at larger companies aren’t required by the act.
The filings also don’t take attrition into account – when jobs disappear without layoffs. “There is a lot of that,” Vitner explained. “When businesses begin to clamp down on costs, one of the first things they do is say, ‘Let’s put in a hiring freeze.’ I feel pretty certain that if you had a pickup in layoffs, then hiring slowed ahead of that.”
And hiring has slowed down. According to Vitner’s analysis of state employment data, Bay Area tech firms added only 800 jobs a month in the first quarter – half of the 1,600 a month they’d added in 2015 and less than half of the 1,700 a month in 2014.
“Employment in the tech sector has clearly decelerated over the past three months,” he said. “As job growth slows and the cost of living remains as high as it is, that’s going to put many people in a difficult position.”
It’s going to put commercial real estate into a difficult position as well. During the boom years, the key rationalization for the insane prices and rents has been the rapid growth of tech jobs. Now, the slowdown in hiring and the growth in layoffs come just when the construction boom is coming into full bloom, and as sublease space gets dumped on the market.
Here’s what a real estate investor — at the time co-founder of a company they later sold — told me about real estate during the dotcom bust. All tenants should write this in nail polish on their smartphone screens:
It was funny in 2000 because the rent market was still moving up. We rejected our extension option, hired a broker, and started looking around. As months went on, we kept finding more and more, better and better space while our existing landlord refused to renegotiate a lower renewal. We went from a “B” building to an “A” building at half the rent with hundreds of thousands of dollars of free furniture.
The point is that tenants are normally the last to find out that rents are dropping.
With the second hack of Swift, the day of firewalls and permission systems are suddenly numbered.
This time it wasn’t hacked data — it was the banks’ money that was hacked.
Bank security is rapidly deteriorating.
It is time to adopt some kind of distributed ledger.
I see the bad moon arising. I see trouble on the way. I see earthquakes and lightnin’. I see bad times today.
— Creedence Clearwater Revival
The SWIFT payment system failed again this week. The tone of Swift’s announcement intimated the end of life on the planet earth as we know it. Swift’s description of the system’s attackers was apocalyptic, and did nothing to minimize the skills of the attackers, adding that the funds seized might be, of course, reinvested to give the hackers a kind of turboboost of evil. My sources tell me the culprit is Brainiac from the planet Zod.
Of course there is nothing funny about this situation, even if Swift’s “chicken little” corporate reaction was pretty funny. The real lesson of this event is deadly earnest and, I believe, fully anticipated by most specialists in the security of our financial system. This event, though, was the Fat Lady’s Song. The banks, exchanges, clearers like Swift, DDTC, and so on, are going to have to share something with the public that insiders already know.
The party is over for the old, permissioned, firewall based, electronic fortress, concept of trust-in-payments systems. And the alternative is very far from obvious.
The buzzwords, the sweethearts of the fintech movement, are systems known as distributed ledgers. Two words are about to become part of everyone’s vocabulary: Bitcoin and blockchain. There are multitudes of manifestations of these two intimately related electronic phenomena. If you are new to the subject of Bitcoin and blockchain, the learning curve is steep.
The significance of the second Swift failure is this. Trust-based systems, such as those upon which the current payments systems operate, are becoming more expensive to protect at a rapidly increasing rate. The horse race between hackers and firewall builders is being won by hackers in spite of the rapidly increasing spending on internet security.
And these most recent hacks took bank’s money, not customer money. That is a game changer.
Since God invented dirt, the banks have been soooo regretful about the lengthy delays and inefficiencies inherent in our transactions system. They’re so sorry, they tell us, about the three days you wait between transactions and payments. And they really regret all those fees that you pay and inconveniences you experience with foreign exchange transactions.
What bunk. The banks, as a whole, make hundreds of billions a year on these inefficiencies.
The point of the article is this. Now that the bank’s own money is being stolen, the financial world will be singing from one hymnal. The time of distributed ledgers is here. There is no longer a question that distributed ledgers will replace our current method of securing transactions. The firewall system no longer has a constituency after the Swift debacle.
What are the implications for investors? First, there is nothing yet you can invest in directly. It is possible to purchase a thing called a crypto-currency. The most prominent of these is called Bitcoin. However, unless you spend the necessary months of research to grasp the underlying determinants of the value of Bitcoin, I have an emphatic one-word recommendation. Don’t. This investment is incredibly risky, and those who provide confident forecasts of its future value are deluded or worse.
The future of transactions reminds me a little of the invasion of Europe by Genghis Khan. In the distributed ledger business, Genghis Khan is Bitcoin. There is no corporate presence sponsoring Bitcoin. It is open source. The key significance of Bitcoin/blockchain is that this particular distributed ledger is, at the moment, prohibitively expensive to hack. Its disadvantages include a lack of governance. Advocates will rightly argue that a lack of governance has its benefits – obvious to anyone who considers the problems with having a government – but there are also disputes in the Bitcoin community and no clear way to resolve them.
Genghis Kahn’s competition, the Pope and Kings of distributed ledgers, are the usual suspects – primarily the big banks. But also the big accounting firms and the major IT firms are involved. I wonder if the Pope and the Kings were afraid to speak the name of Genghis Kahn. One thing is for sure, the Big Business side of the distributed ledger debate is afraid to speak the name Bitcoin. Honest.
Almost universally, if the equity capital of a distributed ledger advocate exceeds one billion market value, the advocate will never use the word Bitcoin in a discussion of distributed ledgers. Blockchain is the magic term they use. I find this annoying since the developers of Bitcoin coined the term blockchain and would have copyrighted it if they had not been open-source kind of guys who don’t do that sort of thing.
It is much, much, too early to tell how this combat is going to sort itself out. There is a shortage of practical uses of the technology from any source. The number of practical uses at the moment is zero. But the word “inevitable” is no longer too strong.
Investment recommendations? I’ve got a few. My very long term bet is that the big banks (Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:BK), Bank of America , Citigroup (NYSE:C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), and JP Morgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), among others) will be the big losers. Likewise, the big accounting firms. All have invested billions. For them, pocket change, but pocket change invested pointlessly.
An exception: I find of particular interest Goldman’s entry into retail banking with a strong aversion to brick and mortar branches. These both are wise decisions. I have a buy on Goldman — and its awareness of, and willingness to place bets upon, the outcome of fintech is one reason I think Goldman’s long term strength is assured. In the distributed ledger future, branches disappear.
The distributed ledger contest will ultimately boil down to a contest between the major IT firms (IBM (NYSE:IBM), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)) (read: Pope and Kings) on one hand, and the loose governance of Bitcoin (The Great Kahn) on the other hand.
Do not, however, look here for a standard analysis of funds invested and rates of return. This is a game that will have one winner, and the game is winner-take-all. A thinking IT firm like IBM realizes that this is a contest it must enter. This is positive for the future of IBM’s stock, but I am a long way from knowing where IBM is going to jump, or whether I approve of their plan — which is, at the moment, very diffuse.
This is also not a time to look at the fintech component of IBM’s blockchain-oriented financials. It is far too early and the financials, nearly irrelevant. In this mega-contest for the future of distributed ledgers, it is not so much about dollars invested as intellectual resources expended and risks taken.
It is perhaps prudent at the moment for Big Blue to have a finger in every pie. But when a fully informed decision can be made, the winner of this contest will be the player with the most information and best instincts. And the earliest to make the right commitment. Then we can ask old fashioned questions like: What are the implications for IBM’s financials?
On the big firm side, IBM in particular has two things working for them. They are tight with the big banks and accounting firms on the one hand, yet comfortable in the world of open source on the other. I see them with a development role in devising the apps the banks and accountants will be ultimately reduced to offering in the transactions world. Those will be some monster apps, but Apps is Apps. They’re not where the big bucks are. The big distributed ledger itself is the real prize. IBM, or another big IT firm, will need to ramp up quickly to seize it.
IBM and its ilk will also be potentially better able to make decisions than the loosely structured management of Bitcoin/blockchain. But IBM should learn to say the word “Bitcoin.” The term was totally missing from their initial press release. It’s a clear sign of fear or hubris. And I don’t think IBM has a reason to fear, as its banking customers and the accounting firms do.
What of the Bitcoin community? For all of their pretensions of computer power/economics-based decision-making ala the internet, the Bitcoin community is not the free-wheeling fun-loving band it makes itself out to be. Bitcoin-land has a management problem of its own. There is indeed a hierarchy of Bitcoin/blockchain management, albeit informal. And this management has disputes. A very important current dispute is whether and how the blockchain will grow. This is no small matter. Because if Bitcoin will matter a year from now, it needs to grow like Topsy, and now.
Who will win the battle for the One Big Global Distributed Ledger? Too soon to call, but the stakes are enormous.
Not so long ago, US farmland – whose prices were until recently rising exponentially – was considered by many to be the next asset bubble. Continue reading →
The purpose of the Federal Housing Administration is “to help creditworthy low-income and first-time home buyers“, individuals and families often denied traditional credit, to obtain a mortgage and purchase a home.” This system has been successful, and has aided in promoting home ownership. However, the FHA loan program and its related benefits are under threat as the Department of Justice continues to bring investigations and actions against lenders under the False Claims Act.
Criticism of the DOJ’s approach is that the department is using the threat of treble damages available under the False Claims Act to intimidate lenders into paying outsized settlements and having lenders admit guilt simply to avoid the threat of the enormous liability and the cost of a prolonged defense. If the DOJ wanted to go after bad actors who are truly defrauding the government with dishonest underwriting practices or nonexistent quality control procedures, then that would be acceptable to the industry.
But the DOJ seems to be simply going after deep pockets, where the intentions of the lenders are well-placed and the errors found are legitimate mistakes. Case in point: as of December 2015, Quicken Loans was the largest originator of FHA loans in the country, and they are currently facing the threat of a False Claims Act violation. To date Quicken has vowed to continue to fight, and stated they will expose the truth about the DOJ’s egregious attempts to coerce these unjust “settlements.”
When an originator participates in the FHA program, they are operating under the Housing and Urban Development’s FHA guidelines. As HUD cannot, and does not, check each and every loan guaranteed by FHA to confirm unflawed origination, the agency requires certification that the lender originating the file did so in compliance with the applicable guidelines. If the loan defaults, the lender submits a claim and the FHA will pay out the balance of the loan under the guarantee.
The False Claims Act provides that any person who presents a false claim or makes a false record or statement material to a false claim, “is liable to the United States Government for a civil penalty of not less than $5,500 and not more than $11,000…plus 3 times the amount of damages which the Government sustains because of the act.”
The DOJ argues that when a loan with known origination errors is certified by the lender to the FHA, with a subsequent claim submitted by the lender to the FHA after a default, the lender is in violation of the False Claims Act — because they knew or should have known the loan had defects when they submitted their certification, and yet still allowed the government to sustain a loss when the FHA paid out of the loan balance.
In the mortgage space the potential liability is astronomical because of the aforementioned penalties. The major issues in a False Claims Act violation can be boiled down to two major points: lack of clarity and specificity around what the DOJ considers “errors;” and what constitutes knowing loans were defective under the DOJ’s application of the act.
To the first point: are the errors of the innocuous, ever-present type found in a large lender’s portfolio, or egregious underwriting errors knowingly committed to increase production while offsetting risk through the FHA program? Obviously, lenders are arguing the former.
Prior to Justice’s aggressive pursuit of these settlements, if the FHA identified an underwriting error the lender would simply indemnify the FHA and not process the claim, effectively making it a lender-owned loan. This was an acceptable risk to lenders, as an error in the origination process could not become such an oversized loss. The liability would be capped to any difference between the borrower’s total debt at the time of foreclosure sale and what the lender could recoup when the property was liquidated. The DOJ’s use of the False Claims Act now triples a lender’s risk when originating FHA loans by threatening damages that are triple the value of the amount paid out by FHA.
In his letter to all JPMorgan Chase & Co. shareholders in April, Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon outlined the bank’s reasons for discontinuing its involvement with FHA loans. This perfectly illustrates how the DOJ is basically restoring all the lender risk to FHA-backed originations. Banks originating FHA loans are left with two choices: price in the new risk of underwriting errors into and pass the cost to the end borrower, making the product so costly it becomes pointless to offer; or cease or severely limit FHA offerings. If lenders take either approach, the DOJ will have negated the purpose of the FHA by limiting borrowers’ access to credit.
Walking away from FHA lending is not as simple as it sounds. Most FHA borrowers tend to have lower credit scores and/or require lower down payments. Most FHA loans also tend to be for homes located in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Any decline in an institution’s FHA offerings most likely will have a negative impact on an institution’s Community Reinvestment Act ratings. One has to think the DOJ is well aware of this fact and believes it will keep lenders in the FHA business even with the elevated risk, and can simply continue to strong-arm lenders into settlements.
If the Justice Department continues to aggressively utilize the False Claims Act, originators will be forced to evolve and create a product that they can keep as a portfolio loan or sell privately that can reach the same borrowers the FHA-insured products currently do. Again, there is a high likelihood that these products will not have as attractive terms as the FHA loans that borrowers are currently enjoying.
Large lenders will continue to step away from FHA originations, and smaller lenders originating FHA loans should be strongly aware of the risk they are taking on by continuing to originate FHA loans and increasing their portfolios as the larger banks exit the FHA market. Many large lenders have faced or are currently facing these actions, and from the Justice Department’s recent statements it does not appear they will abate anytime soon.
Hillary’s rumored running mate, Housing Secretary Julian Castro, is cooking up a scheme to reallocate funding for Section 8 housing to punish suburbs for being too white and too wealthy.
The scheme involves super-sizing vouchers to help urban poor afford higher rents in pricey areas, such as Westchester County, while assigning them government real estate agents called “mobility counselors” to secure housing in the exurbs.
Castro plans to launch the Section 8 reboot this fall, even though a similar program tested a few years ago in Dallas has been blamed for shifting violent crime to affluent neighborhoods.
It’s all part of a grand scheme to forcibly desegregate inner cities and integrate the outer suburbs.
Anticipating NIMBY resistance, Castro last month threatened to sue suburban landlords for discrimination if they refuse even Section 8 tenants with criminal records. And last year, he implemented a powerful new regulation — “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” — that pressures all suburban counties taking federal grant money to change local zoning laws to build more low-income housing (landlords of such properties are required to accept Section 8 vouchers).
Castro is expected to finalize the new regulation, known as “Small-Area Fair Market Rents” (SAFMR), this October, in the last days of the Obama presidency.
It will set voucher rent limits by ZIP code rather than metro area, the current formula, which makes payments relatively small. For example, the fair market rent for a one-bedroom in New York City is about $1,250, which wouldn’t cover rentals in leafy areas of Westchester County, such as Mamaroneck, where Castro and his social engineers seek to aggressively resettle Section 8 tenants.
In expensive ZIP codes, Castro’s plan — which requires no congressional approval — would more than double the standard subsidy, while also covering utilities. At the same time, he intends to reduce subsidies for those who choose to stay in housing in poor urban areas, such as Brooklyn. So Section 8 tenants won’t just be pulled to the suburbs, they’ll be pushed there.
“We want to use our housing-choice vouchers to ensure that we don’t have a concentration of poverty and the aggregation of racial minorities in one part of town, the poor part of town,” the HUD chief said recently, adding that he’s trying to undo the “result of discriminatory policies and practices in the past, and sometimes even now.”
A draft of the new HUD rule anticipates more than 350,000 Section 8 voucher holders will initially be resettled under the SAFMR program. Under Obama, the total number of voucher households has grown to more than 2.2 million.
The document argues that larger vouchers will allow poor urban families to “move into areas that potentially have better access to jobs, transportation, services and educational opportunities.” In other words, offering them more money to move to more expensive neighborhoods will improve their situation.
But HUD’s own studies show the theory doesn’t match reality.
President Bill Clinton started a similar program in 1994 called “Moving to Opportunity Initiative,” which moved thousands of mostly African-American families from government projects to higher-quality homes in safer and less racially segregated neighborhoods in several counties across the country.
The 15-year experiment bombed.
A 2011 study sponsored by HUD found that adults using more generous Section 8 vouchers did not get better jobs or get off welfare. In fact, more went on food stamps. And their children did not do better in their new schools.
Worse, crime simply followed them to their safer neighborhoods, ruining the quality of life for existing residents.
“Males … were arrested more often than those in the control group, primarily for property crimes,” the study found.
Dubuque, Iowa, for example, received an influx of voucher holders from projects in Chicago — and it’s had a problem with crime ever since. A recent study linked Dubuque’s crime wave directly to Section 8 housing.
Of course, even when reality mugs leftists, they never scrap their social theories. They just double down.
The problem, they rationalized, was that the relocation wasn’t aggressive enough. They concluded they could get the desired results if they placed urban poor in even more affluent areas.
HUD recently tested this new theory in Dallas with disastrous results.
Starting in 2012, the agency sweetened Section 8 voucher payments, and pointed inner-city recipients to the far-flung counties surrounding Dallas. As government-subsidized rentals spread in all areas of the Metroplex (163 ZIP codes vs. 129 ZIP codes), so did crime.
Now Dallas has one of the highest murder rates in the nation, and recently had to call in state troopers to help police control it. For the first time, violent crime has shifted to the tony bedroom communities north of the city. Three suburbs that have seen the most Section 8 transfers — Frisco, Plano and McKinney — have suffered unprecedented spikes in rapes, assaults and break-ins, including home invasions.
Although HUD’s “demonstration project” may have improved the lives of some who moved, it’s ended up harming the lives of many of their new neighbors. And now Castro wants to roll it out nationwide. Soon he will give Section 8 recipients money to afford rent wherever they choose — and if they don’t want to move, he’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.
Ironically, Hillary’s own hometown of Chappaqua is fighting Section 8 housing because of links to drugs and crime and other problems.
This is a big policy shift that will have broad implications, affecting everything from crime to property values. And it could even impact the presidential election, especially if Castro joins Hillary on the Democratic ticket.
Bay Area residents have had it with high costs and congestion.
According to a 1,000-person poll conducted by the Bay Area Council, a business-sponsored public policy advocacy group, about one-third of people living in the nine counties surrounding the San Francisco Bay are considering moving. According to SF Gate, council president and CEO Jim Wunderman called it the region’s “canary in a coal mine,” forewarning danger if nothing’s done to remedy the issues.
The poll found that 34% of Bay Area residents say that they are either strongly and somewhat likely to move away. While 54% say they have no plans to do so, only 31% feel strongly about staying.
Plans for relocation aside, there has been a considerable drop in optimism in recent years. About 40% of residents think that the area is headed in the right direction, compared to 55% last year and 57% the year before. Meanwhile, another 40% think that the Bay Area is “seriously off the wrong track.” Notably, optimism positively correlates with higher income.
There has been an inexplicable divergence between the performance of the stock market and market fundamentals.
I believe that it is the growth in the monetary base, through excess bank reserves, that has created this divergence.
The correlation between the performance of the stock market and the ebb and flow of the monetary base continues to strengthen.
This correlation creates a conundrum for Fed policy.
It is the bubble that no one is talking about.
The Inexplicable Divergence
After the closing bell last Thursday, four heavyweights in the S&P 500 index (NYSEARCA:SPY) reported results that disappointed investors. The following morning, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) and Visa (NYSE:V) were all down 4% or more in pre-market trading, yet the headlines read “futures flat even as some big names tumble post-earnings.” This was stunning, as I can remember in the not too distant past when a horrible day for just one of these goliaths would have sent the broad market reeling due to the implications they had for their respective sector and the market as a whole. Today, this is no longer the case, as the vast majority of stocks were higher at the opening of trade on Friday, while the S&P 500 managed to close unchanged and the Russell 2000 (NYSEARCA:IWM) rallied nearly 1%.
This is but one example of the inexplicable divergence between the performance of the stock market and the fundamentals that it is ultimately supposed to reflect – a phenomenon that has happened with such frequency that it is becoming the norm. It is as though an indiscriminate buyer with very deep pockets has been supporting the share price of every stock, other than the handful in which the selling is overwhelming due to company-specific criteria. Then again, there have been rare occasions when this buyer seems to disappear.
Why did the stock market cascade during the first six weeks of the year? I initially thought that the market was finally discounting fundamentals that had been deteriorating for months, but the swift recovery we have seen to date, absent any improvement in the fundamentals, invalidates that theory. I then surmised, along with the consensus, that the drop in the broad market was a reaction to the increase in short-term interest rates, but this event had been telegraphed repeatedly well in advance. Lastly, I concluded that the steep slide in stocks was the result of the temporary suspension of corporate stock buybacks that occur during every earnings season, but this loss of demand has had only a negligible effect during the month of April.
The bottom line is that the fundamentals don’t seem to matter, and they haven’t mattered for a very long time. Instead, I think that there is a more powerful force at work, which is dictating the short- to intermediate-term moves in the broad market, and bringing new meaning to the phrase, “don’t fight the Fed.” I was under the impression that the central bank’s influence over the stock market had waned significantly when it concluded its bond-buying programs, otherwise known as quantitative easing, or QE. Now I realize that I was wrong.
The Monetary Base
In my view, the most influential force in our financial markets continues to be the ebb and flow of the monetary base, which is controlled by the Federal Reserve. In layman’s terms, the monetary base includes the total amount of currency in public circulation in addition to the currency held by banks, like Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), as reserves.
Bank reserves are deposits that are not being lent out to a bank’s customers. Instead, they are either held with the central bank to meet minimum reserve requirements or held as excess reserves over and above these requirements. Excess reserves in the banking system have increased from what was a mere $1.9 billion in August 2008 to approximately $2.4 trillion today. This accounts for the majority of the unprecedented increase in the monetary base, which now totals a staggering $3.9 trillion, over the past seven years.
The Federal Reserve can increase or decrease the size of the monetary base by buying or selling government bonds through a select list of the largest banks that serve as primary dealers. When the Fed was conducting its QE programs, which ended in October 2014, it was purchasing US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, and then crediting the accounts of the primary dealers with the equivalent value in currency, which would show up as excess reserves in the banking system.
A Correlation Emerges
Prior to the financial crisis, the monetary base grew at a very steady rate consistent with the rate of growth in the US economy, as one might expect. There was no change in the growth rate during the booms and busts in the stock market that occurred in 2000 and 2008, as can be seen below. It wasn’t until the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented monetary policy intervention that began during the financial crisis that the monetary base soared, but something else also happened. A very close correlation emerged between the rising value of the overall stock market and the growth in the monetary base.
It is well understood that the Fed’s QE programs fueled demand for higher risk assets, including common stocks. The consensus view has been that the Fed spurred investor demand for stocks by lowering the interest rate on the more conservative investments it was buying, making them less attractive, which encouraged investors to take more risk.
Still, this does not explain the very strong correlation between the rising value of the stock market and the increase in the monetary base. This is where conspiracy theories arise, and the relevance of this data is lost. It would be a lot easier to measure the significance of this correlation if I had proof that the investment banks that serve as primary dealers had been piling excess reserves into the stock market month after month over the past seven years. I cannot. What is important for investors to recognize is that an undeniable correlation exists, and it strengthens as we shorten the timeline to approach present day.
The Correlation Cuts Both Ways Notice that the monetary base (red line) peaked in October 2014, when the Fed stopped buying bonds. From that point moving forward, the monetary base has oscillated up and down in what is a very modest downtrend, similar to that of the overall stock market, which peaked a few months later.
What I have come to realize is that these ebbs and flows continue to have a measurable impact on the value of the overall stock market, but in both directions! This is important for investors to understand if the Fed continues to tighten monetary policy later this year, which would require reducing the monetary base.
If we look at the fluctuations in the monetary base over just the past year, in relation to the performance of the stock market, a pattern emerges, as can be seen below. A decline in the monetary base leads a decline in the stock market, and an increase in the monetary base leads a rally in the stock market. The monetary base is serving as a leading indicator of sorts. The one exception, given the severity of the decline in the stock market, would be last August. At that time, investors were anticipating the first rate increase by the Federal Reserve, which didn’t happen, and the stock market recovered along with the rise in the monetary base.
If we replace the fluctuations in the monetary base with the fluctuations in excess bank reserves, the same correlation exists with stock prices, as can be seen below. The image that comes to mind is that of a bathtub filled with water, or liquidity, in the form of excess bank reserves. This liquidity is supporting the stock market. When the Fed pulls the drain plug, withdrawing liquidity, the water level falls and so does the stock market. The Fed then plugs the drain, turns on the faucet and allows the tub to fill back up with water, injecting liquidity back into the banking system, and the stock market recovers. Could this be the indiscriminate buyer that I mentioned previously at work in the market? I don’t know.
What I can’t do is draw a road map that shows exactly how an increase or decrease in excess reserves leads to the buying or selling of stocks, especially over the last 12 months. The deadline for banks to comply with the Volcker Rule, which bans proprietary trading, was only nine months ago. Who knows what the largest domestic banks that hold the vast majority of the $2.4 trillion in excess reserves were doing on the investment front in the years prior. As recently as January 2015, traders at JPMorgan made a whopping $300 million in one day trading Swiss francs on what was speculated to be a $1 billion bet. Was that a risky trade?
Despite the ban on proprietary trading imposed by the Volcker Rule, there are countless loopholes that weaken the statute. For example, banks can continue to trade physical commodities, just not commodity derivatives. Excluded from the ban are repos, reverse repos and securities lending, through which a lot of speculation takes place. There is also an exclusion for what is called “liquidity management,” which allows a bank to put all of its relatively safe holdings in an account and manage them with no restrictions on trading, so long as there is a written plan. The bank can hold anything it wants in the account so long as it is a liquid security.
My favorite loophole is the one that allows a bank to facilitate client transactions. This means that if a bank has clients that its traders think might want to own certain stocks or stock-related securities, it can trade in those securities, regardless of whether or not the clients buy them. Banks can also engage in high-frequency trading through dark pools, which mask their trading activity altogether.
As a friend of mine who is a trader for one of the largest US banks told me last week, he can buy whatever he wants within his area of expertise, with the intent to make a market and a profit, so long as he sells the security within six months. If he doesn’t sell it within six months, he is hit with a Volcker Rule violation. I asked him what the consequences of that would be, to which he replied, “a slap on the wrist.”
Regardless of the investment activities of the largest banks, it is clear that a change in the total amount of excess reserves in the banking system has a significant impact on the value of the overall stock market. The only conclusion that I can definitively come to is that as excess reserves increase, liquidity is created, leading to an increase in demand for financial assets, including stocks, and prices rise. When that liquidity is withdrawn, prices fall. The demand for higher risk financial assets that this liquidity is creating is overriding any supply, or selling, that results from a deterioration in market fundamentals.
There is one aspect of excess reserves that is important to understand. If a bank uses excess reserves to buy a security, that transaction does not reduce the total amount of reserves in the banking system. It simply transfers the reserves from the buyer to the seller, or to the bank account in which the seller deposits the proceeds from the sale, if that seller is not another bank. It does change the composition of the reserves, as 10% of the new deposit becomes required reserves and the remaining 90% remains as excess reserves. The Fed is the only institution that can change the total amount of excess reserves in the banking system, and as it has begun to do so over the past year, I think it is finally realizing that it must reap what it has sown.
The Conundrum
In order to tighten monetary policy, the Federal Reserve must drain the banking system of the excess reserves it has created, but it doesn’t want to sell any of the bonds that it has purchased. It continues to reinvest the proceeds of maturing securities. As can be seen below, it holds approximately $4.5 trillion in assets, a number which has remained constant over the past 18 months.
Therefore, in order to drain reserves, thereby reducing the size of the monetary base, the Fed has been lending out its bonds on a temporary basis in exchange for the reserves that the bond purchases created. These transactions are called reverse repurchase agreements. This is how the Fed has been reducing the monetary base, while still holding all of its assets, as can be seen below.
There has been a gradual increase in the volume of repurchase agreements outstanding over the past two years, which has resulted in a gradual decline in the monetary base and excess reserves, as can be seen below.
I am certain that the Fed recognizes the correlation between the rise and fall in excess reserves, and the rise and fall in the stock market. This is why it has been so reluctant to tighten monetary policy further. In lieu of being transparent, it continues to come up with excuses for why it must hold off on further tightening, which have very little to do with the domestic economy. The Fed rightfully fears that a significant market decline will thwart the progress it has made so far in meeting its mandate of full employment and a rate of inflation that approaches 2% (stable prices).
The conundrum the Fed faces is that if the rate of inflation rises above its target of 2%, forcing it to further drain excess bank reserves and increase short-term interest rates, it is likely to significantly deflate the value of financial assets, based on the correlation that I have shown. This will have dire consequences both for consumer spending and sentiment, and for what is already a stall-speed rate of economic growth. Slower rates of economic growth feed into a further deterioration in market fundamentals, which leads to even lower stock prices, and a negative-feedback loop develops. This reminds me of the deflationary spiral that took place during the financial crisis.
The Fed’s preferred measurement of inflation is the core Personal Consumption Expenditures, or PCE, price index, which excludes food and energy. The latest year-over-year increase of 1.7% is the highest since February 2013, and it is rapidly closing in on the Fed’s 2% target even though the rate of economic growth is moving in the opposite direction, as can be seen below.
The Bubble
If you have been wondering, as I have, why the stock market has been able to thumb its nose at an ongoing recession in corporate profits and revenues that started more than a year ago, I think you will find the answer in $2.4 trillion of excess reserves in the banking system. It is this abundance of liquidity, for which the real economy has no use, that is decoupling the stock market from economic fundamentals. The Fed has distorted the natural pricing mechanism of a free market, and at some point in the future, we will all learn that this distortion has a great cost.
Alan Greenspan once said, “how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values?” Open your eyes.
What you see in the chart below is a bubble. It is much different than the asset bubbles we experienced in technology stocks and home prices, which is why it has gone largely unnoticed. It is similar from the standpoint that it has been built on exaggerated expectations of future growth. It is a bubble of the Fed’s own making, built on the expectation that an unprecedented increase in the monetary base and excess bank reserves would lead to faster rates of economic growth. It has clearly not. Instead, this mountain of money has either directly, or indirectly, flooded into financial assets, manipulating prices to levels well above what economic fundamentals would otherwise dictate.
The great irony of this bubble is that it is the achievement of the Fed’s objectives, for which the bubble was created, that will ultimately lead it to its bursting. It was an unprecedented amount of credit available at historically low interest rates that fueled the rise in home prices, and it has also been an unprecedented amount of credit at historically low interest rates that has fueled the rise in financial asset prices, including the stock market. How and when this bubble will be pricked remains a question mark, but what is certain is that the current level of excess reserves in the banking system that appear to be supporting financial markets cannot exist in perpetuity.
Among our favorite indicators to write about is the GDP output gap. Today we update it with the latest Q1 2016 GDP data. We’ve written about it many times in the past (some recent examples: 09/30/2015, 12/27/2014, and 06/06/2014). It is the standard for representing economic slack in most other developed countries but is usually overlooked in the United States in favor of the gap between the unemployment rate and full employment (also called NAIRU (link is external). This is partially because the US Federal Reserve’s FOMC has one half of its main goal to promote ‘full employment’ (along with price stability) but it is also partially because the unemployment rate makes the economy look better, which is always popular to promote. In past US business cycles, these two gaps had a close linear relationship (Okun’s law (link is external) and so normally they were interchangeable, yet, in this recovery, the unemployment rate suggests much more progression than the GDP output gap.
The unemployment gap now, looked at on its face, would imply that the US is at full employment; i.e., the unemployment rate is 5% and full employment is considered to be 5%. Thus, this implies that the US economy is right on the verge of generating inflation pressure. Yet, the unemployment rate almost certainly overstates the health of the economy because of a sharp increase over the last many years of unemployed surveys claiming they are not involved in the workforce (i.e. not looking for a job). From the beginning of the last recession, November 2007, the share of adults claiming to be in the workforce has fallen by 3.0% of the adult population, or 7.6 million people of today’s population! Those 7.6 million simply claiming to be looking for a job would send the unemployment rate up to 9.4%!. In other words, this metric’s strength is heavily reliant on whether people say they are looking for a job or not, and many could switch if the economy was better. Thinking about this in a very simplistic way; a diminishing share of the population working still has to support the entire population and without offsetting higher real wages, this pattern is regressive to the economy. The unemployment rate’s strength misses this.
Adding to the evidence that the unemployment rate is overstating the health of the economy is the mismatch between the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) household survey (unemployment rate) and the establishment survey (non-farm payroll number). Analyzing the growth in non-farm payrolls over the period of recovery (and adjusting for aging demographics) suggests that the US economy still has a gap to full employment of about 1.5 million jobs; this is the Hamilton Project’s Jobs Gap (link is external).
But, the labor market is a subset of the economy, and while its indicators are much more accessible and frequent than measurements on the entire economy, the comprehensive GDP output gap merits being part of the discussion on the economy. Even with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) revising potential GDP lower each year, the GDP output gap (chart) continues to suggest a dis-inflationary economy, let alone a far away date when the Federal Reserve needs to raise rates to restrict growth. This analysis suggests a completely different path for the Fed funds rate than the day-to-day hysterics over which and how many meetings the Fed will raise rates this year. This analysis is the one that has worked, not the “aspirational” economics that most practice.
In an asset management context, US Treasury interest rates tend to trend lower when there is an output gap and trend higher when there is an output surplus. This simple, yet overlooked rule has helped to guide us to stay correctly long US Treasuries over the last several years while the Wall Street community came up with any reason why they were a losing asset class. We continue to think that US Treasury interest rates have significant appreciation ahead of them. As we have stated before, we think the 10yr US Treasury yield will fall to 1.00% or below.
The Census Bureau released its quarterly updateon residential vacancies and home ownership for Q1 which is closely watched for its update of how many Americans own versus rent. It shows that following a modest pickup in the home ownership rate in the prior two quarters, US homeowners once again posted a substantial decline, sliding from 63.8% to 63.5%, and just 0.1% higher than the 50 year low reported in Q2 2015.
And perhaps logically, while home ownership continues to stagnate, the number of renters has continued to soar. In fact, in the first quarter, the number of renter occupied houses rose by precisely double the amount, or 360,000, as the number of owner occupied houses, which was a modest increase of 180,000. This brings the total number of renter houses to 42.85 million while the number of homeowners is virtually unchanged at 74.66 million.
A stark representation of the divergence between renters and owners can be seen in the chart below. It shows that over the past decade, virtually all the housing growth has come thanks to renters while the number of homeowners hasn’t budged even a fraction and has in fact declined in absolute numbers. What is obvious is that around the time the housing bubble burst, many Americans appear to have lost faith in home ownership and decided to become renters instead.
An immediate consequence of the above is that as demand for rental units has soared, so have median asking rents, and sure enough, according to Census, in Q1 the median asking rent at the national level soared to an all time high $870.
Which brings us to the one chart showing where the “missing” runaway inflation in the US is hiding: if one shows the annual increase in asking rents, what one gets is the following stunning chart which shows that while rent inflation had been roughly in the 1-2% corridor for two decades, starting in 2013 something snapped, and rent inflation for some 43 million Americans has exploded and is currently printing at a blended four quarter average rate of just over 8%, the highest on record, and 4 times higher than Yellen’s inflationary target.
So the next time Janet Yellen laments the collapse of inflation, feel free to show her this chart which even she can easily recreate using the government’s own data (the sad reality is that rents are rising even faster than what the government reports) at the following link.
Purchases of new homes unexpectedly declined in March for a third month, reflecting the weakest pace of demand in the West since July 2014.
Total sales decreased 1.5% to a 511,000 annualized pace, a Commerce Department report showed Monday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey was for a gain to 520,000. In Western states, demand slumped 23.6%.
Purchases rose in two regions last month, indicating uneven demand at the start of the busiest time of the year for builders and real estate agents. While new construction has been showing limited upside, cheap borrowing costs and solid hiring will help ensure residential real estate continues to expand.
“Housing is certainly not booming,” Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics Ltd. in Valhalla, N.Y., said before the report. “Some people may be shut out of the market because lending standards are still tight. There may still be some reluctance to buy versus rent.”
Even so, “through the volatility, the trend is still more up than down, and we expect modest growth in sales,” he said.
Economists’ estimates for new-home sales ranged from 488,000 to 540,000. February purchases were revised to 519,000 from 512,000. The monthly data are generally volatile, one reason economists prefer to look at longer term trends.
The report said there was 90% confidence the change in sales last month ranged from a 13.5% drop to a 16.5% increase.
Sales in the West declined to a 107,000 annualized rate in March after surging 21.7% the previous month to 140,000. In the South, purchases climbed 5% to a 314,000 pace in March, the strongest in 13 months. Sales in the Midwest advanced 18.5%, the first gain in three months, and were unchanged in the Northeast.
The median sales price decreased 1.8% from March 2015 to $288,000.
There were 246,000 new houses on the market at the end of March, the most since September 2009. The supply of homes at the current sales rate rose to 5.8 months, the highest since September, from 5.6 months in the prior period.
From a year earlier, purchases increased 5.8% on an unadjusted basis.
New-home sales, which account for less than 10% of the residential market, are tabulated when contracts get signed. They are generally considered a timelier barometer of the residential market than purchases of previously owned dwellings, which are calculated when a contract closes, typically a month or two later.
Borrowing costs are hovering close to a three-year low, helping to bring house purchases within the reach of more Americans. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 3.59% last week, down from 3.97% at the start of the year, according to data from Freddie Mac.
The job market is another source of support. Monthly payrolls growth averaged 234,000 in the past year, and the unemployment rate of 5% is near an eight-year low. Still, year-over-year wage gains have been stuck in a 2% to 2.5% range since the economic expansion began in mid-2009.
The market for previously owned homes improved last month, climbing 5.1% to a 5.33 million annualized rate, the National Association of Realtors reported April 20. Prices rose as inventories remained tight.
Even so, the market is getting little boost from first-time buyers, who accounted for 30% of all existing-home purchases, a historically low share, according to the group.
Recent data on home building has been less encouraging, although those figures are volatile month to month. New-home construction slumped in March, reflecting a broad-based retreat, a Commerce Department report showed last week. Home starts fell 8.8% to the weakest annual pace since October. Permits, a proxy for future construction, also unexpectedly dropped.
It seems the end really is nigh for the U.S. dollar.
And the mudfight for global dominance and currency war couldn’t be more ugly or dramatic.
The Saudis are now openly threatening to take down the U.S. economy in the ongoing fallout over collapsing oil prices and tense geopolitical events involving the 9/11 cover-up. The New York Times reports:
Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
China’s shift to an official local-currency-based gold fixing is “the culmination of a two-year plan to move away from a US-centric monetary system,” according to Bocom strategist Hao Hong. In an insightfully honest Bloomberg TV interview, Hong admits that “by trading physical gold in renminbi, China is slowly chipping away at the dominance of US dollars.”
Putin also waits in the shadows, making similar moves and creating alliances to out-balance the United States with a growing Asian economy on the global stage.
Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange asks “Is This The End of the U.S. Dollar?” in the video below.
He writes:
In this video Luke Rudkowski reports on the breaking news of both China and Saudi Arabia making geopolitical moves that could cause a U.S economic collapse and obliteration of the U.S hegemony petrodollar. We go over China’s new gold backed yuan that cannot be traded in U.S dollars and rising tension with Saudi Arabia threatening economic blackmail if their role in 911 is exposed.
Visit WeAreChange.org where this video report was first published.
The Federal Reserve, Henry Kissinger, the Rockefellers and their allies created the petrodollar and insisted upon the world using the U.S. dollar to buy oil, placing debt in American currency and entire countries under the yoke of the West.
But that paradigm has been crumbling as world order shifts away from U.S. hegemony.
It is a matter of when – not if – these events will change the U.S. financial landscape forever.
As SHTF has warned, major events are taking place, and no one can say if stability will be here tomorrow.
Stay vigilant, and prepare yourself and your family as best as you can.
While the outlook for overall economic growth is darkening, the housing market is expected to keep up its momentum in 2016, according to Freddie Mac’s April 2016 Economic Outlook released on Friday.
Freddie Mac revised downward its forecast for Q1 GDP growth from 1.8 percent down to 1.1 percent. The “advance” estimate for GDP growth in the first quarter will be released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on Thursday, April 28. The GDP grew at an annual rate of just 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2015 but then shot up to 3.9 percent for Q2; for the third and fourth quarter, the real GDP grew at rates of 2.0 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively.
The first quarter for the last few years has been punctuated by slow economic growth. While some of this can be attributed to seasonality, Ten-X (then Auction.com) Chief Economist Peter Muoio said that last year’s dismal GDP showing in the first quarter could be attributed to the brutal winter which slowed economic activity, labor disagreements at a bunch of the West Coast ports that really slowed the flow of cargo in Q1, and low oil prices (though this was partially offset by lower gas prices which put more money in consumers’ pockets).
“We’ve revised down our forecast for economic growth to reflect the recent data for the first quarter, but our outlook for the balance of the year remains modestly optimistic for the economy,” Freddie Mac Chief Economist Sean Becketti said. “However, we maintain our positive view on housing. In fact, the declines in long-term interest rates that accompanied much of the recent news should increase mortgage market activity, particularly refinance.”
On the positive side, Freddie Mac expects the unemployment rate will fall back below 5 percent for 2016 and 2017 (last month it ticked back up to 5.0 percent after hovering at 4.9 percent for a couple of months). Reduced slack in the labor market will push wage gains above inflation, although the gains are expected to be only modest, according to Freddie Mac.
While the economic forecast for Q1 has grown darker, the forecast looks bright for housing in 2016, however.
“We expect housing to be an engine of growth,” Freddie Mac stated in the report. “Construction activity will pick up as we enter the spring and summer months, and rising home values will bolster consumers and help support renewed confidence in the remaining months of this year.”
Low mortgage rates have boosted refinance activity in the housing market during Q1. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 3.7 percent for the first quarter, which drove an increase for the 1-4 single-family originations estimate for 2016 up by $50 billion up to $1.7 billion. Rates are expected to bump up, however, and average 4 percent over the full year of 2016, according to Freddie Mac. House prices are expected to appreciate by 4.8 percent over 2016 and 3.5 percent for 2017; homeowner equity is expected to rise as a result of the home price appreciation, which could mean more refinance opportunities.
The low mortgage rates combined with solid job growth are expected to make 2016 the strongest year for home sales since the pre-crisis year of 2006 despite the persistently tight inventory of for-sale homes, according to Freddie Mac.
“Sales were slow in the first quarter, but trends in mortgage purchase applications remain robust and we expect home sales to accelerate throughout the second quarter of 2016 as we approach peak home buying season,” Freddie Mac said.
Click here to view the entire Freddie Mac Economic Outlook for April 2016.
It’s not an easy time to be a construction worker in China. In some cases, economic frustration bubbles over into the streets such as the other day, when workers from rival companies used their bulldozers as battle tanks.
BEIJING (AP) — Police in northern China say an argument between construction workers escalated into a demolition derby-style clash of heavy machinery that left at least two bulldozers flipped over in a street.
The construction workers were from two companies competing for business, Xu Feng, a local government spokesman in Hebei province’s Xingtang county, said Monday. He said he couldn’t disclose details about arrests or injuries until an investigation concludes.
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I think I am starting to see the light you have been shining. Negative interest rates really are “completely insane”. I also now see that months after you wrote about central banks were trapped, others are now just starting to entertain the idea. Is this distinct difference in your views that eventually become adopted with time because you were a hedge fund manager?
ANSWER: I believe the answer is rather simple. How can anyone pretend to be analysts if they have never traded? It would be like a man writing a book explaining how it feels to give birth. You cannot analyze what you have never done. It is just impossible. Those who cannot teach and those who can just do. Negative interest rates are fueling deflation. People have less income to spend so how is this beneficial? The Fed always needed 2% inflation. The father of negative interest rates is Larry Summers. He teaches or has been in government. He is not a trader and is clueless about how markets function. I warned that this idea of negative interest rates was very dangerous.
Yes, I have warned that the central banks are trapped. Their QE policies have totally failed. There were numerous “analysts” without experience calling for hyperinflation, collapse of the dollar, yelling the Fed is increasing the money supply so buy gold. The inflation never appeared and gold declined. Their reasoning was so far off the mark exactly as people like Larry Summers. These people become trapped in their own logic it becomes irrational gibberish. They only see one side of the coin and ignore the rest.
Central banks have lost all ability to manage the economy even in theory thanks to this failed reasoning. They have bought-in the bonds and are unable to ever resell them again. If they reverse their policy of QE and negative interest rates, government debt explodes with insufficient buyers. If the central banks refuse to reverse this crazy policy of QE and negative interest rates they will see a massive capital flight from government to the private sector once the MAJORITY realize the central banks are incapable of any control.
The central banks have played a very dangerous game and lost. It appears we are facing the collapse of Social Security which began August 14th, 1935 (1935.619) because they stuffed with government debt and robbed the money for other things. Anyone else would go to prison for what politicians have done and prosecutors would never defend the people because they want to become famous politicians. We will probably see the end of this Social Security program by 2021.772 (October 9th, 2021), or about 89 weeks into the next business cycle. These people are completely incompetent to manage the economy and we are delusional to think people with no experience as a trader can run things. If you have never traded, you have no busy trying to “manipulate” society with you half-baked theories. So yes. The central banks are trapped. They have lost ALL power. It becomes just a matter of time as the clock ticks and everyone wakes up and say: OMG!
We have government addicted to borrowing and if rates rise, then everything will explode in their face. Western Civilization is finished as we know it just as Communism collapsed because we too subscribe to the theory of Marx that government is capable of managing the economy. Just listen to the candidates running for President. They are all preaching Marx. Vote for me and I will force the economy to do this. IMPOSSIBLE! We have debt which is unsustainable the further you move away from the United States which is the core economy such as emerging markets. Unfunded pensions destroyed the Roman Empire. We are collapsing in the very same manner and for the very same reason. We are finishing a very very very important report on the whole pension crisis issue worldwide.
It’s 9:30 a.m. on a recent sunny Friday, and 60 people have crammed into an airport hotel conference room in Northern Virginia to hear Kevin Shortle, a veteran real estate professional with a million-watt smile, talk about “architecting a deal.”
Some have worked in real estate before, flipping houses or managing rentals. But the deals Shortle, lead national instructor for a company called Note School, is describing are different: He teaches people how to buy home notes, the building blocks of housing finance.
While titles and deeds establish property ownership, notes — the financial agreements between lenders and home buyers — set the terms by which a borrower will pay for the home. Financial institutions have long passed them back and forth as they re-balance their portfolios.
But the trade in delinquent notes has exploded in the post-financial-crisis world. As government entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have struggled with the legacies of the housing bust, they’ve sold billions of dollars’ of delinquent notes to big institutional investors, who resell them in turn.
A sign outside a foreclosed home for sale in Princeton, Ill, in January 2014.
And people like the ones in the Sheraton now pay good money to learn how to pursue what Note School calls “rich rewards.” The result: a marketplace where thousands of notes are bought and sold for a fraction of the value of the homes they secure.
A buyer can renegotiate with the homeowner, collecting steady cash. Or she might offer a “cash for keys” payout and seek a tenant or new owner. If all else fails, she can foreclose.
For some housing market observers, the churn in notes is a sign that the financial crisis hasn’t fully healed — and a fresh source of potential abuses. But the people listening to Shortle saw opportunity as he explained how they can “be the bank” for people with mortgage-payment problems.
“You can make a lot of money in the problem-solving business,” Shortle said.
How home notes move through a healing housing market
Since most people buy homes using mortgage financing, notes can be thought of as another name for mortgage agreements. After the home purchase closes, banks and other lenders usually sell them to government entities like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration.
The housing market has improved since the bust, but hasn’t healed fully. There were 1.4 million foreclosures in 2015, according to real estate data firm RealtyTrac, and more than 17% of all transactions last year were deemed “distressed” — more than double pre-bust levels — in some way.
As the dust has settled, government agencies have begun selling delinquent notes to big institutional investors like Lone Star Funds, Goldman Sachs GS, +2.76% and Fortress Investments FIG, +3.96% as well as some community nonprofits, in bulk. The agencies have sold more than $28 billion in distressed loans since 2012, according to government data.
The big investors then sell some to buyers such as Colonial Capital Management, which is run by the same people who run Note School. Colonial, which buys about 2,000 notes a year, sells most of them one by one to people like the ones who gathered in the Virginia Sheraton.
It’s difficult to know how much this happens and what it has meant for homeowners.
Anyone who buys notes from the government must follow reporting requirements that include information on how the loans perform. Those requirements stay with the notes if they’re resold; they expire four years after the government’s initial sale. But nobody tracks note sales that weren’t made by the government, and even the government’s records don’t link outcomes and note owners.
March data from the Federal Housing Administration only hint at a broad view of how post-sale loans perform. The FHA has sold roughly 89,000 loans since 2012; less than 11% of those homeowners now pay their mortgages on time. Many are simply classified as “unresolved.” More than 34% had been foreclosed upon.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which began selling notes in 2014, were supposed to report similar data by the end of March. A spokeswoman for the agencies’ regulator said she did not know when that report, still incomplete, would be submitted.
And not all notes are initially sold by the government, making comprehensive oversight of the marketplace even harder. Banks and other lenders often sell notes directly; Colonial doesn’t buy notes from the government, according to Eddie Speed, founder of both Note School and Colonial.
For investors, a cleaner deal than the world of ‘tenants and toilets’
Note buying has attractions for both investors and the communities where the homeowners live.
Delinquent notes can be bought cheaply, often for about a third of a home’s market value. Note buyers get an investment that’s more like a financial asset — and less dirty than the landlord’s world of “tenants and toilets.”
Meanwhile, investors can often afford to cut homeowners a significant break, avoiding foreclosure while still making a profit.
And there’s government money for the taking in the name of helping homeowners. Since the housing crisis, the federal government has allocated nearly $10 billion to states deemed hardest-hit by the bust. Those states funnel the money to borrowers, often to help them reach new agreements with their lenders.
That can help municipalities that lose out on property taxes when homeowners don’t make payments, and which benefit from having more involved owners, Speed says.
Eddie Speed
When Tj Osterman, 38, and Rick Allen, 36, who have worked together as real-estate investors for about 10 years in the Orlando area, first explored note buying, they thought it little different than flipping abandoned houses.
But when they realized homeowners were often still in the picture, they changed their approach to try to work with them. Some of their motivation came from personal experience: Allen went through foreclosure in 2007. “It was a tough time,” he said. “I wish there was someone like me who said, let’s help you keep your house.”
They can buy notes cheaply enough that they can reduce the principal owed by homeowners “as much as 50%, and still turn a nice profit, pay back taxes, [and] get these people feeling good about themselves again,” said Osterman.
They now have a goal of helping save 10,000 homeowners from foreclosure. “I’m so addicted to the socially responsible side of stuff,” Osterman said. “We talk with borrowers like human beings and underwrite to real-world standards.”
‘There’s a system out there that’s broken’
Some housing observers have concerns about drawing nonprofessionals into an often-opaque market. A recent example Shortle used as a case study during the Virginia seminar helps explain why.
A note on an Atlanta-area home was being sold for $24,360; according to estimates from Zillow and local agents, its market value was between $50,000 and $70,000.
Some back taxes were owed, and a payment history showed that while the homeowner was making erratic or partial payments on her $500 monthly mortgage, she hadn’t quit. She had some equity built up in the house, another sign of commitment.
Real-estate investment firm Stonecrest sold her the home in 2012; she had used Stonecrest’s own financing at 9%. Her payment record was spotless until 2014. Stonecrest sold the note to Colonial in 2015 and Colonial offered it for resale in early 2016.
Most notes underpin mortgages. But this one was linked to a land contract, a financial agreement more typical when the seller is offering financing. Land contracts are sometimes criticized for being almost predatory: If a buyer skips a payment, the house and all the money he’s put toward it can be taken away.
And buyers don’t hold the deeds to the home, so the homes can be taken more quickly if they’re delinquent. Note School often steers students to scenarios where government programs like Hardest Hit can be tapped, but those programs don’t apply to land contracts.
Shortle walked his class through different strategies. The new note owner could foreclose; they could also induce the home buyer to walk. “It may be time to give this person a little cash for keys to move on,” he told the class. “They can’t afford it.”
Other data indicated that the house would rent for roughly $750. It might make sense, Shortle suggested, to remove the homeowner, fix up the house, rent it out, then sell the entire arrangement to a cash investor.
If a new note owner took that tack, the note would change hands four times in about as many years—even as the homeowner changed just once. The homeowner might never notice.
Some analysts see evidence of a still-hurting housing market behind all that activity.
By diffusing distressed loans out into a broader marketplace, lenders avoid the negative publicity that comes with foreclosing on delinquent homeowners. That masks “a layer of distress in the housing market that’s being overlooked,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.
“This has been a way to push aside the crisis and sweep it under the rug,” Blomquist told MarketWatch.
Some analysts see evidence of a still-hurting housing market behind all that activity.
By diffusing distressed loans out into a broader marketplace, lenders avoid the negative publicity that comes with foreclosing on delinquent homeowners. That masks “a layer of distress in the housing market that’s being overlooked,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.
“This has been a way to push aside the crisis and sweep it under the rug,” Blomquist told MarketWatch.
Osterman, left, and Allen
Note investors say they can offer a service others can’t or won’t. “There’s a real issue with how we’re treating hardships,” said Osterman. “There’s a system out there that’s broken and needs to be disrupted in a good way.”
Note School’s founder says the goal is a ‘win-win’
While newer investors like Osterman and Allen have a sense of mission forged during the recent housing crisis, Speed has been in the note business for more than 30 years. He is adamant that it’s in Note School’s best interest to teach students to observe regulation and treat homeowners respectfully. There’s no reason it can’t be a “win-win,” he said.
‘”We’re not teaching people to go and do ‘Wild West investing.’
Colonial Funding doesn’t make buyers of its notes go through Note School, but it does require them to work with licensed mortgage servicers. Note School offers connections to armies of vendors offering services for every step of the process: people who will assess the property’s real market value, “door-knockers” who will hand-deliver letters to homeowners, title research companies, insurers, and more.
“We’ve been in the note buying business for 30 years,” said Speed. “We’re not teaching people to go and do ‘Wild West investing.’”
Speed believes buying distressed notes is a process tailor-made for people with an entrepreneurial approach to doing well by solving problems — and maintains that he is mindful of the postcrisis environment in which they work.
“I’m walking into where the disaster has already happened,” he said. “If I walk into a loan where the customer has vacated, they probably want out. Common sense tells us if the borrower can deed it over to the lender and walk away with dignity, that seems like a good deal for him. We’re trying to do everything we can to reach resolution.”
This predatory exploitation is only possible if the central bank and state have partnered with financial Elites.
After decades of denial, the mainstream has finally conceded that rising income and wealth inequality is a problem–not just economically, but politically, for as we all know wealth buys political influence/favors, and as we’ll see below, the federal government enables and enforces most of the skims and scams that have made the rich richer and everyone else poorer.
Here’s the problem in graphic form: from 1947 to 1979, the family income of the top 1% actually expanded less that the bottom 99%. Since 1980, the income of the 1% rose 224% while the bottom 80% barely gained any income at all.
Globalization, i.e. offshoring of jobs, is often blamed for this disparity, but as I explained in “Free” Trade, Jobs and Income Inequality, the income of the top 10% broke away from the bottom 90% in the early 1980s, long before China’s emergence as an exporting power.
Indeed, by the time China entered the WTO, the top 10% in the U.S. had already left the bottom 90% in the dust.
The only possible explanation of this is the rise of financialization: financiers and financial corporations (broadly speaking, Wall Street, benefited enormously from neoliberal deregulation of the financial industry, and the conquest of once-low-risk sectors of the economy (such as mortgages) by the storm troopers of finance.
Financiers skim the profits and gains in wealth, and Main Street and the middle / working classes stagnate. Gordon Long and I discuss the ways financialization strip-mines the many to benefit the few in our latest conversation (with charts): Our “Lawnmower” Economy.
Many people confuse the wealth earned by people who actually create new products and services with the wealth skimmed by financiers. One is earned by creating new products, services and business models; financialized “lawnmowing” generates no new products/services, no new jobs and no improvements in productivity–the only engine that generates widespread wealth and prosperity.
Consider these favorite financier “lawnmowers”:
1. Buying a company, loading it with debt to cash out the buyers and then selling the divisions off: no new products/services, no new jobs and no improvements in productivity.
2. Borrowing billions of dollars in nearly free money via Federal Reserve easy credit and using the cash to buy back corporate shares, boosting the value of stock owned by insiders and management: no new products/services, no new jobs and no improvements in productivity.
3. Skimming money from the stock market with high-frequency trading (HFT): no new products/services, no new jobs and no improvements in productivity.
4. Borrowing billions for next to nothing and buying high-yielding bonds and investments in other countries (the carry trade): no new products/services, no new jobs and no improvements in productivity.
All of these are “lawnmower” operations, rentier skims enabled by the Federal Reserve, its too big to fail banker cronies, a complicit federal government and a toothless corporate media.
This is not classical capitalism; it is predatory exploitation being passed off as capitalism. This predatory exploitation is only possible if the central bank and state have partnered with financial Elites to strip-mine the many to benefit the few.
This has completely distorted the economy, markets, central bank policies, and the incentives presented to participants.
“A key empirical question in the inequality debate is to what extent rich people derive their wealth from “rents”, which is windfall income they did not produce, as opposed to activities creating true economic benefit.
Political scientists define “rent-seeking” as influencing government to get special privileges, such as subsidies or exclusive production licenses, to capture income and wealth produced by others.
However, Joseph Stiglitz counters that the very existence of extreme wealth is an indicator of rents.
Competition drives profit down, such that it might be impossible to become extremely rich without market failures. Every good business strategy seeks to exploit one market failure or the other in order to generate excess profit.
The bottom-line is that extreme wealth is not broad-based: it is disproportionately generated by a small portion of the economy.”
This small portion of the economy depends on the central bank and state for nearly free money, bail-outs, guarantees that profits are private but losses are shifted to the taxpaying public–all the skims and scams we’ve seen protected for seven long years by Democrats and Republicans alike.
Learn how our “Lawnmower Economy” works (with host Gordon Long; 26:21 minutes)
The S&P 500 closed today exactly where it first crossed in November 2014. In the interim, its been a roller-coaster of rips, dips, spills and thrills.
The thing is, however, this extended period of sideways churning has not materialized under a constant economic backdrop; it does not reflect a mere steady-state of dare-doing at the gaming tables.
Actually, earnings have been falling sharply and macroeconomic headwinds have been intensifying dramatically. So the level of risk in the financial system has been rocketing higher even as the stock averages have labored around the flat-line.
Thus, GAAP earnings of the S&P 500 in November 2014 were $106 per share on an LTM basis compared to $86.44today. So earnings are down by 18.5%, meaning that the broad market PE multiple has escalated from an already sporty 19.3Xback then to an outlandish 23.7Xtoday.
Always and everywhere, such persistent profit collapses have signaled recession just around the corner. And there are plenty of macro-economic data points signaling just that in the remainder of this article (here)
Parents walk their daughter to class on the first day of kindergarten at the Telesis Academy in West Covina on Aug. 17, 2015. (Los Angeles Times)
Some of America’s most racially integrated neighborhoods and cities are on a path to becoming segregated all over again. In Los Angeles this means neighborhoods where Latinos and Asians now live alongside black or white neighbors may have few to no whites or blacks in 10 to 20 years.
In research I conducted with Siri Warkentien, another sociologist, we used a statistical model and census data to identify the most common changes in racial composition in 10,681 neighborhoods in metropolitan L.A., Houston, Chicago and New York, beginning as far back as 1970 in some areas. That starting point corresponds with the implementation of the 1968 federal Fair Housing Act, which protects buyers and renters from discrimination in choosing where to live.
Covina, 22 miles east of downtown L.A., provides an example of one city at risk of re-segregating. Whites make up about 26% of Covina as of 2014 and Latinos about 57%. Typically we consider neighborhoods with at least 10% of each group to be racially integrated. But the mix is crumbling. Latinos made up 13% of Covina’s residents in 1980, 26% in 1990, 40% in 2000, and 52% in 2010. Four years later, according to the most recent census estimate, the Latino population had grown by five more percentage points. By 2025, Covina is likely to be overwhelmingly Latino.
Something similar happened already in nearby Norwalk. In 1990, just under half its residents were Latino and about a third were white (not unlike Covina now). By 2014, Latinos made up 70% of residents and whites 11%.
The data show that vast portions of south and east Los Angeles are slipping from mixed populations toward single race populations. And the change has not just occurred in formerly white areas. One of the trajectories that we identified followed a similar pattern in neighborhoods that were once black. Compton residents were nearly three-quarters black in 1980; by 1990, the mix was about 52% black and 43% Latino; in 2014, two-thirds Latino. Such slow but steadily increasing Latino growth can be found in 46% of the neighborhoods we studied in the Los Angeles metropolitan region.
What’s causing a shift from mixed to single-race populations?
Immigration is one obvious factor. The Latino population increased in Los Angeles after immigration laws were changed in 1965 to encourage family reunification. That population was bolstered by a steady increase in Mexican immigrants from the mid-1990s until the recession. Newly arrived Latinos, like all immigrant groups, tend to find housing in neighborhoods already pioneered by their countryman who are already here.
Our research found that this process is occurring again in Southern California, but this time among immigrants from Asia, the source of the largest number of U.S. newcomers now. For example, the Asian proportion of the population in Cerritos increased from 44% in 1990 to 58% in 2000 to 62% in 2014. It appears to be following a path toward Asian segregation much like Covina is on the path to Latino segregation.
White preferences are another major factor that helps explain re-segregation.
Our model showed that, broadly speaking, during the 1980s, whites stopped fleeing from neighborhoods that were becoming integrated. But then — more than any other racial group — when whites did move they chose new neighborhoods with same-race neighbors.
In other words, Latinos moving to an area would not cause most whites to move out. But the prospect of having Latino neighbors might be enough to prevent whites from moving into a neighborhood. (Whites are moving to one kind of integrated neighborhoods: those that are gentrifying like downtown Los Angeles. But many fewer neighborhoods are gentrifying than segregating.)
For a time, places like Covina and Norwalk will remain integrated. But as whites in these areas get older and die, the outcome is clear. Consider the age patterns: In Covina, 22% of whites are 65 or older; only 14% are under the age of 18. Among Latinos in Covina, 6% are 65 or older; 32% are younger than 18.
Segregation is not, however, inevitable. Our statistical model found that in 20% of L.A. neighborhoods we examined, whites, blacks, Latinos and Asians have been living together for 10 to 30 years, and no group’s population is changing much faster or slower than any other. In fact, among L.A., Houston, Chicago and New York, Los Angeles had the highest proportion of these “quadrivial” neighborhoods.
There are ways to encourage integration. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has taken a positive step in this direction by requiring all grant recipients to show how they would promote integration, although Congress is threatening to undo this rule. At a local level, investment in neighborhood infrastructure, especially schools, attracts diverse residents and promotes integration. There is also new research that shows whites are choosing same-race neighborhoods not solely because of prejudice or animus, but because they don’t know about more mixed areas. In a separate study of Chicago area residents, for instance, whites were 2 to 6 times less likely than Latinos to even know about majority Latino neighborhoods.
Because so much of the shift in integration is based on whites’ decisions about where they will move next, Los Angeles’ future demographic patterns are in their hands. If whites do their homework, and find out more about neighborhoods that are now unfamiliar to them, they can make L.A. an example to the nation of how to create integration in the 21st century. Otherwise, knowingly or not, they may reproduce the problems of racial segregation for the future.
Chicago area sees greatest population loss of any major U.S. city, region in 2015
Ten years ago, Bonita Hatchett built her dream home in Flossmoor. A lawyer by trade, she moved to the south Chicago suburb to join a diverse community that included black professionals like herself.
But Hatchett is now planning to leave it all behind. The culprit? Property taxes.
“You’re told all your life: Be educated, be successful, work hard and buy a house. But, we’re being abused for doing so,” Hatchett said. “Living in a town like Flossmoor, it’s just not worth it.”
She’s not alone.
Illinoisans pay among the highest property taxes in the nation, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. Some Illinoisans’ property-tax bills are more than their mortgage payments. And the squeeze is getting worse.
Since 1990, the average property-tax bill in Illinois has grown more than three times faster than the state’s median household income, according to Illinois Policy Institute research.
While Hatchett estimates the value of her home has been slashed in half over the past decade, her property tax bill has only gone up. She paid more than $18,000 in property taxes last year — well over 5 percent of what she thinks her house is worth.
Hatchett plans to move to Indiana, where taxes on residential property are capped at 1 percent of the value.
Seventy miles from Hatchett’s home, in the northwest Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake, Cassandra Bajak thinks this coming Christmas will be her two children’s last in their home. Since she and her husband, an Army veteran, built the house in 2002, their property-tax bills have doubled — eclipsing their mortgage payments.
Her family now is choosing between a move to a southern state or downsizing in their community.
“We’re being taxed out of our home,” Mrs. Bajak said. “The only reason we would ever leave our home or this state is property taxes, and that’s what’s going to happen.”
In McHenry County, where the Bajaks reside, property taxes eat up nearly 8 percent of the median household income. What’s worse, Illinoisans aren’t getting much bang for their tax bucks.
Property taxes at the municipal level have not been going to fund spotless roads or other public works. Instead, they’re mostly funding out-of-control pension costs.
Just take a look at Springfield, where 98 percent of the city’s 2014 property tax levy went to pensions. And where, from 2000 to 2014, members of the typical household have seen their property-tax bill grow more than twice as fast as their income.
Despite that, city-worker retirements are still in jeopardy.
While taxpayers have more than doubled their contributions to the local police and firefighter pension systems over the past decade, Springfield’s police pension fund has a mere 53 cents in the bank for every dollar it needs to pay out future benefits; for firefighter pensions, only 45 cents.
Forcing homeowners to keep shoveling more property tax dollars into broken pension systems has become a morally bankrupt solution to the problem.
In Springfield, for example, residents already contribute four times more money into police, fire and municipal employee pensions than do the employees.
The problem is that, in Illinois, state politicians mandate pension benefits for local government workers, with little regard to fairness for local taxpayers.
Many communities would prefer not to pay the high cost of workers enjoying early retirement ages, health insurance benefits normal residents could never afford, and annual 3 percent cost-of-living adjustments that private-sector workers could only dream of.
So how can the state protect homeowners?
Forcing local governments to begin to live within their means through a property-tax freeze, as has been proposed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, is necessary. But solving the root cause of the property-tax problem will require further reform, such as moving all new government workers from defined-benefit to self-managed retirement plans, transferring the power to negotiate pension benefits down to local leaders, and encouraging aggressive consolidation and resource-sharing across units of local government. For some communities, the only option to undo decades of mismanagement will be bankruptcy.
Until sincere efforts are made at reform, Illinoisans will continue to live in fear: taxpayers of being squeezed out of their homes, and government workers of pension payments that may never come.
Chicago area sees greatest population loss of any major U.S. city, region in 2015
After years of financial woes, Lindsey Yates and her husband had to at last address the nagging question: Should they stay or should they go?
The young couple’s continued residency in Chicago was threatened by new obstacles every few months. First came the rising property taxes, then the stress of finding a decent school for their 2-year-old son in a neighborhood they could afford.
Three weeks ago, Yates and her family hit the road, leaving the South Loop and successful careers in the rearview mirror as they headed toward their new house in a Denver suburb.
“The thing that boggles my mind: How is it that a dentist and a business professional and their one young son” can’t make it work financially? Yates asked from the road, at a pit stop in Nebraska, where her in-laws are living. “If we can’t make it work, who can?” she asked.
By almost every metric, Illinois’ population is sharply declining, largely because residents are fleeing the state. The Tribune surveyed dozens of former residents who’ve left within the last five years, and each offered their own list of reasons for doing so. Common reasons include high taxes, the state budget stalemate, crime, the unemployment rate and the weather. Census data released Thursday suggest the root of the problem is in the Chicago metropolitan area, which in 2015 saw its first population decline since at least 1990.
Chicago’s metropolitan statistical area, defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, includes the city and suburbs and extends into Wisconsin and Indiana.
The Chicago area lost an estimated 6,263 residents in 2015 — the greatest loss of any metropolitan area in the country. That puts the region’s population at 9.5 million.
While the numbers fell overall, there were some bright spots in the Chicago area: Will, Kane, McHenry and Kendall counties saw growth spurts, according to census data.
A crumbling, dangerous South Side creates exodus of black Chicagoans
The Chicago region’s decline extended to the state. In fact, Illinois was one of just seven states to see a population dip in 2015, and had the second-greatest decline rate last year after West Virginia, census data show. While the state’s population dropped by 7,391 people in 2014, the number more than tripled in 2015, to 22,194.
The plunge is mainly a result of the large number of residents leaving the state last year — about 105,200 in all — which couldn’t be offset by new residents and births, according to census data. The last year Illinois saw its population plunge was 1988.
The potential fallout is both political and financial. Federal and state government dollars are often distributed to local government agencies based on population; so the population loss creates long-term budget concerns. Communities pouring millions into new roads and schools, for example, based on rosy projections of future growth are left with fewer taxpayers to cover the cost.
Sights set on sun
Illinois has a long-standing pattern of losing residents to other states, but the loss has generally been offset by births and migration from other countries. Residents are mostly flocking to Sun Belt states — those with the country’s warmest climates, such as Nevada, Arizona and Florida.
During the years after the economic recession of the mid-2000s, migration to those states slowed, but it’s heated up again as states in the South and West have sunnier job opportunities and affordable housing.
“The old Snow Belt-to-Sun Belt movement is picking back up again, and movement south and west is fueling up,” said William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution who analyzes census data.
Richard Morton, an Illinois resident of 62 years, is building a house in Panama City Beach, Fla., and plans to move into it in March 2017.
“We’ll say ‘hasta la vista, Illinois.’ I say that rather humorously, but I’m really rather sad about it,” he said. “My mother was born in Illinois. My grandparents lived their entire lives in Downers Grove.”
The clear draw for Morton is Florida’s weather but also what he calls an “attractive economy.”
“I used to enjoy Illinois and the area,” he said. “But everyday there’s a reason to not want to stay here. Between (Gov. Bruce) Rauner and (House Speaker Michael) Madigan, how will the state ever fix its pension problem? To me it seems unfixable, and I don’t want to have to pay for it.”
Texas attracts the greatest number of Illinois residents, followed by Florida, Indiana, California and Arizona, according to 2013 IRS migration data. Weather isn’t the only reason people are leaving the state.
More Illinois residents move to other Midwestern states than the number of Midwesterners moving to Illinois, said Michael Lucci, vice president of policy at the right-leaning Illinois Policy Institute. Job and business creation are simply stronger in neighboring states, he said.
“We talk opportunity all the time. If you’re moving to California, you might be a tech worker, or you might be someone who likes sunshine,” he said. “But when you see Illinois losing people to every Midwestern state, you know it’s not weather. People are moving for economic reasons.”
Through the 1990s and 2000s, Illinois saw what demographers consider normal rates of exodus for the state, about 50,000 to 70,000 more residents moving away from the state than moving in. But in 2015, the number spiked to about 95,000, and in 2015 it reached more than 100,000 people, according to census data.
Several moving companies that examine industry trends found high numbers of Illinoisans moving out of state. Allied Van Lines this year ranked Illinois No. 2 on its list of states with greatest outbound moves with 1,240, said spokeswoman Violette Sieczka. The numbers are limited to the movement of entire households.
The loss of residents over the last 20 years translates to about $50 billion in lost taxable income, and about $8 billion each year in lost state and local tax revenues, Lucci said.
“Frankly, we have this state budget problem, and it would be a lot less of a problem if we had all these people,” he said. “Growth makes problems better, out-migration makes problems worse.”
Losing faith in city
The main factors in Chicago’s population dip are diminished immigration, the aging of the Mexican immigrant population that bolstered the city throughout the 1990s as well as an exodus of African-Americans, experts say.
More than any other city, Chicago has depended on Mexican immigrants to balance the sluggish growth of its native-born population, said Rob Paral, a Chicago-based demographer who advises nonprofits and community groups. During the 1990s, immigration accounted for most of Chicago’s population growth. The number of Mexican immigrants rose by 117,000 in Chicago that decade, according to data gathered by Paral’s firm, Rob Paral and Associates.
After 2007, falling Mexican-born populations became a trend across the country’s major metropolitan areas. But most of those cities were able to make up for the loss with the growth of their native populations, Paral said. Chicago couldn’t.
Some experts also attribute the decline to the city’s African-American population, in part because of historically black communities hit hard by the foreclosure crisis, making houses cheap and easy to buy for Hispanics and whites who were willing to move for a bargain.
The 2010 census reported a 17 percent drop in the city’s black population over the previous decade. That number declined another an additional 4 percent through 2014, to 852,756.
“White people have left the state for years,” Paral said. “But African-Americans? That’s the one-two punch.”
Chicago residents leaving the state have cited the Chicago Public Schools’ financial crisis and the city’s red light camera controversy as motivating factors. The greatest concern, however, seems to be safety. Despite being the nation’s third most populous city, Chicago outpaces New York City and Los Angeles in the number of homicides and shootings, though it fares better than some smaller cities on a per capita comparison.
Melissa Koski, who moved to Arizona in 2008, said she left after being the victim of two crimes. One involved a break-in at her University Village neighborhood apartment while she slept, and the second involved being robbed at gunpoint near Grand and Milwaukee avenues with her mother.
“He got a whopping $40, but I still remember his smell and can feel his sweaty body wrapped around mine, with what felt like a gun pressed to my back,” she said.
Pat and Anna van Slee, longtime residents of the Uptown neighborhood, spent Thursday morning packing their house, preparing for their move to Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Their last apartment was in a six-flat that saw a series of crimes in and around the building in recent years. In one instance, a neighbor was mugged outside the complex; in another, a homeless man seeking shelter in the complex’s basement crawled through the window of the van Slees’ downstairs neighbor, Anna van Slee said.
“We’ve always lived in developing neighborhoods, but when you have a baby it makes you look at things differently,” Anna van Slee said, referring to her son, 4-month-old Orion. While the couple is moving primarily because of job opportunities, they’re glad to not have to enroll Orion in a CPS school, either, they said.
“Oddly, this was a safer neighborhood when it was rougher. It didn’t have some of the tension there is now, when million-dollar condos are going up next to subsidized housing,” she said.
Stemming the tide
There are things that can be done in coming years to mitigate the further exodus of residents from the state, said Lucci, of the Illinois Policy Institute. He recommends refocusing on manufacturing jobs in the state and curbing property taxes.
“We’re never gonna have Colorado’s mountains or California’s beaches,” he said. “But we have historically had an attractive business and job market. The problem is that we don’t have that anymore.”
Indeed, the employment rate is an issue: Illinois this year is tied with West Virginia for the 46th worst employment rate of all states, at 6.3 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“People are leaving Illinois because we rank near the bottom in job growth in the Midwest and have among the highest property taxes in America,” Catherine Kelly, a spokeswoman for Rauner, wrote in an emailed statement. “We have to make structural changes in Illinois to ensure talented people — many of whom run businesses — stay in Illinois to help grow the economy and improve our state’s future.”
In response to the decline in the region’s census numbers, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office issued a statement, saying the mayor was “working hard to build the Chicago economy of tomorrow by investing in a diverse economy and highly educated workforce that will continue to bring jobs and people to Chicago.”
It’s important that communities engage in careful discussion about cutbacks, and begin planning for smaller populations and smaller economic growth, said Eric Zeemering, a professor at Northern Illinois University’s School of Public and Global Affairs. But those discussions tend to be difficult and unpopular, he said.
“When politicians are focused on their next elections, it’s hard to have conversations about cutbacks and the realistic budgetary future,” Zeemering said.
In the meantime, he expects local leaders will make efforts to promote and advertise their towns as great places to live. The goal is that these communities will keep their residents despite the state’s problems.
“At the end of the day, some people are happy to live in snowy weather,” Zeemering said. “We don’t want to be a state people view in a negative light.”
The pessimists are already talking about 3% inflation later this year if energy prices don’t retreat. Most likely, Federal Reserve monetary experimentation will inflict a new great inflation on the U.S., although this is much more likely to occur in the next business cycle rather than the current one. Before that, we’ll get the shock of an economic slowdown — or even recession — which will exert some pause. So many households are right to ask whether their main asset will insulate them from this shock whenever it occurs. The answer from economic science is no.
House prices perform best during the asset-price inflation phase of the monetary cycle. During that period, low or zero rates stimulate investors to search for yield, which many do, shedding their normal skepticism. The growth in irrationality across many marketplaces is why some economists describe set price inflation as a “disease.” Usually, the housing and commercial real estate markets become infected by this disease at some stage.
Real estate markets are certainly not shielded from irrational forces. “Speculative stories” about real estate flourish and quickly gain popularity — whether it’s the ever-growing housing shortage in metropolitan centers; illicit money pouring into the top end from all over the world and high prices rippling down to lower layers of the market; or bricks and mortar (and land), the ultimate safe haven when goods and services inflation ultimately accelerates.
That last story defies much economic experience to the contrary. By the time inflation shock emerges, home prices have already increased so much in real terms under asset-price inflation that they cannot keep up with goods and services inflation, and may even fall in nominal terms. One thinks of the tale of the gold price in the Paris black market during World War II: prices hit their peak just before the Germans entered the city in May 1940 and never returned.
Real estate is only a hedge against high inflation if it is bought early on in the preceding asset-price inflation period. We can generalize this lesson. The arrival of high inflation is an antidote to asset-price inflation. That is, if it has not already reached its late terminal stage when speculative temperatures are falling across an array of markets.
To understand how home prices in real terms behave under inflation shock we must realize how, in real terms, they are driven by expectations of future rents (actual, or as given to homeowners); the cost of capital; and the profit from carry trade. All of these drivers have been operating in the powerful asset-price inflation phase the U.S. and many foreign countries have been experiencing during recent years.
Together they have pushed up the S&P Case Shiller national home price index to almost 20% above its long-run trend (0.6% each year since 1998), having fallen slightly below at its trough in 2011, and having reached a peak 85% above in 2006.
The cost of equity is low, judging by high underlying price earnings ratios in the stock markets. Investors suffering from interest income famine are willing to put a higher price on future earnings, whether in the form of house rents or corporate profits, than they would do under monetary stability.
Leveraged owners of real estate can earn a handsome profit between rental income and interest paid, especially taking account of steady erosion of loan principal by inflation and tax deductions.
The arrival of high inflation would change all these calculations.
Cost of equity would rise as markets feared the denouement of recession, and reckoned with the new burden on economic prosperity. Long-term interest rates would climb starkly in nominal terms. Their equivalent in real terms would be highly volatile and unpredictable, albeit at first low in real terms (inflation-adjusted), meaning that carry trade income for leveraged owners would become elusive.
None of this is to suggest that a high inflation shock is likely in the second quarter. A sustained period of much stronger demand growth across an array of goods, services and labor markets would most likely have to occur first, and could be seen as early as the next cyclical upturn.
An economic miracle could bring a reprieve from inflation. But much more likely, the infernal inflation machine of expanding budget deficits and Fed experimentation will ultimately mow down any resistance in its way.
Several months ago, a chart produced by one of the Big Banks was presented to readers . It was supposed to be innocuous data on global wealth distribution, but instead portrayed a horrifying picture.
The focal point of the aforementioned article was that when it came to “the world’s poorest people,” the Corrupt West has now produced a greater percentage of severe poverty in its own populations than in India, and an equal percentage of such poverty as exists in Africa.
Stacked beside this, we see that when it comes to the richest-of-the-rich, the Corrupt West remains in a league of its own. Supposedly, we are living in “the New Normal,” where life is supposed to get increasingly harder and harder. So why does the New Normal never affect those on top?
Of course all of these extremely poor people being manufactured by our governments (as these regimes give away our jobs, destroy wages, and eviscerate our social programs) have to come from somewhere. Certainly they don’t come from the Wealthy Class.
Indeed, the chart above provides us with a crystal-clear view of where all these poor and very-poor people are coming from: the near-extinct Middle Class. In order to manufacture hundreds of millions of impoverished citizens in our nations, the Old World Order has had to engage in a campaign to end the Middle Class.
We are conditioned to consider economic “classes” within our own societies, but with the chart above, we’re given a global perspective. Where does the Middle Class exist today, globally? At the upper end, it exists in China, and to a lesser extent, in Latin America and other Asian nations. At the lower end of the Middle Class, we see such populations growing in India and even Africa.
Only in the West, and especially North America, is the Middle Class clearly an endangered species. Two incredibly important aspects of this subject are necessary to cover:
1) How and why has the One Bank chosen to perpetrate Middle Class genocide?
2) What are the consequences of the Death of the Middle Class?
Attempting to catalogue the nearly infinite number of ways in which the oligarchs of the One Bank have perpetrated their Middle Class genocide is impractical. Instead, discussion will be limited to the five most important programs responsible for the Death of the Middle Class: three of them relatively new, and two of them old.
a) Globalization
b) Union decimation/wage destruction
c) Small business decimation
d) Money-printing/inflation
e) Income taxation
Globalization was rammed down our throats in the name of “free trade,” the Holy Grail of charlatan economists . But, as previously explained, real free trade is a world of “comparative advantage” where all nations play by a fair-and-equal set of rules. Without those conditions, “free trade” can never exist.
The globalization that has been imposed upon us is, instead, a world of “competitive devaluation,” a corrupt, perpetual, suicidal race to the bottom. The oligarchs understood this, given that they are the perpetrators. The charlatan economists were too blinded by their own dogma to understand this. And, as always, the puppet politicians simply do what they are told.
Next on the list: union decimation and wage destruction are inseparable subjects, virtually the flip side of the same coin. “But wait,” shout the right-wing ideologues, “unions are corrupt, everyone knows that.”
Really? Corrupt compared to whom? Are they “corrupt” standing next to the bankers, who have stolen all our wealth ? Are they “corrupt” standing next to their Masters, the oligarchs who are hoarding all our stolen wealth ? Are they “corrupt” standing next to our politicians, who betrayed their own people to facilitate this economic pillaging? No, compared to any of those groups, unions (back when they still existed) were relative choir-boys.
When it comes to corruption, nobody plays the game as well as those on top. Compared to the Fat Cats, everyone else are rank amateurs. When unions were strong and plentiful, everyone had jobs. Almost everyone earned a livable wage (or better). Gee, weren’t those terrible times! Look how much better off we are now, without all those “corrupt unions.”
The other major new component in the deliberate, systemic slaughter of the Middle Class was and continues to be Small Business decimation. “Small business is the principal job-creator in every economy.” Any politician who ever got elected can tell you that.
If this is so, why do our corrupt governments funnel endless trillions of dollars of Corporate Welfare (our money) into the coffers of Big Business, while complaining there is nothing left to support Small Business? Why do our governments stack the deck in all of our regulations and bureaucracies, greasing the wheels for Big Business and strangling Small Business in their red tape?
Why do our governments refuse to enforce our anti-trust laws? One of the primary reasons for not allowing the corporations of Big Business to grow to an illegal size is because these monopolies and oligopolies make “competition” (meaning Small Business) impossible. One might as well try to start a small business on the Moon.
Then we have the oligarchs’ “old tricks” for stealing from the masses (and fattening themselves): banking and taxation. Of course, to the oligarchs, “banking” means stealing, and you steal by printing money. As many readers are already aware, “inflation” is money-printing – the increase (or inflation) of the supply of money.
“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings [i.e. wealth] from confiscation through inflation”
Remove the Golden Handcuffs , as central banker Paul Volcker bragged of doing in 1971, and then it’s just print-and-steal – until the whole fiat currency Ponzi scheme implodes.
Then of course we have income taxation: 100 years of systemic thievery. No matter what the form or structure, by its very nature every system of income taxation will:
i) Provide a free ride to those at the very, very top
ii) Be revenue-neutral to the remainder of the wealthy
iii) Relentlessly steal out of the pockets of everyone else (via over-taxation)
This is nothing more than a matter of applying simple arithmetic. However, many refuse to educate themselves on how they are being robbed in this manner, year after year, so no more will be said on the subject.
These were the primary prongs of the oligarchs’ campaign to exterminate the Middle Class. As always, skeptical readers will be asking “why?” The answer is most easily summarized via The Bankers’ Manifesto of 1892 . This document was presented to the U.S. Congress in 1907 by Republican congressman, and career prosecutor, Charles Lindbergh Sr.
It reads, in part:
The courts must be called to our aid, debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible.
When through the process of law, the common people have lost their homes they will be more tractable and easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of government applied to a central power of imperial wealth under the control of the leading financiers [the oligarchs]. People without homes won’t quarrel with their leaders.
We have “the strong arm of government.” The oligarchs saw to that by bringing us their “War on Terror.” When it comes to throwing people out of their homes, and creating a population of serfs, that’s a two-part process.
Step 1 is to manufacture artificial housing bubbles across the Western world, and then crash those bubbles. However, this is only partially effective in turning Homeowners into Homeless. To truly succeed at this requires Step 2: exterminating the Middle Class. A Middle Class can survive a collapsing housing bubble, assuming they remained reasonably prudent. The Working Poor cannot.
Finally, after more than a century of scheming, the oligarchs have all of their pieces in place. In the U.S., they’ve even already built many gulags – to warehouse these former Middle Class homeowners – since a large percentage of those people are armed.
This brings us to one, final point: the consequences of the Death of the Middle Class. What happens when you destroy the foundation of a house? Just look.
As readers have been told on many previous occasions, the “velocity of money” is effectively the heartbeat of an economy. It is another way of representing the economics principle known as the Marginal Propensity to Consume, probably the most important principle of economics forgotten by charlatan economists.
The principle is a simple one, since it is half basic arithmetic and half common sense. Unfortunately, these are both skills beyond the grasp of charlatan economists. If you take all of the money out of the pockets of the People, and you stuff it all into the vaults of the wealthy (where it sits in idle hoards), then there is no “capital” for our capitalist economies – and these economiesstarve to death.
What is the response of the oligarchs to the relentless hollowing-out of our economies? They have ordered the puppet politicians to impose Austerity: taking even more money out of the pockets of the people. It is the equivalent to someone with anorexia going to a doctor, and the doctor imposing a severe diet on the patient (i.e. victim). The patient will not survive.
The Middle Class is dying. Unlike the oligarchs’ Big Banks, we are not “too big to fail.”Our jobs are gone. Our unions are gone. Our Middle Class wages are gone. Very soon, our homes will be gone. But don’t worry! It’s just the New Normal.
On the surface, the March jobs reported was better than expected… except for manufacturing workers. As shown in the chart below, in the past month, a disturbing 29,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. This was the single biggest monthly drop in the series going back to December 2009.
But not all is lost: as has been the case for virtually every month during the “recovery”, virtually every laid off manufacturing worker could find a job as a waiter: in March, the workers in the “Food services and drinking places” category, aka waiters, bartenders and minimum wage line cooks, rose again to a new record high of 11,307,000 workers, an increase of 25K in the month, offsetting virtually all lost manufacturing jobs.
This is how the two job series have looked since the start of 2015.
And here is the longer-term, going back to the start of the crisis in December 2007: please do not “peddle fiction” upon seeing this chart.
US Manufacturing Surveys Bounce Despite The Biggest Industry Job Losses In 7 Years
Following China’s miraculous PMI jump back into expansion, Markit reports US Manufacturing also rose to 51.5 in March (despite the biggest drop in manufacturing jobs since 2009). As Markit details, output growth is unchanged from February’s 28-month low, and prices charged decline amid further drop in input costs. ISM Manufacturing also jumpedfrom 49.5 to 51.8 – the first ‘expansion’ in 7 months. Finally, we note that ISM Prices Paid exploded higher (from 38.5 to 51.5) – the biggest jump since Aug 2012.
“V”-shaped recovery in ISM Manufacturing
All of which occurred as the manufacturing sector lost more jobs in March than at any time since 2009…
Every ISM Respondent thinks everything is awesome…
“Unemployment rate is low in our county, making it hard to find workers. We are understaffed and running lots of overtime.” (Plastics & Rubber Products)
“Business in telecom is booming. Fiber plant is at capacity.” (Chemical Products)
“Current trends remain steady. No issues with delivery or costs.” (Computer & Electronic Products) “Capital equipment sales are steady.” (Fabricated Metal Products)
“Requests for proposals for new equipment [are] very strong.” (Machinery)
“Government is spending again. Have received delivery orders.” (Transportation Equipment)
“Things are starting to pick up. Our business is seasonal and it is that time of year.” (Printing & Related Support Activities)
“Business conditions are stable, little change from last month.” (Miscellaneous Manufacturing)
“Incoming sales are improving.” (Furniture & Related Products)
“Our business is still going strong.” (Primary Metals)
But as Markit details, output growth is unchanged from February’s 28-month low, and prices charged decline amid further drop in input costs:
“March’s survey highlights sustained weakness across the US manufacturing sector, meaning that overall growth through the first quarter slowed to its lowest since late-2012. Subdued client spending patterns within the energy sector, ongoing pressure from the strong dollar, and general uncertainty about the business outlook were cited as factors weighing on new order flows in March.
“Meanwhile, price discounting strategies resulted in the first back-to-back drop in factory gate charges for around three-and-a-half years, suggesting another squeeze on margins despite lower materials costs across the manufacturing sector.“
So – to summarize, US manufacturing sector lost more jobs in March than at any time since 2009 BUT the managers that were surveyed by ISM and Markit proclaimed expansion is back and this puts all the pressure back on The Fed once again as more excuses are lost for hiking rates.
Yellen Says Caution in Raising Rates Is ‘Especially Warranted’ … Fed Chair makes case for go-slow changes with rate near zero … Janet Yellen said it is appropriate for U.S. central bankers to “proceed cautiously” in raising interest rates because the global economy presents heightened risks. The speech to the Economic Club of New York made a strong case for running the economy hot to push away from the zero boundary for the Federal Open Market Committee’s target rate. –Bloomberg
Janet Yellen was back at it yesterday, talking down the need for a rate hike.
She is comfortable with the economy running “hot.”
Say what?
After a year or more of explaining why rate hikes were necessary, up to four or more of them in 2016, Ms. Yellen has now begun speechifying about how rate hikes are not a good idea.
It’s enough to give you whiplash.
It sets the stage for increased stagflation in the US and increased price inflation in China. More in a moment.
Here’s the real story. At the last G20 meeting in February, secret agreements were made between the most powerful economies to lift both the US and Chinese economy.
The details of these deals have been leaked on the Internet over the past few weeks and supported by the actions of central bankers involved.
It is what The Daily Reckoning last week called “The most important financial development of 2016, with enormous implications for you and your portfolio.”
The Fed and other members of the G20, which met in February, intend to maintain the current Chinese system.
They want China to stay strong economically.
The antidote to China’s misery, according to the Keynsian-poisoned G20, is more yuan printing. More liquidity that will supposedly boost the Chinese economy.
As a further, formal yuan loosening would yield a negative impact felt round the world, other countries agreed to tighten instead.
This is why Mario Draghi suddenly announced that he was ceasing his much asserted loose-euro program. No one could figure out why but now it’s obvious.
Same thing in Japan, where central bank support for aggressive loosening has suddenly diminished.
The US situation is more complicated. The dollar’s strength is now seen as a negative by central bankers and thus efforts are underway to weaken the currency.
A weaker dollar and a weaker yen supposedly create the best scenario for a renewed economic resurgence worldwide.
The euro and the yen rose recently against the dollar after it became clear that their central banks had disavowed further loosening.
Now Janet Yellen is now coming up with numbers and statistics to justify backing away from further tightening.
None of these machinations are going to work in the long term. And even in the short term, such currency gamesmanship is questionable in the extreme, as the Daily Reckoning and other publications have pointed out when commenting on this latest development.
In China, a weaker yuan will create stronger price inflation. In the US, a weaker dollar will boost stagflation.
We’ve often made a further point: Everything central bankers do is counterproductive on purpose.
The real idea is to make people so miserable that they will accede to further plans for increased centralization of monetary and governmental authority.
Slow growth or no growth in Japan and Europe, supported by monetary tightening, are certainly misery-making.
Stagflation in the US and Canada is similarly misery-provoking, as is price-inflation in China.
Nothing is what it seems in the economic major leagues.
Central banks are actually mandated to act as a secret monopoly, supervised by the Bank for International Settlements and assisted by the International Monetary Fund.
Deceit is mandated. As with law enforcement, central bankers are instructed to lie and dissemble for the “greater good.”
It’s dangerous too.
The Fed along with other central banks have jammed tens of trillions into the global economy over the past seven years. Up to US$100 trillion or more.
They’ve been using Keynesian monetary theories to try to stimulate global growth.
It hasn’t worked of course because money is no substitute for human action. If people don’t want to invest, they won’t.
In the US, the combination of low growth and continual price inflation creates a combination called “stagflation.”
It appeared in its most serious form in the 1970s but it is a problem in the 2000s as well.
According to non-government sources like ShadowStats, Inflation is running between four and eight percent in the US while formal unemployment continues to affect an astonishing 90 million workers.
US consumers on average are said to be living from paycheck to paycheck (if they’ve even got one) with almost no savings.
Some 40 million or more are on foodstamps.
Many workers in the US are probably engaged in some kind of off-the-books work and are concealing revenue from taxation as well.
As US economic dysfunction continues and expands, people grow more alienated and angry. This is one big reason for the current political season with its surprising dislocation of the established political system.
But Yellen has made a deal with the rest of the G20 to goose the US economy, or at least to avoid the further shocks of another 25 basis point rate hike in the near future.
Take their decisions at face value, and these bankers are too smart for their own good.
Expanding US growth via monetary means has created asset bubbles in the US but not much real economic growth.
And piling more yuan on the fire in China is only going to make Chinese problems worse in the long term. More resources misdirected into empty cities and vacant skyscrapers – all to hold off the economic day of reckoning that will arrive nonetheless.
Conclusion: As we have suggested before, the reality for the US going forward is increased and significant stagflation. Low employment, high price inflation. On the bright side, this will push up the prices of precious metals and real estate. Consider appropriate action.
If you’ve learned a lot about leadership and making a movement, then let’s watch a movement happen, start to finish, in under 3 minutes, and dissect some lessons:
A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he’s doing is so simple, it’s almost instructional. This is key. You must be easy to follow!
Now comes the first follower with a crucial role: he publicly shows everyone how to follow. Notice the leader embraces him as an equal, so it’s not about the leader anymore – it’s about them, plural. Notice he’s calling to his friends to join in.
It takes guts to be a first follower! You stand out and brave ridicule, yourself. Being a first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that makes the fire.
The second follower is a turning point: it’s proof the first has done well. Now it’s not a lone nut, and it’s not two nuts. Three is a crowd and a crowd is news.
A movement must be public. Make sure outsiders see more than just the leader. Everyone needs to see the followers, because new followers emulate followers – not the leader.
Now here come two more, then three more. Now we’ve got momentum. This is the tipping point! Now we’ve got a movement!
As more people jump in, it’s no longer risky. If they were on the fence before, there’s no reason not to join now. They won’t be ridiculed, they won’t stand out, and they will be part of the in-crowd, if they hurry. Over the next minute you’ll see the rest who prefer to be part of the crowd, because eventually they’d be ridiculed for not joining.
And ladies and gentlemen that is how a movement is made! Let’s recap what we learned:
If you are a version of the shirtless dancing guy, all alone, remember the importance of nurturing your first few followers as equals, making everything clearly about the movement, not you.
Be public. Be easy to follow!
But the biggest lesson here – did you catch it?
Leadership is over-glorified.
Yes it started with the shirtless guy, and he’ll get all the credit, but you saw what really happened:
It was the first follower that transformed a lone nut into a leader.
There is no movement without the first follower.
We’re told we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective.
The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.
When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.
The next housing crisis is here and this time it is all about one thing: supply.
Following the mid-aughts housing bubble that saw homeowners across the country get themselves upside down in homes and mortgages they couldn’t ever afford to repay — a crisis that was as much about too much supply as it was about too much bad financing — the market has gone the complete other direction.
First-time home buyers are crowded out, with Trulia’s chief economist Ralph McLaughlin writing Monday that the number of starter homes on the market has declined 43.6% in the last four years.
Homeowners that want to move from a starter home to something better can’t afford the next step. McLaughlin notes that the number of “trade-up” homes on the market is also down about 40% over the same period.
And as investors look for places to earn whatever return on capital they can muster, the low-end of the housing market has almost ceased to exist as the investor class has bought up homes with the plan to flip them.
On Monday, the latest report on existing home sales showed the pace of sales fell 7.1% to an annualized rate of 5.08 million in February. Compared to last year, the pace of sales is still up 2.2% from a year ago.
Additionally, this report showed that sales to individual investors — or buyers who intend on flipping the home for a profit — accounted for 18% of existing homes sold in February, the highest share since April 2014. Almost two-thirds of these buyers paid cash.
Also in Monday’s report, commentary from Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors — which publishes the existing home sales report — showed the kind of crisis the housing market is facing.
“The lull in contract signings in January from the large East Coast blizzard, along with the slump in the stock market, may have played a role in February’s lack of closings,” Yun said Monday.
“However, the main issue continues to be a supply and affordability problem. Finding the right property at an affordable price is burdening many potential buyers.”
Yun added that, “The overall demand for buying is still solid entering the busy spring season, but home prices and rents outpacing wages and anxiety about the health of the economy are holding back a segment of would-be buyers.”
In our latest Most Important Charts collection, Scott Buchta, a fixed income strategist at Brean Capital, argued that existing and new home sales are often incorrectly conflated as joint indicators on the health of the housing market.
Existing home sales, even with Monday’s drop, are still roughly near pre-crisis levels. This argues that in a healthy housing market we’re looking at something like 5 million already-built homes being sold in a given year, more or less.
New home sales, on the other hand, have been a major laggard.
“In our view, the recovery in existing home sales has been led by rising home prices, which has brought additional supply into the market,” Buchta noted. This view which is consistent with the increase in investors buying existing homes as well as the high number of cash-only sales, which accounted for 25% of transactions in February.
“The lag in new home sales, on the other hand, is more reflective of the economy as a whole and has been adversely impacted by sluggish wage growth and tight credit windows.”
Buchta’s colleague at Brean Capital, Peter Tchir, also hammered on this idea of new home sales as reflecting economic trends that have persisted since the crisis — slow wage growth, rampant concern about the future, and an under built low-end housing market have all kept renters renting.
If we take the view that the jobs currently being created aren’t that great — which is another argument for another post — then what we’re going to see is a rising class of renters.
“These low paying jobs are not the type of job that are conducive to buying a home,” Tchir wrote.
“The first problem is saving for the down payment – a Herculean task in itself. The second problem, and the one that I think is addressed less frequently, is who really wants to commit to an area when the job isn’t that good and may not be stable?”
And if we consider that the economy is, as much as anything, a confidence game, the reality is that instability and imminent collapse have been the dominant psychological themes for both consumers and investors since the crisis.
So we can hit on the theme that the US economy is not heading for recession timeand time again, but there is a reason Donald Trump is leading in the Republican polls: people do not believe in this economy.
The upshot here is that with more folks renting and the labor market recovering faster than the housing market, we’re suddenly looking at a new class of well-employed, would-be home buyers relegated to renting… and paying ever-increasing rents.
Earlier this month we highlightedcommentary from New River Investments’ Conor Sen who said, among other things, that the housing market has simply been under built following the crisis and is ill-prepared to handle the coming wave of millennial households that will be formed over the next several decades.
Home prices may increase and as an investment — not a place to live — buying houses may still be attractive for some time to come.
But demand for housing is not going away and will only get stronger.
Housing prices in Crenshaw jumped way up, while Hancock Park’s tumbled way down
Redfin’s housing market report for February has been released, and, as per usual, a lot of activity took place east of Vermont. Neighborhoods like Echo Park, Eagle Rock, Glassell Park, Mount Washington, and East LA all saw double digit rises in median housing price.
Mount Washington’s median price for February was up 19.2 percent to $790,000, which is up significantly from the $699,000 median price Redfin cited in January when it predicted Mount Washington would be the hottest neighborhood of 2016. Their prediction may be coming true (self-fulfilling?). Sellers in Mount Washington are getting 6.5 percent above asking price and houses are staying on the market for an average of only 13 days.
The Valley also saw some action in February: Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Sun Valley, and Van Nuys all had double digit jumps in median housing prices. Studio City fared the best with a 26.9 percent increase, to $888,250, and a 22.9 percent increase in total sales.
Around town other neighborhoods experienced some major fluctuations. On the positive end, Crenshaw had a big February; median prices in that neighborhood shot up a whopping 66.8 percent, to $628,125. Total sales in Crenshaw were up 64.3 percent.
Redfin also reports a 25 percent increase in the median price of houses on the Westside of town—those are now selling for a median of $1.5 million.
Conversely, Hancock Park did not fare so well in the February report. Median prices for the neighborhood contracted 68.8 percent, to an even (and crazy low) $500,000. Sales were down 31.3 percent and sellers were getting 1.7 percent below asking price.
Los Angeles on the whole had a 14.6 percent increase in median price, up to $590,000. The city also saw a lot of new houses added to the market in February, with inventory moving up 10.5 percent. But total sales were down 2.5 percent for the month.
The Russian central bank sees several catalysts that could stop the oil rally in its tracks.
Bearish rig count report from Baker Hughes could signal a reverse in direction.
Supply will continue to increase rather than slow down in 2016 – even if there is a decline in shale production.
Battle for market share is one of the major catalysts not being considered.
I believe it’s very clear this oil rally is running on fumes and was never the result of an improvement in fundamentals. That means to me this rally is going to quickly run out of steam if it isn’t able to run up quicker on existing momentum. I don’t see that happening, and it could pull back dramatically, catching a lot of investors by surprise. The Russian central bank agrees, saying it doesn’t believe the price of oil is sustainable under existing market conditions.
Cited by CNBC, the Russian central bank said, “the current oil market still features a continued oversupply, on the backdrop of a slowdown in the Chinese economy, more supplies originating from Iran and tighter competition for market share.”
In other words, most things in the market that should be improving to support the price of oil aren’t. That can only mean one thing: a violent pullback that could easily push the price of oil back down to the $30 to $32 range. If the price starts to fall quickly, we could see panic selling driving the price down even further.
I think most investors understand this is not a legitimate rally when looking at the lack of change in fundamentals. I’ll be glad when the production freeze hoax is seen for what it is: a manipulation of the price of oil by staggered press releases meant to pull investors along for the ride. The purpose is to buy some time to give the market more time to rebalance. Once this is seen for what it really is, oil will plummet. It could happen at any time in my opinion.
Rig count increases for first time in three months
For the first time in three months, the U.S. rig count was up, increasing by one to 387. By itself this isn’t that important, but when combined with the probability that more shale supply may be coming to the market in 2016, it definitely could be an early sign of the process beginning.
EOG Resources (NYSE:EOG) has stated it plans on starting up to 270 wells in 2016. We don’t know yet how much additional supply it represents, but it’s going to offset some of the decline from other companies that can’t continue to produce at these price levels. There are other low-cost shale producers that may be doing the same, although I think the price of oil will have to climb further to make it profitable for them, probably around $45 per barrel.
It’s impossible to know at this time if the increase in the price of oil was a catalyst, or we’ve seen the bottom of the drop in rig counts. The next round of earnings reports will give a glimpse into that.
Fundamentals remain weak
Most of the recent strength of the price of oil has been the continual reporting on the proposed production freeze from OPEC and Russia. This is light of the fact there really won’t be a freeze, even if a piece of paper is signed saying there is.
We know Iran isn’t going to agree to a freeze, and with Russia producing at post-Soviet highs and Iraq producing at record levels, what would a freeze mean anyway? It would simply lock in output levels the countries were going to operate at with or without an agreement.
The idea is the freeze is having an effect on the market and this will lead to a production cut. That simply isn’t going to happen. There is zero chance of that being the outcome of a freeze, if that ever comes about.
And a freeze without Iran isn’t a freeze. To even call it that defies reality. How can there be a freeze when the one country that would make a difference isn’t part of it? If Iran doesn’t freeze production, it means more supply will be added to the market until it reaches pre-sanction levels. At that time, all Iran has promised is it may consider the idea.
What does that have to do with fundamentals? Absolutely nothing. That’s the point.
Analysis and decisions need to be based on supply and demand. Right now that doesn’t look good. The other major catalyst pushing up oil prices has been the belief that U.S. shale production will decline significantly in 2016, which would help support oil. The truth is we have no idea to what level production will drop. It seems every time a report comes out it’s revised in a way that points to shale production remaining more resilient than believed.
I have no doubt there will be some production loss in the U.S., but to what degree there will be a decline, when considering new supply from low-cost shale companies, has yet to be determined. I believe it’s not going to be near to what was originally estimated, and that will be another element weakening support over the next year.
Competing for market share
One part of the oil market that has been largely ignored has been the competition for market share itself. When U.S. shale supply flooded the market, the response from Saudi Arabia was to not cede market share in any way. That is the primary reason for the plunge in oil prices.
There has been no declaration by the Saudis that they are going to change their strategy in relationship to market share and have said numerous times they are going to let the market sort it out, as far as finding a balance between supply and demand. So the idea they are now heading in a different direction is a fiction created by those trying to find anything to push up the price of oil.
It is apparent some of the reason for increased U.S. imports comes from Saudi Arabia in particular lowering its prices to nudge out domestic supply. It’s also why the idea of inventory being reduced in conjunction with lower U.S. production can’t be counted on. It looks like imports will continue to climb while shale production declines.
More competition means lower prices, although in this case, Saudi Arabia is selling its oil at different price points to different markets. It’s the average that matters there, and we simply don’t have the data available to know what that is.
In the midst of all of this, Russia is battling the Saudis for share in China, while the two also battle it out in parts of Europe, with Saudi Arabia looking to take share away from Russia. Some of Europe has opened up to competitors because it doesn’t want to rely too much on Russia as its major energy source.
For this and other competitive reasons, I could never trust a production freeze agreement if it ever came to fruition. They haven’t been adhered to in the past, and they won’t be if it happens again. Saudi Arabia has stated several times that it feels the same way.
Conclusion
To me the Russian central bank is spot on in saying the chance of a sustainable oil rally is slim. It also accurately pointed out the reasons for that: it’s about the lack of the fundamentals changing.
With U.S. inventory increasing, rig counts probably at or near a bottom, no end in sight to oversupply continuing, and competition for a low-demand market heating up, there is nothing I see that can justify an ongoing upward price move. I don’t even see it being able to hold.
A weaker U.S. dollar has legitimately helped some, but it can’t support the price of oil on its own. When all the other factors come together in the minds of investors, and the price of oil starts to reverse direction, there is a very strong chance a lot of bullish investors are going to get crushed hard. It is probably time to take some profits and run for the exit if you’re in the oil market for the short term.
Irrational Oil Optimists About To Experience Some Panic Selling Pain
Summary
Short-term positions in oil getting more risky.
U.S. production will outperform estimates as shale producers add supply to the market.
Inventory will come under more strain as key U.S. storage facilities approach full capacity.
Dollar weakness isn’t enough to maintain oil price momentum.
The longer the price of oil has upward momentum, and the higher it goes, the more risky it becomes for investors because there is nothing outside of a weakening U.S. dollar to justify any kind of move we’ve seen the price of oil make recently.
The falling dollar isn’t enough to keep the oil price from falling to where it belongs, and that means when the selloff begins, it’s likely to gravitate into full-panic mode, with sellers running for the exits before they get burned.
This is especially risky for those looking to make a quick windfall from the upward movement of oil. I’m not concerned about those taking long-term positions in quality energy companies with significant oil exposure, since they’ve probably enjoyed some great entry points. There is, of course, dividend risk, along with the strong probability of further share erosion before there is a real recovery that has legs to stand on because it’s based on fundamentals.
For that reason, investors should seriously consider taking profits off the table and wait for better conditions to re-enter.
Oil has become a fear play. Not the fear of losing money, but the fear of not getting in on the fast-moving action associated with the quick-rising price of oil. Whenever there is a fear play, it is ruled by emotion, and no amount of data will convince investors to abandon their giddy profits until they lose much, if not all, of what they gained. Don’t be one of them.
Having been a financial adviser in the past, I know what a lot of people are thinking at this time in response to what I just said. I’ve heard it many times before. It usually goes something like this: “What if the price of oil continues to rise and I lose a lot of money because of leaving the market too soon?” That’s a question arising from a fear mentality. The better question is this: “What if the oil price plunges and panic selling sets in?”
Oil is quickly becoming a casino play on the upside, and the longer investors stay in, the higher the probability they’ll lose the gains they’ve enjoyed. Worse, too much optimism could result in losses if preventative action isn’t taken quickly enough.
What needs to be considered is why one should stay in this market. What is so convincing it warrants this type of increasing risk, which offers much less in the way of reward than even a week ago? What fundamentals are in place that suggest a sustainable upward movement in the price of oil? The answer to those questions will determine how oil investors fare in the near future.
U.S. shale production
The more I think on the estimates associated with U.S. shale production in 2016, measured against the statements made by stronger producers that they’re going to boost supply from premium wells this year, the more I’m convinced it isn’t going to fall as much as expected. New supply will offset a lot of the less productive and higher cost wells being shuttered. I do believe there will be some loss of production from that, but not as much as is being suggested.
There are various predictions on how much production is going to be lost, but the general consensus is from 300,000 bpd to 600,000 bpd. It could come in on the lower side of that estimate, but I don’t think it’ll be close to the upper end of the estimate.
What is unknown because we don’t have an historical guideline to go by is, the amount of oil these premium wells will add to supply. We also don’t know if the stated goals will be followed up on. I think they will, but we won’t know for certain until the next couple of earnings reports give a clearer picture.
When combined with the added supply coming from Iran, and the ongoing high levels of production from Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq, I don’t see how the current support for the price of oil can continue on for any length of time.
There is no way of knowing exactly when the price of oil will once again collapse, but the longer it stays high without a change in the fundamentals, the higher the risk becomes, and the more chance it could swing the other way on momentum, even if it isn’t warranted. It could easily test the $30 mark again under those conditions.
Inventory challenges
What many investors don’t understand about storage and inventory is it definitely matters where the challenges are located. That’s why Cushing being over 90 percent capacity and Gulf storage only a little under 90 percent capacity means more than if other facilities were under similar pressure. Together, they account for over 60 percent of U.S. storage.
With the imbalance of supply and demand driving storage capacity levels, the idea of oil staying above $40 per barrel for any period of time is highly unlikely. A lower U.S. dollar and the highly irrelevant proposed production freeze talks can’t balance it off.
Once the market digests this, which could happen at any time, we’ll quickly enter bear mode again. The problem is the price of oil is straining against its upper limits, and if momentum starts to deflate, the race to sell positions will become a sprint and not a marathon.
Uncertainty about shale is the wild card
As already mentioned, U.S. shale production continues to be the major catalyst to watch. The problem is we have no way of knowing what has already been unfolding in the first quarter. If investors start to abandon their positions, and we find shale supply is stronger than projected, it’ll put further downward pressure on oil after it has already corrected.
What I mean by that is we should experience some fleeing from oil before the next earnings reports from shale producers are released. If the industry continues to surprise on the upside of supply, it’ll cause the price of oil to further deteriorate, making the outlook over the next couple of months potentially ominous.
This isn’t just something that has a small chance of happening; it’s something that has a very strong probability of happening. Agencies like IEA have already upwardly revised their outlook for shale supply in 2016, and if that’s how it plays out, the entire expected performance for the year will have to be adjusted.
Conclusion
Taking into account the more important variables surrounding what will move the price of oil, shale production remains the most important information to follow. Not much else will matter if supply continues to exceed expectations. It will obliterate all the models and force analysts to admit this has little to do with prior supply cycles and everything to do with a complete market disruption. Many are still in denial of this. They’ll learn the reality soon enough.
That doesn’t mean there won’t eventually be a time when demand finally catches up with supply, but within the parameters of this weak global economy and oil supply that continues to grow, it’s going to take a lot longer to realize than many thought.
For several months, it has been understood that the market underestimated the expertise and efficiency of U.S. shale producers, and to this day they continue to do so. We will find out if that remains in play in the first half of 2016, and by then, whether it’ll extend further into 2017.
As for how it will impact the price of oil now, if we start to have some panic selling before the earnings reports, and the earnings reports of the important shale producers exceed expectations on the supply side, with it being reflected in an increase in the overall output estimates for the year, it will put more downward pressure on oil.
The other scenario is oil lingers around $40 per barrel until the earnings reports come out. There will still be a decline in the price of oil, the level of which would depend on how much more supply shale producers brought to the market in the first quarter than expected.
My thought is we’re going to experience a drop in the price of oil before earnings reports, which then could trigger a secondary exodus from investors in it for short-term gains.
For those having already generated some decent returns, it may be time to take it off the table. I don’t see how the shrinking reward can justify the growing risk.
Commercial real estate prices are officially cooling off
The overall price of multifamily and commercial properties valued above $2.5 million fell by 0.8 percent in January following a flat month of price growth in December, according to Moody’s/Real Capital Analytics (RCA).
“It is the first monthly decline in the index in six years,” said RCA’s Senior Vice President Jim Costello during a telephone interview. “It is not entirely surprising given that trends were flat in December.”
Analysts have been predicting a slowdown in commercial prices, which had been growing by double digits and reached a new peak this past year.
Over the past 12 months through January, the Moody’s/RCA Commercial Property Price Index has risen by 9.7 percent, but remained essentially flat over the last three months, rising just 0.3 percent.
There has been an even more dramatic slowdown in the nations’ top six commercial real estate (CRE) markets. For the 12 months, CRE prices rose by 13 percent in the major metros, but by just 0.1 percent over the past three months through January. Prices in these markets fell by 0.6 percent in January.
Costello said transaction volume remains high, however.
“In December and January, we had the strongest 60-day period of deal volume ever,” Costello said. “Even though you had this adjustment on the pricing side, people still came to the market and still did deals.”
Costello said that commercial banks and life insurance companies are still making financing available, although some lenders have pulled back. He said the commercial-mortgage backed securities (CMBS) market has been unsettled, however.
“In about September of last year, the spreads on CMBS shot up pretty quickly in response to turbulence in the corporate bond market, and it hasn’t come back down,” Costello said. “Normally, in the past, we have seen some disturbances and the rates come back down. This time, it stayed elevated. Suddenly, the cost of debt for commercial property investments has shifted upwards, and people have had to adjust what they are willing and able to pay for debt, and that is really a big part of the change in prices.”
The pause in the growth of CRE prices is healthy, said Ken Riggs, president of Situs RERC. Riggs said sales will probably also slow down because fewer properties will be available, and buyers are becoming more selective. Riggs also said a price correction could be more severe if interest rates rise significantly, a scenario that he does not believe is likely, however.
“The ability to raise capital is going to be more challenging than it was in the last year,” Riggs said. “It doesn’t mean it is terrible, but refinancing has become more selective as well. So naturally we should see a slowdown in the number of transactions, but for the right properties, you still will see properties come into the marketplace and buyers buying those properties.”
Judith and Cliff Allen have owned the modest Marcus Apartments in Portland’s Irvington neighborhood since 1979. They personally know their 10 tenants, many of whom have lived there long-term and pay rents that these days are below the market rate. The building is 50 years old, but the renters like having hands-on landlords, said the Allens, who live in Clackamas County.
The couple now wants to build another 12-unit structure on the parking lot in front of the building. The surprising thing, said Brian Emerick, former chair of Portland’s Historic Landmarks Commission, is that they didn’t just knock down the old building and put up something bigger and fancier — and a lot more expensive.
“Almost no developer would have saved the existing building,” Emerick said. “They would have just knocked it down” and maximized the lot’s value.
But the Allens don’t want to throw their longtime tenants out of their apartments. It was perhaps a rare decision by an increasingly rare breed — the mom-and-pop landlord.
“There are very few of us left,” Judith Allen said. “People who both own and manage. It’s very expensive and time-consuming.”
If local landlords are on the way out, it’s because they’re being replaced at a surprisingly fast clip by large institutional investors.
In 2015, the Portland area saw more than $1.7 billion in sales of large multifamily properties, more than double the previous record set in 2007, according to data collected by the commercial real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle. Much of that money comes from pension funds, banks, unions, insurance companies or real estate investment trusts.
The result for Portland renters? It’s increasingly likely that whether you’re writing a check to a person or a pension, the money is traveling out of town. And investors’ unceasing quest for yield puts upward pressure on rents.
Judith Allen estimates the couple receives about six offers a month from suitors, many of them large investment companies, that want to buy the Irvington property and develop it into “something much bigger.” The couple originally bought the building after Cliff Allen published a teacher’s manual, his wife said, and came into some money. They chose to invest it in real estate.
The Allens’ children are now also in the real estate business, Judith Allen said. But with increased competition from institutional investors, it’s not as easy these days to get a piece of the action.
“It’s tougher now,” she said. “It’s a little more difficult.”
Trickling down the asset ladder
Portland didn’t used to be the kind of market where big, national pension funds came hunting for real estate. But low interest rates — which make it hard for funds to make money on traditional investments, and also make it cheap for them to borrow for additional acquisitions and developments — and the Portland area’s tight rental market have shifted the landscape.
Ralph Cole, global financials analyst with Portland-based Ferguson Wellman Capital Management, said insurance companies and other institutional investors “are in smaller-size deals today than they were 10 years ago.” That opens up opportunities in midsized markets like Portland’s.
In the past, Cole said, an insurance company could generate returns by simply buying corporate bonds and treasuries. Low rates, though, have left them “searching other places to put funds to work.”
“Apartments have been very popular because the fundamentals are so good,” Cole said. Between October 2009 and October 2015, 39 percent of sales of buildings with 79 or more units went to institutional investors, and the trend has accelerated in the past two years.
The recent sale of the 63-unit Lower Burnside Lofts on the east side for $18.5 million to Boston-based Berkshire Group suggests investors are willing to perhaps “compromise some of their standards” to “grab any good quality” in the desirable Portland market, said Brian Glanville, senior managing director at the Portland arm of real estate consultant Integra Realty Resources.
Burnside Lofts
Until recently, Glanville said, there was no way you’d get an investor interested in the price range below $20 million or $25 million. And only in the past two years has institutional money gone after buildings outside of the central city with fewer than 100 units, he added.
Robert Black, managing director at the real estate brokerage ARA Newmark, represented the Lower Burnside Lofts’ seller, Portland-based developer Urban Asset Advisors, in the deal announced last month.
“The institutional buyer’s understanding of the east side has really started to pick up, and their comfort level with the east side has started to pick up,” Black said.
It’s not just apartments
The ongoing real estate frenzy isn’t limited to apartment buildings. Portland’s office market saw more than $1 billion in transactions last year, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, with more than 77 percent of the money coming from institutional investors. Meanwhile, office rents rose by nearly 10 percent year-over-year and Portland’s office vacancy rate was third-lowest in the nation, according to a report released in October.
A real estate investment trust associated with Connecticut-based UBS Global Real Estate set a Portland record when it bought the U.S. Bancorp Tower, known as “Big Pink,” for $372.5 million. Prudential paid $155.3 million for the Block 300 building at 308 S.W. Second Ave.
The New Jersey-based insurance provider has seen “more opportunity” of late in “secondary cities” like Portland, said Theresa Miller, a Prudential spokeswoman who specializes in asset management.
“We’re looking for good, steady, kind of predictable, safe returns,” Miller said. The company typically is interested in holding onto buildings over a period of years, she added — “We don’t come in just to flip stuff over.”
And it’s not just Californians flocking over Oregon’s southern border — it’s their money, too. The buyer of the 2100 River Parkway office building, which sold for $35.4 million last year, was CalSTRS, the California teachers’ retirement system. (CalSTRS officials declined comment for this story.)
“There is not a very good return anywhere else,” said Brian Allen, owner of Portland-based Windermere Real Estate. “You know, the bond market, the stock market — a lot of the places where institutional money might park itself — it’s not that good right now. And people are seeing opportunities in real estate.”
Advantages and disadvantages
The influx of institutional money bucks Portland tradition, Brian Allen said — traditionally, landlords tended to be wealthy but local. A doctor, lawyer, or business person, for example.
There are still opportunities for those folks, though, said attorney David Nepom, who represents such buyers.
“I see young folks still wanting to get into real estate in one manner or another,” Nepom said. “And usually what they do is they start out with the single-family rentals and they move up into a four-plex or six-plex. Does it take more money now? Yeah.”
Nepom doesn’t believe the “American real estate dream is over,” he said.
“I think it takes work and effort,” Nepom said. “But I can think of a few clients off the top of my head who have been very successful at it over the years…Big money does not go after the single-family homes or the four-plex. They just don’t.”
Until now. A series of reports by the nonprofit Investigate West found that Wall Street was scooping up single-family rentals in Portland by the hundreds. And where did one of the investors — Blackstone, a multinational private equity firm — raise some of its capital? Oregon’s own Public Employees Retirement System, or PERS.
Tenants worried about rising rents could be forgiven for fearing the trend. But institutional investors aren’t “steamrolling” the local community, said Daisy Okas, a spokeswoman for the major retirement provider TIAA-CREF, which bought the Cordelia apartments in Northwest Portland last year for $47.8 million.
Cordelia Apartments
“We’re investing capital and shoring up the housing stock,” Okas said.
What’s more, institutional investors are probably more likely to properly maintain their buildings, according to Brian Allen. And they’re perhaps less prone to economic downturns or overreacting to the ever-fluctuating stock market.
“They do have really long horizons,” Brian Allen said. “And so I would speculate they’re very unlikely to be slumlords. They’re probably likely to put in a professional property management company.”
That’s the case for Martin Forde, 22, who began renting at the Lower Burnside Lofts with his girlfriend a month after it opened last summer. The recent Oregon State University graduate moved to Portland for a job at the PepsiCo distribution plant in Gresham, he said.
Not long after he moved in, he found out the building was sold — a development he found “really surprising,” he said. He hadn’t been aware until this month that the buyer was an institutional group in Boston.
But it doesn’t bother him. The location is ideal. When the lights went out, the property manager fixed it within 12 hours. And though the $1,465 monthly rent is expensive, he said, he can afford it.
Still, he wonders about what’ll happen when his new seven-month lease expires.
“They haven’t hiked rent,” Forde said of the new owners. “But we’ll see what happens when the next lease is up.”
The Mosul Dam in Iraq could collapse at any time, causing massive flooding across the country.
Iraq produces over four million barrels of oil per day, a number which will drop immediately when this event occurs.
The destruction of oil production in Iraq will immediately decrease world supply, lifting oil prices.
The Oil Situation: Since 2014, the oil market has been in a tailspin due to a multitude of global factors. As of March 2016, prices seem to have stabilized, although the persistence of crude oversupply continues to hang over the market. For months, declining US production and a potential output freeze by OPEC have been putting a potential floor in place. However, I believe an event is on the horizon which will change the equilibrium of oil prices immediately… the collapse of the Mosul Dam.
The Mosul Dam:The Mosul Dam is the largest dam in Iraq. It is located on the Tigris River in the western governance of Ninawa, upstream of the city of Mosul. Constructed in 1981, the dam has had a history of structural issues, requiring perpetual maintenance in order to maintain its integrity. Since 1984, this consisted of 300 man crews, working 24 hours a day across three shifts, filling holes in the bedrock through a process called grouting. For 30 years, this process worked, although it was always considered to be a ticking time bomb, dubbed “the most dangerous dam in the world” by the US Army Corps of Engineers.
In August 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant took control of the dam, halting the maintenance process until it was retaken by Iraqi, Kurdish and US Forces two weeks later. Unfortunately, the damage was already done… since then, the maintenance crews have been limited to 30 personnel or less, and the equipment is inadequate to continue patching holes. Per the dam’s former chief engineer, Nasrat Adamo, “The machines for grouting have been looted. There is no cement supply. They can do nothing. It is going from bad to worse, and it is urgent. All we can do is hold our hearts.” As winter snows melt, the water levels will rise to unsustainable levels, and while it has two pressure release gates to avoid this scenario, one has been non-functioning for years, and using the second one alone risks the stability of the structure.
The Event: When the Mosul Dam collapses (and without reconstruction measures being implemented quickly, this is considered a ‘when’, not an ‘if’), a wave 45-65 feet high is expected to flood the country, drowning Mosul in four hours and reaching Baghdad within two to four days.
Estimates range from 500,000 to 1,500,000 lives lost. In addition to flooding, there will be secondary and tertiary effects… as demonstrated in America during Hurricane Katrina, panic and lawlessness can be equally as dangerous as the flooding itself, but even worse, diseases such as malaria and West Nile fever will follow. A catastrophic event of this magnitude will immediately push the entire country into chaos, and Iraq does not have the capability to respond without global support. The closest comparison to make is Haiti, which with billions in global assistance has not returned to normalcy in five years. Overall, I anticipate this catastrophe will take years to overcome… in the meantime, it will have a significant effect on the world’s supply of oil today.
The Effects:As of winter 2015, Iraq was producing 4.3M barrels per day, with the southern fields producing 3.3M barrels and the remaining 1M coming from the north. The graphic below (left) is from 2014, but gives a picture of the oil field placements. To the right is a topographical map, which gives us an idea of how the floodwaters will progress. Based on the elevation of where the flood would initiate, everything between Mosul and Baghdad will be completely covered, and while the wave will dissipate over time, the fields between Baghdad and Basra will see enough water (and everything that comes with it, to include bodies, disease and unexploded ordinance) to temporarily disable operations. Additionally, the pipeline between Kirkuk and Ramadi will be underwater, and there is a potential for damage to the Iraq Strategic Pipeline, which runs parallel to the direction of the water’s progression.
The world’s oversupply of oil is estimated around one million barrels per day. Assume that the above happens, and in a best-case scenario, only northern production is affected. What would occur immediately is the elimination of one quarter of Iraq’s oil output, rapidly pushing supply and demand into equilibrium. In a worst-case scenario, where all of Iraq’s oil is temporarily eliminated, it will move the supply deficit to three million barrels per day, leading to large ramifications on the world’s crude oil surplus within weeks.
While the true answer lies somewhere between these possibilities, what is undeniable is that a catastrophe of this magnitude will immediately move the price of crude oil up, and depending on the timeline to return to today’s production levels, that move could be enormous. In late 2015, the world produced 97M barrels per day, causing the price to collapse to $26.00 per barrel. In 2014, while producing 93M barrels per day, the price averaged near $110.00 prior to its fall. Although the above is simple extrapolation, demand continues to grow, so I think we can all agree that the price shift north will be significant.
Conclusion: The subject of this article is admittedly morbid. The true fallout of this event is the loss of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and damage that would take years to erase. However, as informed investors, it would be irresponsible to not consider global events, and this has the potential to re-balance the oil market in a matter of days. When this occurs, over four million barrels per day can disappear from production, immediately shifting the direction of oil prices. Based on the above information, I believe a production cut decision by OPEC is irrelevant, as natural forces are preparing to address the oil oversupply on their own.
Money is leaving China in myriad ways, chasing after overseas assets in near-panic mode. So Anbang Insurance Group, after having already acquired the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan a year ago for a record $1.95 billion from Hilton Worldwide Holdings, at the time majority-owned by Blackstone, and after having acquired office buildings in New York and Canada, has struck out again.
It agreed to acquire Strategic Hotels & Resorts from Blackstone for a $6.5 billion. The trick? According to Bloomberg’s “people with knowledge of the matter,” Anbang paid $450 million more than Blackstone had paid for it three months ago!
Other Chinese companies have pursued targets in the US, Canada, Europe, and elsewhere with similar disregard for price, after seven years of central-bank driven asset price inflation [read… Desperate “Dumb Money” from China Arrives in the US].
As exports of money from China is flourishing at a stunning pace, exports of goods are deteriorating at an equally stunning pace. February’s 25% plunge in exports was the 11th month of year-over-year declines in 12 months, as global demand for Chinese goods is waning.
And ocean freight rates – the amount it costs to ship containers from China to ports around the world – have plunged to historic lows.
The China Containerized Freight Index (CCFI), published weekly, tracks contractual and spot-market rates for shipping containers from major ports in China to 14 regions around the world. Unlike most Chinese government data, this index reflects the unvarnished reality of the shipping industry in a languishing global economy. For the latest reporting week, the index dropped 4.1% to 705.6, its lowest level ever.
It has plunged 34.4% from the already low levels in February last year and nearly 30% since its inception in 1998 when it was set at 1,000. This is what the ongoing collapse in shipping rates looks like:
The rates dropped for 12 of the 14 routes in the index. They rose in only one, to the Persian Gulf/Red Sea, perhaps in response to the lifting of the sanctions against Iran, and remained flat to Japan. Rates on all other routes dropped, including to Europe (-7.9%), the US West Coast (-3.5%), the US East Coast (-1.0%), or the worst drop, to the Mediterranean (-13.4%).
The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI), which is much more volatile than the CCFI, tracks only spot-market rates (not contractual rates) of shipping containers from Shanghai to 15 destinations around the world. It had surged at the end of last year from record lows, as carriers had hoped that rate increases might stick this time and that the worst was over. But rates plunged again in the weeks since, including 6.8% during the last reporting week to 404.2, a new all-time low. The index is now down 62.3% from a year ago:
Rates were flat for three routes, but dropped for the other 12 routes, including to Europe, where rates plunged nearly 10% to a ludicrously low $211 per TEU (twenty-foot equivalent container unit). Rates to the US West Coast fell 8.4% to $810 per FEU (forty-foot equivalent container unit). Rates to the East Coast fell 5.2% to $1,710 per FEU. Rates to South America plunged 25.4%.
This crash in shipping rates is a result of two by now typical forces: rampant and still growing overcapacity and lackluster demand.
“Typical” because lackluster demand has been the hallmark of the global economy recently, and the problems of overcapacity have also been occurring in other sectors, including oil & gas and the commodities complex. Overcapacity from coal-mining to steel-making, much of it in state-controlled enterprises, has been dogging China for years and will continue to pose mega-problems well into the future. Overcapacity kills prices, then jobs, and then companies.
The ocean freight industry went on a multi-year binge buying the largest container ships the world has ever seen and smaller ones too. It was led by executives who believed in the central-bank dogma that radical monetary policy will actually stimulate the real economy, and they were trying to prepare for it. And it was made possible by central-bank-blinded yield-chasing investors and giddy bankers. As a result, after years of ballooning capacity, carriers added another 8% in 2015, even while demand for transporting containers across the oceans languished near the flat line, the worst performance since 2009.
The residents of West Texas are accustomed to a life dependent on hydrocarbons. As Bloomberg reports, the small communities built into the flat West Texas desert are dotted with oil pumps and rigs, and the chemical smell of an oil field hangs in the air.
Here the economy rises and falls on drilling.
When the drilling is good, everyone in the town benefits. When it’s bad, most of West Texas feels the pinch.
Oil prices have plunged as much as 75 percent since June 2014. That drop has dismal consequences for residents, and not just the ones working in oil fields. Bloomberg spoke with some of the people trying to endure the historic dip in oil prices. This video tells some of their stories….
In sharp contrast, click the following to enjoy this bitter sweet October, 2013 oil boom report by (CNN Money) titled ‘Moving in droves’ to Midland, Texas
“The market wants to do it’s sole job which is to establish fair market value. I am talking currencies, housing, crude oil, derivatives and the stock market. This will correct to fair market value. It’s a mathematical certainty, and it’s already begun.”
Financial analyst and trader Gregory Mannarino thinks the coming market crash will be especially bad for people not awake or prepared. Mannarino says, “This is going to get a lot worse. On an individual level, we have to understand what we have to do for ourselves and our families to get through this. No matter what is happening on the political front, there is no stopping what is coming. . . . We’re going back to a two-tier society. We are seeing it happen. The middle class is being systematically destroyed. We are going to have a feudal system of the haves and the have nots. People walking around blindly thinking it’s going to be okay are going to suffer the worst.”
Mannarino’s advice is to “Bet against this debt, and that means hold hard assets; also, become your own central bank. Their system has already failed and it’s coming apart.”
A recent poll found that two-thirds of metropolitan Vancouver residents believe “foreigners investing” is a main cause of high housing costs, and 70 per cent said the government should work to improve affordability.
One month ago, when describing the latest in an endless series of Vancouver real estate horror stories, in this case an abandoned, rotting home (which is currently listed for a modest$7.2 million), we explained the simple money-laundering dynamic involving Chinese “investors” as follows.
Chinese investors smuggle out millions in embezzled cash, hot money or perfectly legal funds, bypassing the $50,000/year limit in legal capital outflows.
They make “all cash” purchases, usually sight unseen, using third parties intermediaries to preserve their anonymity, or directly in person, in cities like Vancouver, New York, London or San Francisco.
The house becomes a new “Swiss bank account”, providing the promise of an anonymous store of value and retaining the cash equivalent value of the original capital outflow.
We also explained that hundreds if not thousands of Vancouver houses, have become a part of the new normal Swiss bank account: “a store of wealth to Chinese investors eager to park “hot money” outside of their native country, and bidding up any Canadian real estate they could get their hands on.”
This realization has now fully filtered down to the local population, and as the National Post writes in its latest troubling look at the “dark side” of Vancouver’s real estate market, it cites wholesaler Amanda who says that “Vancouver seems to be evolving from a residential city into almost like a lock box for money… but I have to live among the empty houses. I’m a resident, not just an investor.”
The Post article, however, is not about the use of Vancouver (or NYC, or SF, or London) real estate as the end target of China’s hot money outflows – by now most are aware what’s going on. It focuses, instead, on those who make the wholesale selling of Vancouver real estate to Chinese tycoons who are bidding up real estate in this western Canadian city to a point where virtually no domestic buyer can afford it, and specifically the job that unlicensed “wholesalers” do in spurring and accelerating what is currently the world’s biggest housing bubble.
A bubble which, the wholesalers themselves admit, will inevitably crash in spectacular fashion.
Vancouver’s real estate market has been very good to Amanda. She’s not a licensed realtor, but buying and selling property is her full-time job.
She started about eight years ago as an unlicensed “wholesaler” in Vancouver.
She would approach homeowners and make unsolicited offers for private cash deals. Amanda made a 10-per-cent fee on each purchase by immediately assigning the contract to a background investor. It is seen as the lowest job in property investment, but it is low risk and very profitable. Amanda has done so well that she now owns two homes in Vancouver and develops property in the U.S.
Unlicensed wholesaling is an illicit and predatory business that is quickly growing in Metro Vancouver because enforcement is virtually non-existent.
It’s similar to a tactic currently being examined by B.C. real estate authorities known as “assignment flipping,” which involves legally but secretly trading homes on paper to enrich realtors and circles of investors.
However, unlicensed wholesaling is completely unregulated. Amanda estimates hundreds of wholesalers are scouring Metro Vancouver’s never-hotter speculative market — not including the realtors who are secretly wholesaling for themselves.
Amanda decided to step away from the easy money for moral reasons.
She’s most concerned that wholesalers are targeting B.C.’s vulnerable seniors who don’t understand the value of their old homes. She is also worried about offshore money being laundered, and the resulting vacant homes.
Because wholesalers are unlicensed, they have no obligation to identify their background investors or reveal the source of funds to Canadian authorities who fight money laundering.
“Vancouver seems to be evolving from a residential city into almost like a lock box for money,” Amanda said. “But I have to live among the empty houses. I’m a resident, not just an investor.”
Amanda said she believes that unethical and ignorant investors are driving B.C.’s housing market at full speed towards a crash. For these reasons, and with the condition that we not use her real name, she came forward to reveal how wholesalers operate.
The calling cards of wholesalers — hand-written flyers offering homeowners “confidential” and “discreet” cash sales — started flooding west side Vancouver homes over the past 18 months. With the dramatic surge in home prices, wholesalers now are spreading into neighborhoods across Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island.
In eight years Amanda has never seen the market hotter than it is right now, and her colleagues are urging her to start wholesaling again.
Notices offering cash for homes are the calling card of unlicensed wholesalers
“A lot of money is leaving China, so now every second day people are asking if I can go out and find places for them. They have tons of money,” Amanda said. “They are basically brokering business deals specifically for Chinese investors.”
She said the mechanics of wholesaling schemes work like this:
The investor behind the unlicensed broker targets a block, often with older homes, and gives the wholesaler cash in a legal trust.
The wholesaler persuades a homeowner to sell, offering immediate cash, no subjects, no home inspections, and savings on realtor fees.
While the wholesaler claims to represent one buyer, or in some cases to be the buyer, Amanda said three or four contract flippers are often already lined up, with an end-buyer from China who will eventually take title in most cases. These unlicensed broker deals appear to be illegal.
A veteran Vancouver realtor confirmed these types of deals. The realtors we spoke to have been asked by their brokerages not to comment to reporters, so we agreed to withhold their names.
“I work with some non-licensed flippers,” one said. “They walk on to the lawn of an older house, see the owner and yell, ‘We’re not realtors!’ The owner invites them in, thinks they’re saving a commission — which they are — and loses big-time on the actual sale. I’ve seen it first-hand.”
According to flyers obtained from across Metro Vancouver and interviews with homeowners who were solicited, wholesalers often say they have Chinese buyers willing to pay a premium for quick sales.
Homeowners in Richmond, Vancouver’s east and west sides, Surrey, Langley, Coquitlam, Burnaby, White Rock, Delta and North Vancouver confirmed such offers in interviews.
One resident of Vancouver’s west side Dunbar area said she was annoyed by wholesalers constantly soliciting her, and a man in Surrey said his elderly mother was bothered by wholesalers.
“A guy walked up and he offered $700,000 cash within a day, and he said I would save on the realtor fees,” said Zack Flegel, who lives near 119th Street and Scott Road in Delta.
“He also says he will give me $100,000 cash and move me into a $600,000 house. He said he has a bunch of properties. He was talking about my house like it was a trading card. We don’t have abandoned homes yet like Vancouver, but this is how it happens, right?”
After the offer is accepted, the wholesaler assigns the purchase contract to the investor for a 10-per-cent markup, Amanda said. But some wholesalers aren’t content with making $100,000 or more per sale.
“People were going in and offering, for example, an 80-year-old widow, she bought the house for $70,000 and it is now worth $800,000 and they were offering her $200,000,” Amanda said. “So they are making $300,000 or $400,000 (after assigning the contract).
“And you are socializing with other wholesalers, and it is hard to hear them say, ‘Oh this whole street is filled with seniors whose partners are dropping off like flies.’ Or, ‘They just want to get rid of it, they have no clue what their house is worth, and it’s the whole street.’”
Amanda said her father died recently. She pictured her mother being targeted by wholesalers and resolved never to play that role again.
“There are elements of this that are elder abuse, absolutely.”
In a recent story that deals with implications of rising property taxes rather than predatory real estate practices, the Financial Post reported that, especially in Vancouver and Toronto’s scorching markets, “it’s not uncommon for some Canadian seniors to be unaware of the value of their location.”
B.C.’s Superintendent of Real Estate, Carolyn Rogers, conceded the potential for elder abuse as reported by Amanda.
“We would welcome an opportunity to speak to (Amanda) and assuming she gives us the same information, we would open a file,” Rogers said. “The conditions in the Vancouver market right now present risks … and seniors could be an example of that.”
It is illegal for wholesalers to privately buy and sell property for investors without a licence, Rogers said. She said her officers have approached some wholesalers recently and asked them to become licensed or cease their activities.
A review of the superintendent’s website shows no enforcement orders, fines or consumer alerts filed in connection to unlicensed wholesalers making cash deals and flipping contracts.
Amanda said that over the past year she learned of new levels of “layering and complexity that I didn’t see five years ago” in wholesaling and assignment-clause flipping.
“Five years ago I didn’t see realtors wholesaling, and I didn’t see people calling me so that I would get them a property and not assign the property to them, but work as a ‘partner’ and I would attach a 10-per-cent fee.
“And then they would assign it to their boss and attach 10 per cent, and then that person’s boss would attach 10 per cent. I’ve been watching over the last month, and it has got astounding.”
Amanda said some wholesale deals involve only unlicensed brokers and pools of offshore cash organized informally, and some appear to involve realtors and brokerages hiding behind unlicensed wholesalers.
“I’ve seen it from the back end. We have friends in the British Properties and the realtor said he will buy their property for $2 million. And then six months later it was sold for $3.5 million. When I’m looking at that, it is a pretty clear wholesale deal.”
Darren Gibb, spokesman for Canada’s anti-money-laundering agency, FINTRAC, confirmed that unlicensed property buyers have no obligation to report the identity or sources of funds of the buyers they represent.
However, Gibb said, if realtors are involved in “assignment flipping” it is mandatory that they and unlicensed assistants make efforts to identify every assignment-clause buyer and their sources of funds.
Vancouver realtors confirmed that money laundering is a big concern in assignment-flipping deals, whether organized by an unlicensed wholesaler or a realtor.
“When you are a non-realtor broker you no longer have to play by any rules,” one Vancouver realtor said.
“There is a role for assignments, but nobody is asking where the money came from. We are creating vehicles for money laundering.”
“No person in their right mind wants to buy your house once, and sell it three more times in a small window of opportunity, unless they have a whole pool of people lined up trying to get their money out of the country. The higher the prices go, these vehicles to get money out of the country get bigger and bigger.”
NDP MLA David Eby and Green MLA Andrew Weaver commented that allegations of unlicensed brokers targeting seniors and participating in potential money-laundering schemes call for direct action from Victoria and independent investigation, because these concerns fall outside the jurisdiction of the B.C. Real Estate Council and its current ongoing review of real estate practices.
“It is very troubling to me,” Eby said, “that not only do we have a layer of real estate agents that are acting improperly and violating the rules, but there might be this additional layer who are not bound by any rule and have explicitly avoided becoming agents for that reason.
“This unscrupulous behavior is targeting seniors who need money for retirement. What kind of society is that?” Weaver said.
Earlier today, Reuters reportedthat China is preparing for an unprecedented overhaul in how it treats it trillions in non-performing loans.
Recall that as we first wrote last summer, and as subsequently Kyle Bass made it the centerpiece of his “short Yuan” investment thesis, the “neutron bomb” in the heart of China’s impaired financial system is the trillions – officially at $614 billion but realistically anywhere between 8% and 20% of China’s total $35 trillion in bank assets – in non-performing loans. It is the unknown treatment of these NPLs that has been the greatest threat to China’s just as vast deposit base amounting to well over $20 trillion, which has been the fundamental catalyst behind China’s record capital flight as depositors have been eager to move their savings as far from China’s domestic banks as possible.
As a result, conventional thinking such as that proposed by Bass, Ray Dalio, KKR and many others, speculated that China will have to devalue its currency in order to inflate away what is fundamentally an excess debt problem as the alternative is unleashing a massive debt default tsunami and “admitting” to the world just how insolvent China’s state-owned banks truly are, not to mention leading to the layoffs of tens of millions of workers by these zombie companies.
However, China now appears to be taking a surprisingly different track, and according to a Reuters reportChina’s central bank is preparing regulations that would allow commercial banks to swap non-performing loans of companies for stakes in those firms. Reuters sources said the release of a new document explaining the regulatory change was imminent.
According to Reuters, the move would represent, “on paper, a way for indebted corporates to reduce their leverage, reducing the cost of servicing debt and making them more worthy of fresh credit.”
It gets better.
It would also reduce NPL ratios at commercial banks, reducing the cash they would need to set aside to cover losses incurred by bad loans. These funds could then be freed up for fresh lending for investment in the new wave of infrastructure products and factory upgrades the government hopes will rejuvenate the Chinese economy.
It is certainly possible that this is merely a trial balloon, one which as was the case repeatedly during Europe’s crisis uses Reuters as a sounding board to gauge the market’s reaction, however the reality is that China may truly be desperate enough to pursue this option.
Because what is lacking in the Reuters explanation is that this proposal entails nothing short of a nationalization on a grand scale, one which gives China’s impaired commercial banks – all of which are implicitly state controlled – the “equity keys” to the companies to which they have given secured loans, loans which are no longer performing because the underlying assets are clearly impaired, and where the cash flow generated can’t even cover the interest payments.
In effect, the PBOC is proposing the biggest debt-for-equity swap ever seen. What it also means is that since the secured lender, which is at the top of the capital structure will drop all the way down, it wipes out the existing equity and unsecured debt, and make the banks the new equity owners, and as such China’s commercial banks will no longer be entitled to interest payments or security collateral on their now-equity investment.
Finally, while this move does free up loss reserves, it essentially strips banks of their security and asset protection which they enjoyed as secured lenders.
So why is China doing this?
As Reuters correctly noted, by equitizing trillions in bad loans, it frees up the corporate balance sheets to layer on fresh trillions in bad debt, the same debt that pushed these zombie companies into insolvency to begin with.
What this grand equitization does not do, is make the underlying business any more profitable or viable: after all the loans are bad because the companies no longer can generate even the required cash interest payment – as a result of China’s unprecedented excess capacity and low commodity prices which prevent corporate viability. It has little to do with their current balance sheet.
That, however, is irrelevant to the PBOC which is hoping that by taking this step it can magically eliminate trillions in NPL from commercial bank balance sheets in what is not only the biggest equitization in history, but also the biggest diversion since David Copperfield made the statue of liberty disappear, as instead of keeping the bad loans on the asset side as NPLs, thus assuring at least some recoveries, the banks are crammed down and when the next NPL wave hits, their exposure will be fully wiped out as mere equity stakeholders.
So why are banks agreeing to this? Because they know that as quasi (and not so quasi) state-owned enterprises, China’s commercial banks are wards of the state and when the ultimate impairment wave hits and banks have to write down trillions in “equity investments”, Beijing will promptly bail them out.
Essentially, in one simple move, Beijing is about to “guarantee” trillions in insolvent Chinese debt.
In short, as pointed out earlier, what the PBOC has proposed is the biggest “shadow nationalization” in history, one which will convert trillions in bad loans in insolvent enterprises into trillions in equity investments in the same enterprises, however without any new money actually coming in! Which means it will be up to new credit investors to prop up these failing businesses for a few more quarters before the reorganized equity also has to be wiped out.
Going back to the Reuters, it reports, that “the new regulations would be promulgated with special approval from the State Council, China’s cabinet-equivalent body, thus skirting the need to revise the current commercial bank law, which prohibits banks from investing in non-financial institutions.”
Of course the reason why commercial bank law prohibited banks from investing in non-financial institutions is precisely because it is a form of nationalization; only this time it will be worse – China will be nationalizing its most insolvent, biggest zombie companies currently in existence.
Reuters also observes that in the past Chinese commercial banks usually dealt with NPLs by selling them off at a discount to state-designated asset management companies. “The AMCs would turn around and attempt to recover the debt or resell it at a profit to distressed debt investors.” That China has given up on this approach confirms that there is just too much NPL supply and not nearly enough potential demand to offload these trillions in bad loans, hence explaining what may be the biggest nationalization in history.
Finally, Reuters concludes that “the sources did not have further detail about how the banks would value the new stakes, which would represent assets on their balance sheets, or what ratio or amount of NPLs they would be able to convert using this method.” Which is to be expected: in this grand diversion the last thing China would want is to reveal the proper math which would show how both China’s commercial banks, and the government itself, are about to guarantee trillions in insolvent assets.
While this is surely good news for the very short run, as it allows the worst of the worst in China’s insolvent corporate sector to issue even more debt, in the longer run it means that China’s total debt to GDP, which is already at 350% is about to surpass Japan’s gargantuan 400% within a year if not sooner.
Houses in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood (Warren Skalski / Chicago Tribune)
Illinois still has the second-highest property taxes in the nation, according to a survey by personal finance website WalletHub.
Only New Jersey has a higher effective property tax rate, the survey found.
Though property taxes vary from county to county across the state, the average effective rate in Illinois — the proportion of the value of a home that a homeowner must pay each year in taxes — was 2.25 percent, just a hair below the New Jersey rate of 2.29 percent.
Hawaii has the lowest effective property tax rate in the nation at 0.28 percent, WalletHub found. But before you rush to move to Honolulu, bear in mind that the median Hawaiian home costs $504,500, nearly three times as much as the median Illinois home.
“Over their lifetimes, some Illinois residents end up paying more in property taxes than the value of their home.” – Governor Bruce Rauner
Missouri had a median effective property tax rate of 1 percent, WalletHub calculated. Most of the lowest property tax states are in the South and West.
Gov. Bruce Rauner has complained that Illinois’ high property tax rates mean that, over their lifetimes, some Illinois residents end up paying more in property taxes than the value of their home.
Previous surveys by the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation and the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center have also found that Illinois has some of the nation’s highest property taxes.
Last week, during the peak of the commodity short squeeze, we pointed out how this default cycle is shaping up to be vastly different from previous one: recovery rates for both secured and unsecured debts are at record low levels. More importantly, we noted how this notable variance is impacting lender behavior, explaining that banks – aware that the next leg lower in commodities is imminent – are not only forcing the squeeze in the most trashed stocks (by pulling borrow) but are doing everything in their power to “assist” energy companies to sell equity, and use the proceeds to take out as much of the banks’ balance sheet exposure as possible, so that when the default tsunami finally arrives, banks will be as far away as possible from the carnage. All of this was predicated on prior lender conversations with the Dallas Fed and the OCC, discussions which the Dallas Fed vocally denied accusing us of lying, yet which the WSJ confirmed, confirming the Dallas Fed was openly lying.
This was the punchline:
[Record low] recovery rate explain what we discussed earlier, namely the desire of banks to force an equity short squeeze in energy stocks, so these distressed names are able to issue equity with which to repay secured loans to banks who are scrambling to get out of the capital structure of distressed E&P names. Or as MatlinPatterson’s Michael Lipsky put it: “we always assume that secured lenders would roll into the bankruptcy become the DIP (debtor in possession) lenders, emerge from bankruptcy as the new secured debt of the company. But they don’t want to be there, so you are buying the debt behind them and you could find yourself in a situation where you could lose 100% of your money.“
And so, one by one the pieces of the puzzle fall into place: banks, well aware that they are facing paltry recoveries in bankruptcy on their secured exposure (and unsecured creditors looking at 10 cents on the dollar), have engineered an oil short squeeze via oil ETFs…
… to take advantage of panicked investors some of whom are desperate to cover their shorts, and others who are just as desperate to buy the new equity issued. Those proceeds, however, will not go to organic growth or even to shore liquidity but straight to the bank to refi loan facilities and let banks, currently on the hook, leave silently by the back door. Meanwhile, the new investors have no security claims and zero liens, are at the very bottom of the capital structure, and face near certain wipe outs.
In short, once the current short squeeze is over, expect everyone to start paying far more attention to recovery rates and the true value of “fundamentals.”
Going back to what Lipsky said, “the banks do not want to be there.” So where do they want to be? As far away as possible from the shale carnage when it does hit.
Today, courtesy of The New York Shock Exchange, we present just the case study demonstrating how this takes place in the real world. Here the story of troubled energy company “Lower oil prices for longer” Weatherford, its secured lender JPM, the incestuous relationship between the two, and how the latter can’t wait to get as far from the former as possible, in…
I am on record saying that Weatherford International is so highly-leveraged that it needs equity to stay afloat. With debt/EBITDA at 8x and $1 billion in principal payments coming due over the next year, the oilfield services giant is in dire straits. Weatherford has been in talks with JP Morgan Chase to re-negotiate its revolving credit facility — the only thing keeping the company afloat. However, in a move that shocked the financial markets, JP Morgan led an equity offering that raised $565 million for Weatherford. Based on liquidation value Weatherford is insolvent. The question remains, why would JP Morgan risk its reputation by selling shares in an insolvent company?
According to the prospectus, at Q4 2015 Weatherford had cash of $467 million debt of $7.5 billion. It debt was broken down as follows: [i] revolving credit facility ($967 million), [ii] other short-term loans ($214 million), [iii] current portion of long-term debt of $401 million and [iv] long-term debt of $5.9 billion. JP Morgan is head of a banking syndicate that has the revolving credit facility.
Even in an optimistic scenario I estimate Weatherford’s liquidation value is about $6.7 billion less than its stated book value. The lion’s share of the mark-downs are related to inventory ($1.1B), PP&E ($1.9B), intangibles and non-current assets ($3.5B). The write-offs would reduce Weatherford’s stated book value of $4.4 billion to – $2.2 billion. After the equity offering the liquidation value would rise to -$1.6 billion.
JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley also happen to be lead underwriters on the equity offering. The proceeds from the offering are expected to be used to repay the revolving credit facility.
In effect, JP Morgan is raising equity in a company with questionable prospects and using the funds to repay debt the company owes JP Morgan. The arrangement allows JP Morgan to get its money out prior to lenders subordinated to it get their $401 million payment. That’s smart in a way. What’s the point of having a priority position if you can’t use that leverage to get cashed out first before the ship sinks? The rub is that [i] it might represent a conflict of interest and [ii] would JP Morgan think it would be a good idea to hawk shares in an insolvent company if said insolvent company didn’t owe JP Morgan money?
The answer? JP Morgan doesn’t care how it looks; JP Morgan wants out and is happy to do it while algos and momentum chasing day traders are bidding up the stock because this time oil has finally bottomed… we promise.
So here’s the good news: as a result of this coordinated lender collusion to prop up the energy sector long enough for the affected companies to sell equity and repay secured debt, the squeeze may last a while; as for the bad news: the only reason the squeeze is taking place is because banks are looking to get as far from the shale patch and the companies on it, as possible.
We leave it up to readers to decide which “news” is more relevant to their investing strategy.
We grow up being taught a very specific set of principles.
One plus one equals two. I before E, except after C.
As we grow older, the principles become more complex.
Take economics for example.
The law of supply states that the quantity of a good supplied rises as the market price rises, and falls as the price falls. Conversely, the law of demand states that the quantity of a good demanded falls as the price rises, and vice versa.
These basic laws of supply and demand are the fundamental building blocks of how we arrive at a given price for a given product.
At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
But what if I told you that the principles you grew up learning is wrong?
With today’s “creative” financial instruments, much of what you learned no longer applies in the real world.
Especially when it comes to oil.
The Law of Oil
Long time readers of this Letter will have read many of my blogs regarding commodities manipulation.
With oil, price manipulation couldn’t be more obvious.
“…While agencies have found innovative ways to explain declining oil demand, the world has never consumed more oil.
In 2010, the world consumed a record 87.4 million barrels per day. This year (2014), the world is expected to consume a new record of 92.7 million barrels per day.
Global oil demand is still expected to climb to new highs.
If the price of oil is a true reflection of supply and demand, as the headlines tell us, it should reflect the discrepancy between supply and demand.
Since we know that demand is actually growing, that can’t be the reason for oil’s dramatic drop.
So does that mean it’s a supply issue? Did the world all of a sudden gain 40% more oil? Obviously not.
So no, the reason behind oil’s fall is not the causality of supply and demand.
The reason is manipulation. The question is why.
I go on to talk about the geopolitical reasons of why the price of oil is manipulated.
“On September 11, Saudi Arabia finally inked a deal with the U.S. to drop bombs on Syria.
But why?
Saudi Arabia possesses 18 per cent of the world’s proven petroleum reserves and ranks as the largest exporter of petroleum.
Syria is home to a pipeline route that can bring gas from the great Qatar natural gas fields into Europe, making billions of dollars for Saudi Arabia as the gas moves through while removing Russia’s energy stronghold on Europe.
Could the U.S. have persuaded Saudi Arabia, during their September 11 meeting, to lower the price of oil in order to hurt Russia, while stimulating the American economy?
… On October 1, 2014, shortly after the U.S. dropped bombs on Syria on September 26 as part of the September 11 agreement, Saudi Arabia announced it would be slashing prices to Asian nations in order to “compete” for crude market share. It also slashed prices to Europe and the United States.”
Following Saudi Arabia’s announcement, oil prices have plunged to a level not seen in more than five years.
Is it a “coincidence” that shortly after the Saudi Arabia-U.S. meeting on the coincidental date of 9-11, the two nations inked a deal to drop billions of dollars worth of bombs on Syria? Then just a few days later, Saudi Arabia announces a massive price cut to its oil.
Coincidence?
There are many other factors – and conspiracies – in oil price manipulation, such as geopolitical attacks on Russia and Iran, whose economies rely heavily on oil. Saudi Arabia is also flooding the market with oil – and I would suggest that it’s because they are rushing to trade their oil for weapons to lead an attack or beef up their defense against the next major power in the Middle East, Iran.
However, all of the reasons, strategies or theories of oil price manipulation could only make sense if they were allowed by these two major players: the regulators and the Big Banks.
How Oil is Priced
On any given day, if you were to look at the spot price of oil, you’d likely be looking at a quote from the NYMEX in New York or the ICE Futures in London. Together, these two institutions trade most of the oil that creates the global benchmark for oil prices via oil futures contracts on West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and North Sea Brent (Brent).
What you may not see, however, is who is trading this oil, and how it is being traded.
Up until 2006, the price of oil traded within reason. But all of a sudden, we saw these major price movements. Why?
“Until recently, U.S. energy futures were traded exclusively on regulated exchanges within the United States, like the NYMEX, which are subject to extensive oversight by the CFTC, including ongoing monitoring to detect and prevent price manipulation or fraud.
In recent years, however, there has been a tremendous growth in the trading of contracts that look and are structured just like futures contracts, but which are traded on unregulated OTC electronic markets. Because of their similarity to futures contracts they are often called ”futures look-a likes.”
The only practical difference between futures look-alike contracts and futures contracts is that the look-a likes are traded in unregulated markets whereas futures are traded on regulated exchanges.
The trading of energy commodities by large firms on OTC electronic exchanges was exempted from CFTC oversight by a provision inserted at the behest of Enron and other large energy traders into the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 in the waning hours of the 106th Congress.
The impact on market oversight has been substantial.
NYMEX traders, for example, are required to keep records of all trades and report large trades to the CFTC. These Large Trader Reports (LTR), together with daily trading data providing price and volume information, are the CFTC’s primary tools to gauge the extent of speculation in the markets and to detect, prevent, and prosecute price manipulation.
…In contrast to trades conducted on the NYMEX, traders on unregulated OTC electronic exchanges are not required to keep records or file Large Trader Reports with the CFTC, and these trades are exempt from routine CFTC oversight.
In contrast to trades conducted on regulated futures exchanges, there is no limit on the number of contracts a speculator may hold on an unregulated OTC electronic exchange, no monitoring of trading by the exchange itself, and no reporting of the amount of outstanding contracts (”open interest”) at the end of each day.
The CFTC’s ability to monitor the U.S. energy commodity markets was further eroded when, in January of this year (2006), the CFTC permitted the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the leading operator of electronic energy exchanges, to use its trading terminals in the United States for the trading of U.S. crude oil futures on the ICE futures exchange in London-called ”ICE Futures.”
Previously, the ICE Futures exchange in London had traded only in European energy commodities-Brent crude oil and United Kingdom natural gas. As a United Kingdom futures market, the ICE Futures exchange is regulated solely by the United Kingdom Financial Services rooority. In 1999, the London exchange obtained the CFTC’s permission to install computer terminals in the United States to permit traders here to trade European energy commodities through that exchange.
Then, in January of this year, ICE Futures in London began trading a futures contract for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil, a type of crude oil that is produced and delivered in the United States. ICE Futures also notified the CFTC that it would be permitting traders in the United States to use ICE terminals in the United States to trade its new WTI contract on the ICE Futures London exchange.
Beginning in April, ICE Futures similarly allowed traders in the United States to trade U.S. gasoline and heating oil futures on the ICE Futures exchange in London. Despite the use by U.S. traders of trading terminals within the United States to trade U.S. oil, gasoline, and heating oil futures contracts, the CFTC has not asserted any jurisdiction over the trading of these contracts.
Persons within the United States seeking to trade key U.S. energy commodities-U.S. crude oil, gasoline, and heating oil futures-now can avoid all U.S. market oversight or reporting requirements by routing their trades through the ICE Futures exchange in London instead of the NYMEX in New York.
As an increasing number of U.S. energy trades occurs on unregulated, OTC electronic exchanges or through foreign exchanges, the CFTC’s large trading reporting system becomes less and less accurate, the trading data becomes less and less useful, and its market oversight program becomes less comprehensive.
The absence of large trader information from the electronic exchanges makes it more difficult for the CFTC to monitor speculative activity and to detect and prevent price manipulation. The absence of this information not only obscures the CFTC’s view of that portion of the energy commodity markets, but it also degrades the quality of information that is reported.
A trader may take a position on an unregulated electronic exchange or on a foreign exchange that is either in addition to or opposite from the positions the trader has taken on the NYMEX, and thereby avoid and distort the large trader reporting system.
Not only can the CFTC be misled by these trading practices, but these trading practices could render the CFTC weekly publication of energy market trading data, intended to be used by the public, as incomplete and misleading.”
Simply put, any one can now speculate and avoid being tagged with illegal price. The more speculative trading that occurs, the less “real” price discovery via true supply and demand become.
With that in mind, you can now see how the big banks have gained control and cornered the oil market.
Continued from the Report:
“…Over the past few years, large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investment funds have been pouring billions of dollars into the energy commodities markets…to try to take advantage of price changes or to hedge against them.
Because much of this additional investment has come from financial institutions and investment funds that do not use the commodity as part of their business, it is defined as ”speculation” by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
…Reports indicate that, in the past couple of years, some speculators have made tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in profits trading in energy commodities.
This speculative trading has occurred both on the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and on the over-the-counter (OTC) markets.
The large purchases of crude oil futures contracts by speculators have, in effect, created an additional demand for oil, driving up the price of oil to be delivered in the future in the same manner that additional demand for the immediate delivery of a physical barrel of oil drives up the price on the spot market.
As far as the market is concerned, the demand for a barrel of oil that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a speculator is just as real as the demand for a barrel that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a refiner or other user of petroleum.
Although it is difficult to quantify the effect of speculation on prices, there is substantial evidence that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices.
Several analysts have estimated that speculative purchases of oil futures have added as much as $20-$25 per barrel to the current price of crude oil, thereby pushing up the price of oil from $50 to approximately $70 per barrel.”
The biggest banks in the world, such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, JP Morgan, are now also the biggest energy traders; together, they not only participate in oil trades, but also fund numerous hedge funds that trade in oil.
Knowing how easy it is to force the price of oil upwards, the same strategies can be done in reverse to force the price of oil down.
All it takes is for some media-conjured “report” to tell us that Saudi Arabia is flooding the market with oil, OPEC is lowering prices, or that China is slowing, for oil to collapse.
Traders would then go short oil, kicking algo-traders into high gear, and immediately sending oil down further. The fact that oil consumption is actually growing really doesn’t matter anymore.
In reality, oil price isn’t dictated by supply and demand – or OPEC, or Russia, or China – it is dictated by the Western financial institutions that trade it.
“For years, I have been talking about how the banks have taken control of our civilization.
…With oil prices are falling, economies around the world are beginning to feel the pain causing a huge wave of panic throughout the financial industry. That’s because the last time oil dropped like this – more than US$40 in less than six months – was during the financial crisis of 2008.
…Let’s look at the energy market to gain a better perspective.
The energy sector represents around 17-18 percent of the high-yield bond market valued at around $2 trillion.
Over the last few years, energy producers have raised more than a whopping half a trillion dollars in new bonds and loans with next to zero borrowing costs – courtesy of the Fed.
This low-borrowing cost environment, along with deregulation, has been the goose that laid the golden egg for every single energy producer. Because of this easy money, however, energy producers have become more leveraged than ever; leveraging themselves at much higher oil prices.
But with oil suddenly dropping so sharply, many of these energy producers are now at serious risk of going under.
In a recent report by Goldman Sachs, nearly $1 trillion of investments in future oil projects are at risk.
…It’s no wonder the costs of borrowing for energy producers have skyrocketed over the last six months.
…many of the companies are already on the brink of default, and unable to make even the interest payments on their loans.
…If oil continues in this low price environment, many producers will have a hard time meeting their debt obligations – meaning many of them could default on their loans. This alone will cause a wave of financial and corporate destruction. Not to mention the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs across North America.”
You may be thinking, “if oil’s fall is causing a wave of financial disaster, why would the banks push the price of oil down? Wouldn’t they also suffer from the loss?”
Great question. But the banks never lose. Continued from my letter:
“If you control the world’s reserve currency, but slowly losing that status as a result of devaluation and competition from other nations (see When Nations Unite Against the West: The BRICS Development Bank), what would you do to protect yourself?
You buy assets. Because real hard assets protect you from monetary inflation.
With the banks now holding record amounts of highly leveraged paper from the Fed, why would they not use that paper to buy hard assets?
Bankers may be greedy, but they’re not stupid.
The price of hard physical assets is the true representation of inflation.
Therefore, if you control these hard assets in large quantities, you could also control their price.
This, in turn, means you can maintain control of your currency against monetary inflation.
And that is exactly what the banks have done.
The True World Power
Last month, the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations published a 403-page report on how Wall Street’s biggest banks, such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan, have gained ownership of a massive amount of commodities, food, and energy resources.
The report stated that “the current level of bank involvement with critical raw materials, power generation, and the food supply appears to be unprecedented in U.S. history.”
For example:
“…Until recently, Morgan Stanley controlled over 55 million barrels of oil storage capacity, 100 oil tankers, and 6,000 miles of pipeline. JPMorgan built a copper inventory that peaked at $2.7 billion, and, at one point, included at least 213,000 metric tons of copper, comprising nearly 60% of the available physical copper on the world’s premier copper trading exchange, the LME.
In 2012, Goldman owned 1.5 million metric tons of aluminum worth $3 billion, about 25% of the entire U.S. annual consumption. Goldman also owned warehouses which, in 2014, controlled 85% of the LME aluminum storage business in the United States.” – Wall Street Bank Involvement with Physical Commodities, United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
From pipelines to power plants, from agriculture to jet fuel, these too-big-to-fail banks have amassed – and may have manipulated the prices – of some of the world’s most important resources.
The above examples clearly show just how much influence the Big Banks have over our commodities through a “wide range of risky physical commodity activities which included, at times, producing, transporting, storing, processing, supplying, or trading energy, industrial metals, or agricultural commodities.”
With practically an unlimited supply of cheap capital from the Federal Reserve, the Big Banks have turned into much more than lenders and facilitators. They have become direct commerce competitors with an unfair monetary advantage: free money from the Fed.
Of course, that’s not their only advantage.
According to the report, the Big Banks are engaging in risky activities (such as ownership in power plants and coal mining), mixing banking and commerce, affecting prices, and gaining significant trading advantages.
Just think about how easily it would be for JP Morgan to manipulate the price of copper when they – at one point – controlled 60% of the available physical copper on the world’s premier copper trading exchange, the LME.
How easy would it be for Goldman to control the price of aluminum when they owned warehouses – at one point – that controlled 85% of the LME aluminum storage business in the United States?
And if they could so easily control such vast quantities of hard assets, how easy would it be for them to profit from going either short or long on these commodities?
Always a Winner
But if, for some reason, the bankers’ bets didn’t work out, they still wouldn’t lose.
That’s because these banks are holders of trillions of dollars in FDIC insured deposits.
In other words, if any of the banks’ pipelines rupture, power plants explode, oil tankers spill, or coal mines collapse, taxpayers may once again be on the hook for yet another too-big-to-fail bailout.
If you think that there’s no way that the government or the Fed would allow this to happen again after 2008, think again.
Via the Guardian:
“In a small provision in the budget bill, Congress agreed to allow banks to house their trading of swaps and derivatives alongside customer deposits, which are insured by the federal government against losses.
The budget move repeals a portion of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act and, some say, lays the groundwork for future bailouts of banks who make irresponsibly risky trades.”
Recall from my past letters where I said that the Fed wants to engulf you in their dollars. If yet another bailout is required, then the Fed would once again be the lender of last resort, and Americans will pile on the debt it owes to the Fed.
It’s no wonder that in the report, it actually notes that the Fed was the facilitator of this sprawl by the banks:
“Without the complementary orders and letters issued by the Federal Reserve, many of those physical commodity activities would not otherwise have been permissible ‘financial’ activities under federal banking law. By issuing those complementary orders, the Federal Reserve directly facilitated the expansion of financial holding companies into new physical commodity activities.”
The Big Banks have risked tons of cash lending and facilitating in oil business. But in reality they haven’t risked anything. They get free money from the Fed, and since they aren’t supposed to be directly involved in natural resources, they obtain control in other ways.
Remember, the big banks – and ultimately the Fed who controls them – are the ones who truly control the world. Their monetary actions are the cause of many of the world’s issues and have been used for many years to maintain control of other nations and the world’s resources.
But they can’t simply go into a country, put troops on the ground and take over. No, that would be inhumane.
“Currency manipulation allows developed countries to print and lend to other developing countries at will.
A rich nation might go into a developing nation and lend them millions of dollars to build bridges, schools, housing, and expand their military efforts. The rich nation convinces the developing nation that by borrowing money, their nation will grow and prosper.
However, these deals are often negotiated at a very specific and hefty cost; the lending nation might demand resources or military and political access. Of course, developing nations often take the loans, but never really have the chance to pay it back.
When the developing nations realize they can’t pay back the loans, they’re at the mercy of the lending nations.
The trick here is that the lending nations can print as much money as they want, and in turn, control the resources of developing nations. In other words, the loans come at a hefty cost to the borrower, but at no cost to the lender.”
This brings us back to oil.
We know that oil’s crash has put a heavy burden on many debt facilities that are associated with oil. We also know that the big banks are all heavily leveraged within the sector.
If that is the case, why are the big banks so calm?
The answer is simple.
Asset-Backed Lending
Most of the loans associated with oil are done through asset-backed loans, or reserve-based financing.
It means that the loans are backed by the underlying asset itself: the oil reserves.
So if the loans go south, guess who ends up with the oil?
According to Reuters, JP Morgan is the number one U.S. bank by assets. And despite its energy exposure assumed at only 1.6 percent of total loans, the bank could own reserves of up to $750 million!
“If oil reaches $30 a barrel – and here we are – and stayed there for, call it, 18 months, you could expect to see (JPMorgan’s) reserve builds of up to $750 million.”
No wonder the banks aren’t worried about a oil financial contagion – especially not Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s Chairman, CEO and President:
“…Remember, these are asset-backed loans, so a bankruptcy doesn’t necessarily mean your loan is bad.” – Jamie Dimon
As oil collapses and defaults arise, the banks have not only traded dollars for assets on the cheap, but gained massive oil reserves for pennies on the dollar to back the underlying contracts of the oil that they so heavily trade.
The argument to this would be that many emerging markets have laws in place that prevent their national resources from being turned over to foreign entities in the case of corporate defaults.
Which, of course, the U.S. and its banks have already prepared for.
“…If the Fed raises interest rates, many emerging market economies will suffer the consequence of debt defaults. Which, historically means that asset fire sales – often commodity-based assets such as oil and gas – are next.
Historically, if you wanted to seize the assets of another country, you would have to go to war and fight for territory. But today, there are other less bloody ways to do that.
Take, for example, Petrobras – a semi-public Brazilian multinational energy corporation.
…Brazil is in one of the worst debt positions in the world with much of its debt denominated in US dollars.
Earlier this year (2015), Petrobras announced that it is attempting to sell $58 billion of assets – an unprecedented number in the oil industry.
Guess who will likely be leading the sale of Petrobras assets? Yup, American banks.
“…JPMorgan would be tasked with wooing the largest number of bidders possible for the assets and then structure the sales.”
As history has shown, emerging market fire sales due to debt defaults are often won by the US or its allies. Thus far, it appears the Petrobras fire sale may be headed that way.
‘Brazilian state-run oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA said Tuesday (September 22, 2015) it is closing a deal to sell natural-gas distribution assets to a local subsidiary of Japan’s Mitsui & Co.’
The combination of monetary policy and commodities manipulation allows Western banks and allies to accumulate hard assets at the expense of emerging markets. And this has been exactly the plan since day one.
As the Fed hints of raising rates, financial risks among emerging markets will continue to build. This will trigger a reappraisal of sovereign and corporate risks leading to big swings in capital flows.”
Not only are many of the big banks’ practices protected by government and Fed policies, but they’re also protected by the underlying asset itself. If things go south, the bank could end up owning a lot of oil reserves.
No wonder they’re not worried.
And since the banks ultimately control the price of oil anyway, it could easily bring the price back up when they’re ready.
Controlling the price of oil gives U.S. and its banks many advantages.
For example, the U.S. could tell the Iranians, the Saudis, or other OPEC nations, whose economies heavily rely on oil, “Hey, if you want higher oil prices, we can make that happen. But first, you have to do this…”
You see how much control the U.S., and its big banks, actually have?
At least, for now anyway.
Don’t think for one second that nations around the world don’t understand this.
Just ask Venezuela, and many of the other countries that have succumbed to the power of the U.S. Many of these countries are now turning to China because they feel they have been screwed.
The World Shift
The diversification away from the U.S. dollar is the first step in the uprising against the U.S. by other nations.
As the power of the U.S. dollar diminishes, through international currency swaps and loans, other trading platforms that control the price of commodities (such as the new Shanghai Oil Exchange) will become more prominent in global trade; thus, bringing some price equilibrium back to the market.
And this is happening much faster than you expect.
Chinese President Xi Jinping returned home Sunday after wrapping up a historic trip to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran with a broad consensus and 52 cooperation agreements set to deepen Beijing’s constructive engagement with the struggling yet promising region.
During Xi’s trip, China upgraded its relationship with both Saudi Arabia and Iran to a comprehensive strategic partnership and vowed to work together with Egypt to add more values to their comprehensive strategic partnership.
Regional organizations, including the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) and the Arab League (AL), also applauded Xi’s visit and voiced their readiness to cement mutual trust and broaden win-win cooperation with China.
AL Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi said China has always stood with the developing world, adding that the Arab world is willing to work closely with China in political, economic as well as other sectors for mutual benefit.
The Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious vision Xi put forward in 2013 to boost inter-connectivity and common development along the ancient land and maritime Silk Roads, has gained more support and popularity during Xi’s trip.
…Xi and leaders of the three nations agreed to align their countries’ development blueprints and pursue mutually beneficial cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, which comprises the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
The initiative, reiterated the Chinese president, is by no means China’s solo, but a symphony of all countries along the routes, including half of the OIC members.
During Xi’s stay in Saudi Arabia, China, and the GCC resumed their free trade talks and “substantively concluded in principle the negotiations on trade in goods.” A comprehensive deal will be made within this year.”
In other words, the big power players in the Middle East – who produce the majority of the world’s oil – are now moving closer to cooperation with China, and away from the U.S.
As this progresses, it means the role of the U.S. dollar, and its value in world trade, will diminish.
And the big banks, which hold trillions of dollars in U.S. assets, aren’t concerned.
Fewer homes bought, more refinances, and older mortgages lead to principal balance declines
Shadows from the financial crisis and Great Recession still linger in Americans’ personal finances, researchers at the New York Fed found.
Mortgage debt outstanding nearly doubled in the period from 2000 and 2006, but has risen only about 1% since 2012, according to data compiled in the regional bank’s quarterly report on household debt and crisis.
Put another way, in 2008 just as the subprime crisis was coming to a head, Americans had $12.68 trillion in debt outstanding, of which housing debt made up $10 trillion, or 79% of the total. In the fourth quarter of 2015, there was $12.12 trillion in total debt, and housing’s share had dwindled to 72%, or $8.74 trillion.
One of the biggest contributors to the decline in mortgage debt is that Americans aren’t taking equity out of their homes at nearly the same rate as in the prior decade. Cash-out refinances and home equity lines of credit rose at a rate of more than $300 billion every year from 2003-2007. In 2015, such debt grew only by $30 billion.
“In fact,” the researchers note on their blog, “the small amount of cash-out refi going on is almost completely offset by people repaying second mortgages and HELOCs.”
But it’s not just a newfound frugality that’s keeping a lid on mortgage debt. The pace of home buying has slowed even as Americans are paying down their home loans.
The total amount paid against mortgage debt in 2015 was $288 billion, or 3.5% of the total outstanding. The last time the total amount of mortgage debt outstanding was $8.25 trillion was 2006, the height of the boom, the researchers noted. That year, consumers paid down only $170 billion, or 2.1% of the balance.
In recent years, much of the pay down has come thanks to lower interest rates. New mortgages are being lent with lower rates, and existing homeowners have been refinancing. The researchers also note that as credit standards have remained tight, most new mortgages are going to people with excellent credit, enabling them to pay lower rates.
Those factors have taken the weighed average interest rate on the outstanding mortgage debt balance from 7.65% in 2000 to 3.85% in 2015.
There’s another factor contributing to the higher pace of pay downs. The existing inventory of mortgage debt outstanding has aged significantly over the past decade as the pace of buying and selling slowed. That means mortgage payments are further along in their amortization process and principal, rather than interest, is being paid down.
Since 2008, the researchers note, aggregate mortgage payments have fallen 8% but principal payments have risen 41%.
The shrinking mortgage debt is a good thing, the New York Fed researchers conclude. Principal pay-down is a form of saving for borrowers, so in the face of rising home prices this means strengthening balance sheets for mortgagors. This is important, of course, as we learned in 2008 just how crucial household debts can be.
But some analysts worry that Americans’ equity is too concentrated in real estate assets. Another lesson from the 2008 crisis is that it can be very dangerous when the price of those assets plummets.
It is audacious that President Obama’s fiscal 2017 budget proposal released Tuesday counts income from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as just another revenue stream – not only for the coming year but for the next ten years.
The Administration has long shown it has a hearty appetite for the mortgage giants’ revenues. The two companies have already sent a combined $241.3 billion to the government since being placed in conservatorship 2008 – over $50 billion more than the $187.5 billion in taxpayer funds they received at that time. Should the “temporary” conservatorship and Third Amendment Sweep remain in force for at least another ten years the White House estimates the GSEs will send another $151.5 billion to the U.S. Treasury. That could mean these privately-owned mortgage giants will have sent nearly an astounding $400 billion to Treasury while needed reforms were put on hold.
The revenue projections in the budget proposal justify assumptions about why the Administration has had much less of an appetite for recommending ways to reform and recapitalize Fannie and Freddie and ensure they could provide liquidity and stability in the mortgage market for years to come. Why sell a cash cow? The Administration effectively yielded its statutory authority – and obligation – to end the conservatorship with the enactment of a massive spending bill late last year that included provisions of the so-called “Jumpstart GSE Reform.” Despite the bill’s name, it put Congress in the driver’s seat and all but guaranteed no additional action will be taken to end the conservatorship this year or perhaps not until well in 2017.
The proposed fiscal 2017 budget, like all blueprints before it, makes no room for the inevitable recession and market correction. Should a downturn occur in the next year or so, taxpayers will be obligated to provide additional bailout funding because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been prohibited from building up adequate capital levels.
In a nod to the persistent problem of access to affordable housing, the budget proposal estimates Fannie and Freddie will provide another $136 million to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 2017. This money is provided to states to finance affordable housing options for the poor. The Administration reports this would be added to the $170 million set to be distributed this year. But here’s the catch: those funds derive from a small fee on loans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac help finance but only as so long as they don’t require another infusion of public money.
In essence, President Obama’s final budget proposal counts money to which it was never entitled; it flaunts a disregard for the Housing and Economic Recovery Act’s requirement that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be made sound and solvent; and it takes a cavalier stance to the fact that under capitalized GSEs could have negative consequences for taxpayers and working Americans striving for home ownership. After eight years, the Administration’s parting message is that needed reforms in housing finance policy will simply have to wait for another president and another Congress. There is not urgency of now, just the audacity of nope.
The rise in rents and home prices is adding additional pressure to the bottom line of most California families. Home prices have been rising steadily for a few years largely driven by low inventory, little construction thanks to NIMBYism, and foreign money flowing into certain markets. But even areas that don’t have foreign demand are seeing prices jump all the while household incomes are stagnant. Yet that growth has hit a wall in 2016, largely because of financial turmoil. We’ve seen a big jump in the financial markets from 2009. Those big investor bets on real estate are paying off as rents continue to move up. For a place like California where net home ownership has fallen in the last decade, a growing list of new renter households is a good thing so long as you own a rental.
The problem of course is that household incomes are not moving up and more money is being siphoned off into an unproductive asset class, a house. Let us look at the changing dynamics in California households.
More renters
Many people would like to buy but simply cannot because their wages do not justify current prices for glorious crap shacks. In San Francisco even high paid tech workers can’t afford to pay $1.2 millionfor your typical Barbie house in a rundown neighborhood. So with little inventory investors and foreign money shift the price momentum. With the stock market moving up nonstop from 2009 there was plenty of wealth injected back into real estate. The last few months are showing cracks in that foundation.
It is still easy to get a mortgage if you have the income to back it up. You now see the resurrection of no money down mortgages. In the end however the number of renter households is up in a big way in California and home ownership is down:
Source: Census
So what we see is that since 2007 we’ve added more than 680,000 renter households but have lost 161,000 owner occupied households. At the same time the population is increasing. When it comes to raw numbers, people are opting to rent for whatever reason. Also, just because the population increases doesn’t mean people are adding new renter households. You have 2.3 million grown adults living at home with mom and dad enjoying Taco Tuesdays in their old room filled with Nirvana and Dr. Dre posters.
And yes, with little construction and unable to buy, many are renting and rents have jumped up in a big way in 2015:
This has slowed down dramatically in 2016. It is hard to envision this pace going on if a reversal in the economy hits (which it always does as the business cycle does its usual thing).
Home ownership rate in a steep decline
In the LA/OC area home prices are up 37 percent in the last three years:
Of course there are no accompanying income gains. If you look at the stock market, the unemployment rate, and real estate values you would expect the public to be happy this 2016 election year. To the contrary, outlier momentum is massive because people realize the system is rigged and are trying to fight back. Watch the Big Short for a trip down memory lane and you’ll realize nothing has really changed since then. The house humping pundits think they found some new secret here. It is timing like buying Apple or Amazon stock at the right time. What I’ve seen is that many that bought no longer can afford their property in a matter of 3 years! Some shop at the dollar store while the new buyers are either foreign money or dual income DINKs (which will take a big hit to their income once those kids start popping out). $2,000 a month per kid daycare in the Bay Area is common.
If this was such a simple decision then the home ownership rate would be soaring. Yet the home ownership rate is doing this:
In the end a $700,000 crap shack is still a crap shack. That $1.2 million piece of junk in San Francisco is still junk. And you better make sure you can carry that housing nut for 30 years. For tech workers, mobility is key so renting serves more as an option on housing versus renting the place from the bank for 30 years. Make no mistake, in most of the US buying a home makes total sense. In California, the massive drop in the home ownership rate shows a different story. And that story is the middle class is disappearing.
Iran enjoys trolling the United States. In fact, it’s something of hobby for the Ayatollah, who has maintained the country’s semi-official “death to America” slogan even as President Rouhani plays good cop with Obama and Kerry.
The ink was barely dry on the nuclear accord when Tehran test-fired a next-gen surface-to-surface ballistic missile with the range to hit archrival Israel, a move that most certainly violated the spirit of the deal if not the letter. Two months later, the IRGC conducted live rocket drills in close proximity to an American aircraft carrier and then, on the eve of President Obama’s final state-of-the-union address, Iran essentially kidnapped 10 American sailors in what amounted to a truly epic publicity stunt.
All of this raises serious questions about just how committed Tehran is to nurturing the newfound relationship with America, a state which for years sought to impoverish Iran as “punishment” for what the West swears was an illegitimate effort to build a nuclear weapon.
As regular readers are no doubt aware, Iran is now set to ramp up crude production by some 500,000 b/d in H1 and by 1 million b/d by the end of the year now that international sanctions have been lifted. In the latest humiliation for Washington, Tehran now says it wants to be paid for its oil in euros, not dollars.
“Iran wants to recover tens of billions of dollars it is owed by India and other buyers of its oil in euros and is billing new crude sales in euros, too, looking to reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar following last month’s sanctions relief,” Reuters reports. “In our invoices we mention a clause that buyers of our oil will have to pay in euros, considering the exchange rate versus the dollar around the time of delivery,” an National Iranian Oil Co. said. Here’s more:
Iran has also told its trading partners who owe it billions of dollars that it wants to be paid in euros rather than U.S. dollars, said the person, who has direct knowledge of the matter.
Iran was allowed to recover some of the funds frozen under U.S.-led sanctions in currencies other than dollars, such as the Omani rial and UAE dhiram.
Switching oil sales to euros makes sense as Europe is now one of Iran’s biggest trading partners.
“Many European companies are rushing to Iran for business opportunities, so it makes sense to have revenue in euros,” said Robin Mills, chief executive of Dubai-based Qamar Energy.
Iran’s insistence on being paid in euros rather than dollars is also a sign of an uneasy truce between Tehran and Washington even after last month’s lifting of most sanctions.
U.S. officials estimate about $100 billion (69 billion pound) of Iranian assets were frozen abroad, around half of which Tehran could access as a result of sanctions relief.
It is not clear how much of those funds are oil dues that Iran would want back in euros.
India owes Tehran about $6 billion for oil delivered during the sanctions years.
Last month, NIOC’s director general for international affairs told Reuters that Iran “would prefer to receive (oil money owed) in some foreign currency, which for the time being is going to be euro.”
Indian government sources confirmed Iran is looking to be paid in euros.
Iran has pushed for years to have the euro replace the dollar as the currency for international oil trade. In 2007, Tehran failed to persuade OPEC members to switch away from the dollar, which its then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a “worthless piece of paper“.
Of course all fiat money amounts to “worthless pieces of paper” and as things currently stand, the USD is the least “worthless” of the lot which means that Iran’s insistence on being paid in a currency that Mario Draghi is hell bent on devaluing might seem strange to anyone who knows nothing about geopolitics.
Put simply, this has very little to do with economics and a whole lot to do with sending a message. “Iran shifted to the euro and canceled trade in dollars because of political reasons,” the same NOIC source told Reuters.
Right. So basically, Iran is looking to punish the US for instituting years of economic tyranny by de-dollarizing the oil trade.
This comes at a time when the petrodollar is under tremendous pressure. Russia and China are already settling oil sales in yuan and “lower for longer” crude has broken the virtuous circle whereby producing countries were net exporters of capital, recycling their USD proceeds into USD assets thus underwriting decades of dollar dominance.
The question, we suppose, is whether other producers move away from the dollar just as Russia and Iran have. If there’s a wholesale shift away from settling oil sales in greenbacks, another instrument of US hegemony will be dismantled and Washington’s leverage over “unfriendly” producers will have been broken.
The irony is this: if Iran follows through on its promises to flood an already oversupplied market, crude might not fetch any “worthless pieces of paper” at all – dollars or euros.
China’s slowdown, cash-strapped emerging markets, the negative interest rate contagion – news from the world economy has been almost uniformly negative for much of the past twelve months. The bright spot amid the gloom has been the relatively upbeat US economy, the strength of which finally convinced the Fed to nudge up interest rates last December. At that time, based on the available data, we concurred that a slow liftoff was the right course of action. But a growing number of macroeconomic reports issued since call that decision into question. From productivity to durable goods orders to real GDP growth, indications are that the pace of recovery is waning. Not enough to raise fears of an imminent recession, but enough to stoke the flames of negative sentiment currently afflicting risk asset markets around the world.
Mary Mary Quite Contrary, How Does Your Economy Grow?
Jobs Friday may be the headline event for macro data nerds, but in our opinion, Productivity Wednesday was the more significant event of the week. The Bureau of Labor Statistics release this past midweek showed that fourth quarter 2015 productivity declined by three percent (annualized) from the previous quarter. Now, productivity can be sporadic from quarter to quarter, but this week’s release is part of a larger trend of lackluster efficiency gains.
As measured by real GDP, an economy can only grow in three ways: population growth, increased labor force participation, or increased output per hour of labor – i.e. productivity. Unfortunately, none of these are trending positive. The chart below offers a snapshot of current labor, productivity and growth trends.
Labor force participation (upper right area of chart) has been in steep decline for the past five years – an outcome of both the jobs lost from the 2007-09 recession and the retirement of baby boomers from the workplace. This decline has helped keep the headline unemployment rate low (blue line in the bottom left chart) and also explains in part the anemic growth in hourly wages over this period. This trend is unlikely to reverse any time soon. If real GDP growth (bottom right chart) is to return to its pre-recession normal trend line, it will have to come from productivity gains. That is why the current trend in productivity (upper left chart) is of such concern.
Of Smartphones and Sewage
The last sustained productivity surge we experienced was in the late 1990s. It is attributed largely to the fruits of the Information Age – the period when the innovations in computing and automation of the previous decades translated into increased efficiencies in the workplace. From 1995 to 2000, quarterly productivity gains averaged 2.6 percent on an annual basis. The pace slackened in the first decade of the current century. In the first five years of this decade – from 2010 to the present – average quarterly productivity growth amounted to just 0.6 percent – more than three times slower than the gains of the late 1990s.
Is that all we can expect from the Smartphone Age? Or are we simply in the middle of an innovation gap – a period in between technological breakthroughs and the translation of those breakthroughs to actual results? It is possible that a new growth age is just around the corner, powered by artificial intelligence, virtual reality and the Internet of Things, among other inventions. It is also possible that the innovations of our day simply don’t pack the same punch as those of other ages. Economist Robert Gordon makes a version of this argument in his recent book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth. Gordon points to the extraordinary period of growth our country experienced from 1870 to 1970 – growth delivered largely thanks to the inventions of electricity and the internal combustion engine – and argues that this was a one-off anomaly that we should not expect to continue indefinitely. What would you rather live without – your Twitter feed and Uber app, or indoor plumbing?
We don’t necessarily agree with Gordon’s conclusion that nothing will ever again rival electricity and motorized transport as an economic growth driver. But we do believe that the growth equation is currently stuck, and the headline data we have seen so far this year do nothing to indicate its becoming unstuck. Long-term growth is not something that drives day-to-day fluctuations in asset prices. But its absence is a problem that is increasingly part of the conversation about where markets go from here. Stay tuned for more Productivity Wednesdays.
No one has called long-duration treasury yields better than Lacy Hunt at Hoisington Management. He says they are going lower. If the US is in or headed for recession then I believe he is correct.
“Debt only works if it generates an income to repay principle and interest.”
Research indicates that when public and private debt rises above 250% of GDP it has very serious effects on economic growth. There is no bit of evidence that indicates an indebtedness problem can be solved by taking on further debt.
One of the objectives of QE was to boost the stock market, on theory that an improved stock market will increase wealth and ultimately consumer spending. The other mechanism was that somehow by buying Government securities the Fed was in a position to cause the stock market to rise. But when the Fed buys government securities the process ends there. They can buy government securities and cause the banks to surrender one type of government asset for another government asset. There was no mechanism to explain why QE should boost the stock market, yet we saw that it did. The Fed gave a signal to decision makers that they were going to protect financial assets, in other words they incentivized decision makers to view financial assets as more valuable than real assets. So effectively these decision makers transferred funds that would have gone into the real economy into the financial economy, as a result the rate of growth was considerably smaller than expected.
“In essence the way in which it worked was by signaling that real assets were inferior to financial assets. The Fed, by going into an untested program of QE effectively ended up making things worse off.”
Flattening of the Yield Curve
“Monetary policies currently are asymmetric. If the Fed tried to do another round of QE and/or negative interest rates, the evidence is overwhelming that will not make things better. However if the Fed wishes to constrain economic activity, to tighten monetary conditions as they did in December; those mechanisms are still in place.”
They are more effective because the domestic and global economy is more heavily indebted than normal. The fact we are carrying abnormally high debt levels is the reason why small increases in interest rate channels through the economy more quickly.
If the Fed wishes to tighten which they did in December then sticking to the old traditional and tested methods is best. They contracted the monetary base which ultimately puts downward pressure on money and credit growth. As the Fed was telegraphing that they were going to raise the federal funds rate it had the effect of raising the intermediate yield but not the long term yields which caused the yield curve to flatten. It is a signal from the market place that the market believes the outlook is lower growth and lower inflation. When the Fed tightens it has a quick impact and when the Fed eases it has a negative impact.
The critical factor for the long bond is the inflationary environment. Last year was a disappointing year for the economy, moreover the economy ended on a very low note. There are outward manifestations of the weakening in economy activity. One impartial measure is what happened to commodity prices, which are of course influenced by supply and demand factors. But when there are broad declines in all the major indices it is an indication of a lack of demand. The Fed tightened monetary conditions into a weakening domestic global economy, in other words they hit it when it was already receding, which tends to further weaken the almost non-existent inflationary forces and for an investor increases the value.
Failure of Quantitative Easing
“If you do not have pricing power, it is an indication of rough times which is exactly what we have.”
The fact that the Fed made an ill-conceived move in December should not be surprising to economists. A detailed study was done of the Fed’s 4 yearly forecasts which they have been making since 2007. They have missed every single year.
That was another in a series of excellent interviews by Gordon Long. There’s much more in the interview. Give it a play.
Finally, lest anyone scream to high heavens, Lacy is obviously referring to price inflation, not monetary inflation which has been rampent.
From my standpoint, consumer price deflation may be again at hand. Asset deflation in equities, and junk bonds is a near given.
The Fed did not save the world as Ben Bernanke proclaimed. Instead, the Fed fostered a series of asset bubble boom-bust cycles with increasing amplitude over time.
The bottom is a long, long ways down in terms of time, or price, or both.
The six-bedroom mansion in the shadow of Southern California’s Sierra Madre Mountains has lime trees and a swimming pool, tennis courts and a sauna — the kind of place that would have sold quickly just a year ago, according to real estate agent Kanney Zhang.
Not now.
Zhang is shopping it for a discounted $3.68 million, but nobody’s biting. Her clients, a couple from China, are getting anxious. They’re the kind of well-heeled international investors who fueled a four-year luxury real estate boom that helped pull America out of its worst housing slump since the 1930s. Now the couple is reeling from the selloff in the Chinese stock market and looking to raise cash to shore up finances.
In the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia, where Zhang is struggling to sell the six-bedroom home, dozens of aging ranch houses were demolished to make way for 38 mansions built with Chinese buyers in mind. They have manicured lawns and wok kitchens and are priced as high as $12 million. Many of them sit empty because the prices are out of the range of most domestic buyers, said Re/Max broker Rudy Kusuma, who blames a crackdown by the Chinese on large sums leaving the country.
Well, I have some more bad news for mansion-flipping Chinese nationals.
Europe’s biggest lender HSBC will no longer provide mortgages to some Chinese nationals who buy real estate in the United States, a policy change that comes as Beijing is battling to stem a swelling crowd of citizens trying to get money out of China.
An HSBC spokesman in New York told Reuters on Wednesday that the new policy went into effect last week, roughly a month after China suspended Standard Chartered and DBS Group Holdings Ltd from conducting some foreign exchange business and as authorities try to limit capital outflows.
Realtors of luxury property in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Vancouver, said more than 80 percent of wealthy Chinese buyers have ties to China.
Luxury homes news website Mansion Global, which first reported the HSBC policy change, said it would affect Chinese nationals holding temporary visitor ‘B’ visas if the majority of their income and assets are maintained in China.
Meanwhile…
HSBC’s pivot away from lending to some Chinese nationals abroad comes as other international banks clamor to lend more to wealthy Chinese.
The Royal Bank of Canada scrapped its C$1.25 million cap on mortgages to borrowers with no local credit history last year in a bid to tap into surging demand for financing from wealthy immigrant buyers.
According to the California Association of Realtors, California existing home sales rebounded in December 2015, after new loan disclosure rules delayed closings in November 2015.
U.S. home sales exceeded the 400,000-unit level in December after falling short in November. Closed escrow sales of existing, single-family detached homes in California totaled a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 405,530 units in December, according to information collected by C.A.R.
The statewide sales figure represents what would be the total number of homes sold during 2015 if sales maintained the December pace throughout the year. It is adjusted to account for seasonal factors that typically influence home sales.
For 2015 as a whole, a preliminary figure of 407,060 single-family homes closed escrow in California, up 6.4 percent from a revised 382,720 in 2014.
The December figure was up 9.6 percent from the revised 370,070 level in November and up 10.7 percent compared with home sales in December 2014 of a revised 366,460. The month-to-month increase in sales was the largest since January 2011, and the year-to-year increase was the largest since July 2015.
“As we speculated, sales that were delayed in November because of The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new loan disclosure rules closed in December instead, which led to the greatest monthly sales increase in nearly five years,” said C.A.R. President Ziggy Zicarelli. “Sales increased across the board in all price segments in December, but improvement in the sub-$500,000 market was more pronounced as many homes affected by the new loan disclosures were priced under the conforming loan limit.”
The median price of an existing, single-family detached California home rose 2.6 percent in December to $489,310 from $477,060 in November. December’s median price was 8.0 percent higher than the revised $453,270 recorded in December 2014. The median sales price is the point at which half of homes sold for more and half sold for less; it is influenced by the types of homes selling as well as a general change in values. The year-to-year price gain was the largest since August 2014.
“In line with our forecast, California’s housing market experienced strong sales and price growth throughout last year, with the median price increasing 6.2 percent for the year as a whole to reach $474,420 in 2015,” said C.A.R. Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. “Looking forward, we expect the foundation for the housing market to remain strong throughout the year, with moderate increases in home sales and prices, but headwinds of tight housing supply and low affordability will remain a challenge.”
Other key points from C.A.R.’s December 2015 resale housing report include:
While more sales closed in December, the number of active listings continued to drop from both the previous month and year. Active listings at the statewide level dropped 11.7 percent from November and decreased 7.9 percent from December 2014. At the regional level, total active listings continued to decline from the previous year in Southern California, Central Valley, and the San Francisco Bay Area, dropping 9.6 percent, 7.6 percent, and 5.2 percent, respectively.
The sharp increase in sales in December and fewer listings combined to tighten the available supply of homes on the market. C.A.R.’s Unsold Inventory Index fell to 2.8 months in December from 4.2 months in November. The index stood at 3.2 months in December 2014. The index indicates the number of months needed to sell the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate. A six- to seven-month supply is considered typical in a normal market.
The median number of days it took to sell a single-family home increased in December to 39.5 days, compared with 37.5 days in November and 44.1 days in December 2014.
According to C.A.R.’s newest housing market indicator, which measures the sales-to-list price ratio*, properties are generally selling below the list price, except in the San Francisco Bay Area, where a lack of homes for sale is pushing sales prices higher than original asking prices. The statewide measure suggests that homes sold at a median of 97.9 percent of the list price in December, up from 97.2 percent at the same time last year. The Bay Area is the only region where homes are selling above original list prices due to constrained supply with a ratio of 100.7 percent in December, up from 100 percent a year ago.
The average price per square foot** for an existing, single-family home was $230 in December 2015, up from $222 in December 2014.
San Francisco continued to have the highest price per square foot in December at $749/sq. ft., followed by San Mateo ($715/sq. ft.), and Santa Clara ($568/sq. ft.). The three counties with the lowest price per square foot in December were Siskiyou ($107/sq. ft.), Tulare ($123/sq. ft.), and Merced ($124/sq. ft.).
Mortgage rates inched up in December, with the 30-year, fixed-mortgage interest rate averaging 3.96 percent, up from 3.94 percent in November and up from 3.86 percent in December 2014, according to Freddie Mac. Adjustable-mortgage interest rates also edged up, averaging 2.66 percent in December, up from 2.63 percent in November and up from 2.40 percent in December 2014.
Distressed homeowners who, with their lender’s approval, arrange a short sale of their property — for less than they owe — can’t be sued for the balance of their debt, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The unanimous decision protects borrowers who increasingly resorted to short sales as property values fell at the end of the last decade. The Legislature amended state law in 2012 to provide them explicit protection against deficiency judgments, but a lawyer for the borrower in Thursday’s case said that about 200,000 Californians had conducted short sales in the previous five years and were potentially affected by the ruling.
“The little guy won today,” said the attorney, Andrew Stilwell.
His client, Carol Coker, borrowed $452,000 in 2004 to buy a condominium in San Diego County. She fell behind on her payments, and in March 2010 JPMorgan Chase Bank, which then held the loan, sent her a default notice and began foreclosure proceedings.
The bank then agreed to allow Coker to sell the condo to another buyer for $400,000, collect the proceedings and release its lien on the property. But after the sale, the bank billed her for the $116,000 balance due on her loan.
The state law at the time, originally enacted in 1933 and amended in 1989, prohibited a bank from seeking a deficiency judgment, for the balance due on its loan, after the bank itself foreclosed on a home. But the law did not address short sales, which were rare until the late 2000s, and JPMorgan Chase argued that the anti-deficiency rule did not apply to those cases.
But the court said the rationale of the law applied equally to short sales.
“For more than half a century, this court has understood the statute to limit a lender’s recovery on a standard purchase-money loan to the value of the security,” Justice Goodwin Liu said in the 7-0 decision.
Liu said the law was intended to maintain economic stability and protect property buyers from severe losses during periods of economic decline.
Coker’s short sale of the condo — which she bought as a residence, rather than an investment — “did not change the standard purchase-money character of her loan,” Liu said. He said the short sale, “like a foreclosure sale, allowed Chase to realize and exhaust its security” in the property.
Stilwell said the ruling would also affect cases in federal Bankruptcy Courts in California, which rely on state laws affecting creditors and debtors.
“The Supreme Court shut the door on banks trying to go too far to take advantage of the poor, the middle class, people who couldn’t afford what they got into in this real estate debacle,” he said.
The bank’s lawyers referred inquiries to bank headquarters in New York, which could not be reached for comment late Thursday.
Movie sequels are rarely as good as the original films on which they’re based. The same dictum, it appears, holds for finance.
The 2008 housing market collapse was bad enough, but it appears now that we’re on the verge of experiencing it all again. And the financial sequel, working from a similar script as its original version, could prove to be just as devastating to the American taxpayer.
The Federal National Mortgage Association (commonly referred to as Fannie Mae) plans a mortgage loan reboot, which could produce the same insane and predictable results as when the mortgage agency loaned so much money to people who had neither the income, nor credit history, to qualify for a traditional loan.
The Obama administration proposes the HomeReady program, a new mortgage program largely targeting high-risk immigrants, which, writes Investors.com, “for the first time lets lenders qualify borrowers by counting income from non-borrowers living in the household. What could go wrong?”
The question should answer itself.
The administration apparently believes that by changing the dirty words “subprime” to “alternative” mortgages, the process will be more palatable to the public. But, as Investor’s notes, instead of the name HomeReady, which will offer the mortgages, “It might as well be called DefaultReady, because it is just as risky as the subprime junk Fannie was peddling on the eve of the crisis.”
Before the 2008 housing bubble burst, one’s mortgage fitness was supposed to be based on the income of the borrower, the person whose name would be on the deed and who was responsible for making timely monthly payments. Under this new scheme — and scheme is what it is — the combined income of everyone living in the house will be considered for a conventional home loan backed by Fannie. One may even claim income from people not living in the home, such as the borrower’s parents.
If, or as recent history proves, when the approved borrower defaults, who will pay? Taxpayers, of course, not the politicians and certainly not those associated with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose leaders made out like the bandits they were during the last mortgage go-round. As CNN Money reported in 2011, “Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac received the biggest federal bailout of the financial crisis. And nearly $100 million of those tax dollars went to lucrative pay packages for top executives, filings show.”
In case further reminders are needed of the outrageous behavior of financial institutions that contributed to the housing market collapse and a recession whose pain is still being felt by many, Goldman Sachs has agreed to a civil settlement of up to $5 billion for its role associated with the marketing and selling of faulty mortgage securities to investors.
Go see the film “The Big Short” to be reminded of the cynicism of many in the financial industry. It follows on the heels of the HBO film “Too Big to Fail,” which revealed how politicians and banks were part of the scam that harmed just about everyone but themselves. According to The New York Times, only one top banker, Kareem Serageldin, went to prison for concealing hundreds of millions in losses in Credit Suisse’s mortgage-backed securities portfolio. Many more should have joined him.
Under the latest mortgage proposal, it’s no credit, no problem. An immigrant can qualify with a credit score as low as 620. That’s subprime. And the borrower has only to put 3 percent down.
Investor’s reports, “Fannie says that 1 in 4 Hispanic households share dwellings — and finances — with extended families. It says this is a large ‘under served’ market.”
Is this another cynical attempt by Democrats, along with protecting illegal immigrants, to win Hispanic votes without regard to the potential cost to taxpayers? Wasn’t that the problem during the last housing market collapse? Could it happen again? Sure it could. Do politicians care? It doesn’t appear so.
Following an epic stock rout to start the year, one which has wiped out trillions in market capitalization, it has rapidly become a consensus view (even by staunch Fed supporters such as the Nikkei Times) that the Fed committed a gross policy mistake by hiking rates on December 16, so much so that this week none other than former Fed president Kocherlakota openly mocked the Fed’s credibilitywhen he pointed out the near record plunge in forward break evens suggesting the market has called the Fed’s bluff on rising inflation.
As we pointed out in early December, conveniently we have a great historical primer of what happened the last time the Fed hiked at a time when it misread the US economy, which was also at or below stall speed, and the Fed incorrectly assumed it was growing.
We are talking of course, about the infamous RRR-hike of 1936-1937, which took place smack in the middle of the Great Recession.
Here is what happened then, as we described previously in June.
[No episode is more comparable to what is about to happen] than what happened in the US in 1937, smack in the middle of the Great Depression. This is the only time in US history which is analogous to what the Fed will attempt to do, and not only because short rates collapsed to zero between 1929-36 but because the Fed’s balance sheet jumped from 5% to 20% of GDP to offset the Great Depression.
Just like now.
Follows a detailed narrative of precisely what happened from a recent Bridgewater note:
The first tightening in August 1936 did not hurt stock prices or the economy, as is typical.
The tightening of monetary policy was intensified by currency devaluations by France and Switzerland, which chose not to move in lock-step with the US tightening. The demand for dollars increased. By late 1936, the President and other policy makers became increasingly concerned by gold inflows (which allowed faster money and credit growth).
The economy remained strong going into early 1937. The stock market was still rising, industrial production remained strong, and inflation had ticked up to around 5%. The second tightening came in March of 1937 and the third one came in May. While neither the Fed nor the Treasury anticipated that the increase in required reserves combined with the sterilization program would push rates higher, the tighter money and reduced liquidity led to a sell-off in bonds, a rise in the short rate, and a sell-off in stocks. Following the second increase in reserves in March 1937, both the short-term rate and the bond yield spiked.
Stocks also fell that month nearly 10%. They bottomed a year later, in March of 1938, declining more than 50%!
Or, as Bank of America summarizes it: “The Fed exit strategy completely failed as the money supply immediately contracted; Fed tightening in H1’37 was followed in H2’37 by a severe recession and a 49% collapse in the Dow Jones.”
* * *
As it turns out, however, the Fed did not even have to read this blog, or Bank of America, or even Bridgewater, to know the result of its rate hike. All it had to do was to read… the Fed.
But first, as J Pierpont Morganreminds us, it was Charles Kindleberger’s “The World in Depression” which summarized succinctly just how 2015/2016 is a carbon copy of the 1936/1937 period. In explaining how and why both the markets and the economy imploded so spectacularly after the Fed’s decision to tighten in 1936, Kindleberger says:
“For a considerable time there was no understanding of what had happened. Then it became clear. The spurt in activity from October 1936 had been dominated by inventory accumulation. This was especially the case in automobiles, where, because of fears of strikes, supplies of new cars had been built up. It was the same in steel and textiles – two other industries with strong CIO unions.”
If all off this sounds oddly familiar, here’s the reason why: as we showed just last week, while inventories remain at record levels, wholesale sales are crashing, and the result is that the nominal spread between inventories and sales is all time high.
The inventory liquidation cycle was previewed all the way back in June in “The Coming US Recession Charted” long before it became “conventional wisdom.”
Kindleberger continues:
When it became evident after the spring of of 1937 that commodity prices were not going to continue upward, the basis for the inventory accumulation was undermined, and first in textiles, then in steel, the reverse process took place.
Oil anyone?
And then this: “The steepest economic descent in the history of the United States, which lost half the ground gained for many indexes since 1932, proved that the economic recovery in the United States had been built on an illusion.“
Which, of course, is what we have been saying since day 1, and which even such finance legends as Bill Gross now openly admitwhen they say that the zero-percent interest rates and quantitative easing created leverage that fueled a wealth effect and propped up markets in a way that now seems unsustainable, adding that “the wealth effect is created by leverage based on QE’s and 0% rates.“
The events of 1929 taught us that the absence of any rise in prices did not prove that no crisis was pending. 1937 has taught us that an abundant supply of gold and a cheap money policy do not prevent prices from falling.
If only the Fed had listened to, well, the Fed.
What happened next? The chart below shows the stock market reaction in 1937 to the Fed’s attempt to tighten smack in the middle pf the Great Depression.
If the Fed was right, the far more prophetic 1937 Fed that is not the current wealth effect-pandering iteration, then the market is about to see half its value wiped out.
Earlier this week, before first JPM and then Wells Fargo revealed that not all is well when it comes to bank energy loan exposure, a small Tulsa-based lender, BOK Financial, said that its fourth-quarter earnings would miss analysts’ expectationsbecause its loan-loss provisions would be higher than expected as a result of a single unidentified energy-industry borrower. This is what the bank said:
“A single borrower reported steeper than expected production declines and higher lease operating expenses, leading to an impairment on the loan. In addition, as we noted at the start of the commodities downturn in late 2014, we expected credit migration in the energy portfolio throughout the cycle and an increased risk of loss if commodity prices did not recover to a normalized level within one year. As we are now into the second year of the downturn, during the fourth quarter we continued to see credit grade migration and increased impairment in our energy portfolio. The combination of factors necessitated a higher level of provision expense.”
Another bank, this time the far larger Regions Financial, said its fourth-quarter charge-offs jumped $18 million from the prior quarter to $78 million, largely because of problems with a single unspecified energy borrower. More than one-quarter of Regions’ energy loans were classified as “criticized” at the end of the fourth quarter.
It didn’t stop there and as the WSJ added, “It’s starting to spread” according to William Demchak, chief executive of PNC Financial Services Group Inc. on a conference call after the bank’s earnings were announced. Credit issues from low energy prices are affecting “anybody who was in the game as the oil boom started,” he said. PNC said charge-offs rose in the fourth quarter from the prior quarter but didn’t specify whether that was due to issues in its relatively small $2.6 billion oil-and-gas portfolio.
Then, on Friday, U.S. Bancorp disclosed the specific level of reserves it holds against its $3.2 billion energy portfolio for the first time. “The reason we did that is that oil is under $30” said Andrew Cecere, the bank’s chief operating officer. What else will Bancorp disclose if oil drops below $20… or $10?
It wasn’t just the small or regional banks either: as we first reported, on Thursday JPMorgan did something it hasn’t done in 22 quarter: its net loan loss reserve increased as a result of a jump in energy loss reserves. On the earnings call, Jamie Dimon said that while he is not worried about big oil companies, his bank has started to increase provisions against smaller energy firms.
Then yesterday it was the turn of the one bank everyone had been waiting for, the one which according to many has the greatest exposure toward energy: Wells Fargo. To be sure, in order not to spook its investors, among whom most famously one Warren Buffet can be found, for Wells it was mostly “roses”, although even Wells had no choice but to set aside $831 million for bad loans in the period, almost double the amount a year ago and the largest since the first quarter of 2013.
What was laughable is that the losses included $118 million from the bank’s oil and gas portfolio, an increase of $90 million from the third quarter. Why laughable? Because that $90 million in higher oil-and-gas loan losses was on a total of $17 billion in oil and gas loans, suggesting the bank has seen a roughly 0.5% impairment across its loan book in the past quarter.
How could this be? Needless to say, this struck us as very suspicious because it clearly suggests that something is going on for Wells (and all of its other peer banks), to rep and warrant a pristine balance sheet, at least until a “digital” moment arrives when just like BOK Financial, banks can no longer hide the accruing losses and has to charge them off, leading to a stock price collapse.
Which brings us to the focus of this post: earlier this week, before the start of bank earnings season, before BOK’s startling announcement, we reported we had heard of a rumor that Dallas Fed members had met with banks in Houston and explicitly “told them not to force energy bankruptcies” and to demand asset sales instead.
Rumor Houston office of Dallas Fed met with banks, told them not to force energy bankruptcies; demand asset sales instead
We can now make it official, because moments ago we got confirmation from a second source who reports that according to an energy analyst who had recently met Houston funds to give his 1H16e update, one of his clients indicated that his firm was invited to a lunch attended by the Dallas Fed, which had previously instructed lenders to open up their entire loan books for Fed oversight; the Fed was shocked by what it had found in the non-public facing records. The lunch was also confirmed by employees at a reputable Swiss investment bank operating in Houston.
This is what took place: the Dallas Fed met with the banks a week ago and effectively suspended mark-to-market on energy debts and as a result no impairments are being written down. Furthermore, as we reported earlier this week, the Fed indicated “under the table” that banks were to work with the energy companies on delivering without a markdown on worry that a backstop, or bail-in, was needed after reviewing loan losses which would exceed the current tier 1 capital tranches.
In other words, the Fed has advised banks to cover up major energy-related losses.
Why the reason for such unprecedented measures by the Dallas Fed? Our source notes that having run the numbers, it looks like at least 18% of some banks commercial loan book are impaired, and that’s based on just applying the 3Q marks for public debt to their syndicate sums.
In other words, the ridiculously low increase in loss provisions by the likes of Wells and JPM suggest two things: i) the real losses are vastly higher, and ii) it is the Fed’s involvement that is pressuring banks to not disclose the true state of their energy “books.”
Naturally, once this becomes public, the Fed risks a stampeded out of energy exposure because for the Fed to intervene in such a dramatic fashion it suggests that the US energy industry is on the verge of a subprime-like blow up.
Putting this all together, a source who wishes to remain anonymous, adds that equity has been levitating only because energy funds are confident the syndicates will remain in size to meet net working capital deficits. Which is a big gamble considering that as we first showed ten days ago, over the past several weeks banks have already quietly reduced their credit facility exposure to at least 25 deeply distressed (and soon to be even deeper distressed) names.
However, the big wildcard here is the Fed: what we do not know is whether as part of the Fed’s latest “intervention”, it has also promised to backstop bank loan losses. Keep in mind that according to Wolfe Research and many other prominent investors, as many as one-third of American oil-and-gas producers face bankruptcy and restructuring by mid-2017 unless oil rebounds dramatically from current levels.
However, the reflexive paradox embedded in this problem was laid out yesterday by Goldman who explainedthat oil could well soar from here but only if massive excess supply is first taken out of the market, aka the “inflection phase.” In other words, for oil prices to surge, there would have to be a default wave across the US shale space, which would mean massive energy loan book losses, which may or may not mean another Fed-funded bailout of US and international banks with exposure to shale.
What does it all mean? Here is the conclusion courtesy of our source:
If revolvers are not being marked anymore, then it’s basically early days of subprime when mbs payback schedules started to fall behind. My question for bank eps is if you issued terms in 2013 (2012 reserves) at 110/bbl, and redetermined that revolver in 2014 at 86, how can you be still in compliance with that same rating and estimate in 2016 (knowing 2015 ffo and shut ins have led to mechanically 40pc ffo decreases year over year and at least 20pc rebooting of pud and pdnp to 2p via suspended or cancelled programs). At what point in next 12 months does interest payments to that syndicate start to unmask the fact that tranch is never being recovered, which I think is what pva and mhr was all about.
Beyond just the immediate cash flow and stock price implications and fears that the situation with US energy is much more serious if it merits such an intimate involvement by the Fed, a far bigger question is why is the Fed once again in the a la carte bank bailout game, and how does it once again select which banks should mark their energy books to market (and suffer major losses), and which ones are allowed to squeeze by with fabricated marks and no impairment at all? Wasn’t the purpose behind Yellen’s rate hike to burst a bubble? Or is the Fed less than “macro prudential” when it realizes that pulling away the curtain on of the biggest bubbles it has created would result in another major financial crisis?
The Dallas Fed, whose new president Robert Steven Kaplan previouslyworked at Goldman Sachs for 22 years rising to the rank of vice chairman of investment banking, has not responded to our request for a comment as of this writing. ( source: ZeroHedge )
Fed Response
Over the weekend, we gave the Dallas Fed a chance to respond to a Zero Hedge story corroborated by at least two independent sources, in which we reported that Federal Reserve members had met with bank lenders with distressed loan exposure to the US oil and gas sector and, after parsing through the complete bank books, had advised banks to i) not urge creditor counterparties into default, ii) urge asset sales instead, and iii) ultimately suspend mark to market in various instances.
Moments ago the Dallas Fed, whose president since September 2015 is Robert Steven Kaplan, a former Goldman Sachs career banker who after 22 years at the bank rose to the rank of vice chairman of its investment bank group – an odd background for a regional Fed president – took the time away from its holiday schedule to respond to Zero Hedge.
We thank the Dallas Fed for their prompt attention to this important matter. After all, as one of our sources commented, “If revolvers are not being marked anymore, then it’s basically early days of subprime when MBS payback schedules started to fall behind.” Surely there is nothing that can grab the public’s attention more than a rerun of the mortgage crisis, especially if confirmed by the highest institution.
As such we understand the Dallas Fed’s desire to avoid a public reaction and preserve semantic neutrality by refuting “such guidance.”
That said, we fully stand by our story, and now that we have engaged the Dallas Fed we would like to ask several very important follow up questions, to probe deeper into a matter that is of significant public interest as well as to clear up any potential confusion as to just what “guidance” the Fed is referring to.
Has the Dallas Fed, or any other members and individuals of the Federal Reserve System, met with U.S. bank and other lender management teams in recent weeks/months and if so what was the purpose of such meetings?
Has the Dallas Fed, or any other members and individuals of the Federal Reserve System, requested that banks and other lenders present their internal energy loan books and loan marks for Fed inspection in recent weeks/months?
Has the Dallas Fed, or any other members and individuals of the Federal Reserve System, discussed options facing financial lenders, and other creditors, who have distressed credit exposure including but not limited to:
avoiding defaults on distressed debtor counter parties?
encouraging asset sales for distressed debtor counter parties?
advising banks to avoid the proper marking of loan exposure to market?
advising banks to mark loan exposure to a model framework, one created either by the creditors themselves or one presented by members of the Federal Reserve network?
avoiding the presentation of public filings with loan exposure marked to market values of counter party debt?
Was the Dallas Fed, or any other members and individuals of the Federal Reserve System, consulted before the January 15, 2016 Citigroup Q4 earnings call during which the bank refused to disclose to the public the full extent of its reserves related to its oil and gas loan exposure, as quoted from CFO John Gerspach:
“while we are taking what we believe to be the appropriate reserves for that, I’m just not prepared to give you a specific number right now as far as the amount of reserves that we have on that particular book of business. That’s just not something that we’ve traditionally done in the past.”
Furthermore, if the Dallas Fed, or any other members and individuals of the Federal Reserve system, were not consulted when Citigroup made the decision to withhold such relevant information on potential energy loan losses, does the Federal Reserve System believe that Citigroup is in compliance with its public disclosure requirements by withholding such information from its shareholders and the public?
If the Dallas Fed does not issue “such” guidance to banks, then what precisely guidance does the Dallas Fed issue to banks?
Since the Fed is an entity tasked with serving the public, and since it took the opportunity to reply in broad terms to our previous article, we are confident that Mr. Kaplan and his subordinates will promptly address these follow up concerns.
Finally, in light of this official refutation by the Dallas Fed, we are confident that disclosing the Fed’s internal meeting schedules is something the Fed will not object to, and we hereby request that Mr. Kaplan disclose all of his personal meetings with members of the U.S. and international financial system since coming to office, both through this article, and through a FOIA request we are submitting concurrently. (source: ZeroHedge)
Fed Scrambles as Oil ETN Premium Soars to New Highs
Over the weekend, Zero Hedge reported exclusively how the Dallas Fed is pulling strings behind the scenes to conceal the fallout from the oil market crash. By suspending mark-to-market on energy loans and distorting the accounting, they are postponing the inevitable as long as possible. The current situation is eerily reminiscent to the heyday of the mortgage market in 2007, when mortgage defaults started to pick up, and yet the credit default swaps that tracked them continued to decline, bringing losses to those brave enough to trade against the crowd.
Amidst the market chaos on Friday, a trader brought something strange to my attention. He asked me exactly what the hell was going on with this ETN he was watching. I took a closer look and was baffled. It took me awhile to put the pieces together. Then when I saw the story about mark-to-market being suspended, it all made sense.
Here is the daily premium for the last 6 months on the Barclays iPath ETN that tracks oil:
Initially, I thought this was merely a sign of retail desperation. As they faced devastating losses on their oil stocks, small investors turned to products like oil ETNs as they tried to grasp the elusive oil profits their financial adviser promised them a year ago. Oblivious to the cruel mechanics of ETNs, they piled in head first, in spite of the soaring premium to fair value. After all, Larry Fink is making the rounds to convince the small investor that ETFs are indeed safer than mutual funds. Because nothing says “safe” like buying an ETN that is 36% above its fair value.
Sure, there are differences between ETFs and ETNs, particularly regarding their solvency in the event of an issuer default, but the premium/discount problem plagues ETFs and ETNs alike. Nonetheless, widely trusted retail sources of investment information perpetuate the myth that ETNs do not have tracking errors.
I thought I had connected the dots on the Oil ETN story. It was just retail ignorance. Then I saw this comment from a Zero Hedge reader:
He had a point. On Friday, stocks were slammed, and the team known as 3:30 Ramp Capital was noticeably absent.
The current stock market decline began with transportation stocks and small capitalization stocks severely under-performing the market.
Weakness then spread to the energy complex and high-yield bonds.
Yield focused stocks were the next to fall, with Kinder Morgan being the most prominent example.
Stalwarts like Apple and Gilead lost their momentum with the August 2015 decline and never regained their mojo.
In 2016, a slow motion crash is occurring in the stock market, and the price action has finally impacted the leading FANG stocks.
“Hysteria is impossible without an audience. Panicking by yourself is the same as laughing alone in an empty room. You feel really silly.” – Chuck Palahniuk
“Life is ten percent what you experience and ninety percent how you respond to it.” – Dorothy M. Neddermeyer
Introduction:
The stock market decline has gained momentum in 2016, and much like a runaway train, the current decline will be hard to stop, until the persistent overvaluations plaguing the stock market over this current bull market are corrected.
The correction that has caused the average stock in the United States to correct over 25%, thus far, started as an innocuous move down in global equities, outside of the depression enveloping the downtrodden emerging markets and commodities stocks, and then spread from transportation stocks to market leaders like biotechnology companies. The first wave down culminated in a gut-wrenching August 2015 sell-off that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) fall 1000 points at the open on August 24th, 2015. The panic was quickly brushed aside, but not forgotten, as market leading stocks made new highs in the fall of 2015.
That optimism, has given way to the reality that global quantitative easing has not provided the boost that its biggest supporters claimed. Now, everything is falling in tandem, and there is not much hope with the Fed nearly out of bullets, other than perhaps lower energy prices, to spark a true recovery.
The financial markets have taken notice, and are repricing assets accordingly. Just like forays to the upside are not one way affairs, the move down will not be a one-way adjustment, and investors should be prepared for sharp counter-trend rallies, and the price action yesterday, Thursday, January 14th, 2016 is a perfect example. To close, with leading stocks now suffering sizable declines that suggest institutional liquidation, investors should have their respective defensive teams on the field, and be looking for opportunistic, out-of-favor investments that have already been discounted.
Thesis:
The market correction is gaining steam and will not be completed until leading stocks and market capitalization indexes correct materially.
Small-Caps & Transports Led The Downturn:
While U.S. stocks have outperformed international markets since 2011, 2014 and 2015 saw the development of material divergences. Specifically, smaller capitalization stocks, measured by the Russell 2000 Index, and represented by the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (NYSEARCA:IWM), began under performing in 2014. Importantly, small-caps went on to make a new high in 2015, but their negative divergence all the way back in 2014, planted the seeds for the current decline, as illustrated in the chart below.
Building on the negative divergences, transportation stocks began severely under performing the broader markets in 2015. To illustrate this, I have used the charts of two leading transportation stocks, American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) and Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP), which are depicted below. For the record, I have taken a fundamental interest in both companies as I believe they are leading operators in their industries.
The Next Dominoes – Oil Prices & High Yield Bonds:
Oil prices, as measured by the United States Oil Fund (NYSEARCA:USO) in the chart below, were actually one of the first shoes to drop, even prior to small-cap stocks, starting a sizable move down in June of 2014.
Industry stalwart Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) peaked in July of 2014, and despite tremendous volatility since then, has been in a confirmed downtrend.
As the energy complex fell apart with declining oil prices, high-yield bonds, as measured by the iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond Fund (NYSEARCA:HYG), and by the SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:JNK), made material new lows.
Yield Focused Stocks Take It On The Chin
As the energy downturn intensified, many companies that had focused on providing attractive yields, to their yield starved investors, saw their business models questioned at best, and implode at worst. The most prominent example was shares of Kinder Morgan (NYSE:KMI).
The fallout did not stop with KMI, as many MLP s and other yield oriented stocks continue to see declines as 2015 has rolled into 2016. Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB) has been especially hard hit, showing extreme volatility over the past several weeks.
Leading GARP Stocks Never Recovered:
Even though I have been bearish on the markets for some time, I was not sure if the markets would melt-up or meltdown in December of 2015, as I articulated in a Seeking Alpha article at the time.
In hindsight, the under performance of growth-at-a-reasonable-price stocks, like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD), which had struggled ever since the August 2015 sell-off, should have been an ominous sign.
FANG Stocks, The Last Shoe To Drop:
Even as many divergences developed in the financial markets over the last year, many leading stocks made substantial new highs in the fall of 2015, led by the FANG stocks. Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), along with NASDAQ stalwarts Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX), attracted global capital as growth became an increasingly scarce commodity. The last two weeks have challenged the assumption that these companies are a safe-haven, immune from declines impacting the rest of the stock market, as the following charts show.
The PowerShares QQQ ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ), which is designed to track the performance of the NASDAQ 100 Index, and counts five of the world’s ten largest market capitalization companies among its largest holdings, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook, has outperformed the S&P 500 Index, as measured by the SPDRs S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY), for a majority of the current bull market, with a notable exception being the last week of 2015, and the first two weeks of 2016. Wholesale, sustained selling is now starting to grip the markets.
Conclusion – The Market Downturn Is Gaining Momentum:
The developing market correction is gaining momentum. Like an avalanche coming down a mountain, it is impacting everything it touches, and no sectors or companies, even the previously exalted FANG stocks, are immune from its reaches. Investors should have their respective defensive teams on the field, while looking for opportunities in undervalued, out-of-favor assets, as many stocks have been in their own bear markets for years.
Collapse in crude oil prices is a huge blow to areas where oil extraction and associated industries are the bread and butter of the economy.
As petro-economies suffer from the bust in crude prices, the effects are showing up in the housing market.
Take North Dakota, for example, which was on the front lines of the oil boom between 2011 and 2014. In fact, North Dakota is probably the most vulnerable to a downturn in housing because of low oil prices. The economy is smaller and thus more dependent on the oil boom than other places, such as Texas. The state saw an influx of new workers over the past few years, looking for work in in the prolific Bakken Shale. A housing shortage quickly emerged, pushing up prices. With the inability to house all of the new people, rent spiked, as did hotel rates. The overflow led to a proliferation of “man camps.”
Now the boom has reversed. The state’s rig count is down to 53 as of January 13, about one-third of the level from one year ago. Drilling is quickly drying up and production is falling. “The jobs are leaving, and if an area gets depopulated, they can’t take the houses with them and that’s dangerous for the housing market,” Ralph DeFranco, senior director of risk analytics and pricing at Arch Mortgage Insurance Company, told CNN Money.
New home sales were down by 6.3 percent in North Dakota between January and October of 2015 compared to a year earlier. Housing prices have not crashed yet, but there tends to be a bit of a lag with housing prices. JP Ackerman of House Canary says that it typically takes 15 to 24 months before house prices start to show the negative effects of an oil downturn.
According to Arch Mortgage, homes in North Dakota are probably 20 percent overvalued at this point. They also estimate that the state has a 46 percent chance that house prices will decline over the next two years. But that is probably understating the risk since oil prices are not expected to rebound through most of 2016. Moreover, with some permanent damage to the balance sheets of U.S. shale companies, drilling won’t spring back to life immediately upon a rebound in oil prices.
There are some other states that are also at risk of a hit to their housing markets, including Wyoming, West Virginia and Alaska. Out of those three, only Alaska is a significant oil producer, but it is in the midst of a budget crisis because of the twin threats of falling production and rock bottom prices. Alaska’s oil fields are mature, and have been in decline for years. With a massive hole blown through the state’s budget, the Governor has floated the idea of instituting an income tax, a once unthinkable idea.
The downturn in Wyoming and West Virginia has more to do with the collapse in natural gas prices, which continues to hollow out their coal industries. Coal prices have plummeted in recent years, and coal production is now at its lowest level since the Reagan administration. Shale gas production, particularly in West Virginia, partially offsets the decline, but won’t be enough to come to the state’s rescue.
Texas is another place to keep an eye on. However, Arch Mortgage says the economy there is much larger and more diversified than other states, and also better equipped to handle the downturn than it was back in the 1980s during the last oil bust.
But Texas won’t escape unscathed. The Dallas Fed says job growth will turn negative in a few months if oil prices don’t move back to $40 or $50 per barrel. Texas is expected to see an additional 161,200 jobs this year if oil prices move back up into that range. But while that could be the best-case scenario, it would still only amount to one-third of the jobs created in 2014. “The biggest risk to the forecast is if oil prices are in the range of $20 to $30 for much of the year,” Keith Phillips, Dallas Fed Senior Economist, said in a written statement. “Then I expect job growth to slip into negative territory as Houston gets hit much harder and greater problems emerge in the financial sector.”
After 41 consecutive months of increases in house prices in Houston, prices started to decline in third quarter of 2015. In Odessa, TX, near the Permian Basin, home sales declined by 10.6 percent between January and October 2015 compared to a year earlier.
Most Americans will still welcome low prices at the pump. But in the oil boom towns of yesterday, the slowdown is very much being felt.
Some of the richest people in the US, including billionaires Warren Buffett and Sam Zell, have made millions from trailer parks at the expense of the country’s poorest people. Seeing their success, ordinary people from across the country are now trying to follow in their footsteps and become trailer park millionaires.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that an underwater second mortgage cannot be extinguished, or “stripped off,” as unsecured debt for a debtor in bankruptcy, according to the Supreme Court‘s website.
In the cases of Bank of America v. Caulket and Bank of America v. Toledo-Cardona, Florida homeowners David Caulkett and Edelmiro Toldeo-Cardona had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and had second mortgages with Bank of America extinguished by a bankruptcy judge following the housing crisis of 2008 based on the fact that they were completely underwater. On Monday, just more than two months after hearing arguments for the case, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the bank.
When the Supreme Court heard arguments for two cases on March 24, attorneys representing Bank of America contended that the high court should uphold a 1992 decision in the case of Dewsnup v. Timm, which barred debtors in Chapter 7 bankruptcy from “stripping off” an underwater second mortgage down to its market value, thus voiding the junior lien holder’s claim against the debtor. Attorneys for the debtors argued that the Dewsnup decision was irrelevant for the two cases.
Bank of America appealed the bankruptcy judge’s ruling for the two cases, but the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the bankruptcy court’s decision in May 2014, going against the Dewsnup ruling by saying that decision did not apply when the collateral on a junior lien (second mortgage) did not have sufficient enough value. The bank subsequently appealed the 11th Circuit Court’s ruling.
The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the second mortgages should not be treated as unsecured debt, hence upholding the Dewsnup decision. Justice Clarence Thomas, in delivering the opinion of the court, wrote that, “Section 506(d) of the Bankruptcy Code allows a debtor to void a lien on his property ‘[t]o the extent that [the] lien secures a claim against the debtor that is not an allowed secured claim.’ 11 U. S. C. §506(d). These consolidated cases present the question whether a debtor in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding may void a junior mortgage under §506(d) when the debt owed on a senior mortgage exceeds the present value of the property. We hold that a debtor may not, and we therefore reverse the judgments of the Court of Appeals.”
“The Court has spoken, and we respect its ruling,” said Stephanos Bibas, an attorney for defendant David Caulkett, in an email to DS News. “But we are disappointed that the Court extended its earlier precedent in Dewsnup v Timm, even though it acknowledged that the plain words of the statute favor giving relief to homeowners such as Messrs. Caulkett and Toledo-Cardona. We hope that in the near future, the Administration’s home-mortgage-modification programs will offer more relief to homeowners in this situation struggling to save their homes.”
A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment on Monday’s Supreme Court’s ruling.
Click here to read the complete text of the Court’s ruling.
For the Wealthiest, a Private Tax System That Saves Them Billions
Daniel S. Loeb, shown with his wife, Margaret, runs the $17 billion Third Point hedge fund. Mr. Loeb, who has owned a home in East Hampton, has contributed to Jeb Bush’s super PAC and given $1 million to the American Unity Super PAC, which supports gay rights.
WASHINGTON — The hedge fund magnates Daniel S. Loeb, Louis Moore Bacon and Steven A. Cohen have much in common. They have managed billions of dollars in capital, earning vast fortunes. They have invested large sums in art — and millions more in political candidates. Moreover, each has exploited an esoteric tax loophole that saved them millions in taxes. The trick? Route the money to Bermuda and back.
With inequality at its highest levels in nearly a century and public debate rising over whether the government should respond to it through higher taxes on the wealthy, the very richest Americans have financed a sophisticated and astonishingly effective apparatus for shielding their fortunes. Some call it the “income defense industry,” consisting of a high-priced phalanx of lawyers, estate planners, lobbyists and anti-tax activists who exploit and defend a dizzying array of tax maneuvers, virtually none of them available to taxpayers of more modest means.
In recent years, this apparatus has become one of the most powerful avenues of influence for wealthy Americans of all political stripes, including Mr. Loeb and Mr. Cohen, who give heavily to Republicans, and the liberal billionaire George Soros, who has called for higher levies on the rich while at the same time using tax loopholes to bolster his own fortune.
All are among a small group providing much of the early cash for the 2016 presidential campaign. Operating largely out of public view — in tax court, through arcane legislative provisions and in private negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service — the wealthy have used their influence to steadily whittle away at the government’s ability to tax them. The effect has been to create a kind of private tax system, catering to only several thousand Americans.
The impact on their own fortunes has been stark. Two decades ago, when Bill Clinton was elected president, the 400 highest-earning taxpayers in America paid nearly 27 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to I.R.S. data. By 2012, when President Obama was re-elected, that figure had fallen to less than 17 percent, which is just slightly more than the typical family making $100,000 annually, when payroll taxes are included for both groups.
The ultra-wealthy “literally pay millions of dollars for these services,” said Jeffrey A. Winters, a political scientist at Northwestern University who studies economic elites, “and save in the tens or hundreds of millions in taxes.”
Some of the biggest current tax battles are being waged by some of the most generous supporters of 2016 candidates. They include the families of the hedge fund investors Robert Mercer, who gives to Republicans, and James Simons, who gives to Democrats; as well as the options trader Jeffrey Yass, a libertarian-leaning donor to Republicans.
Mr. Yass’s firm is litigating what the agency deemed to be tens of millions of dollars in underpaid taxes. Renaissance Technologies, the hedge fund Mr. Simons founded and which Mr. Mercer helps run, is currently under review by the I.R.S. over a loophole that saved their fund an estimated $6.8 billion in taxes over roughly a decade, according to a Senate investigation. Some of these same families have also contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to conservative groups that have attacked virtually any effort to raises taxes on the wealthy.
In the heat of the presidential race, the influence of wealthy donors is being tested. At stake is the Obama administration’s 2013 tax increase on high earners — the first substantial increase in two decades — and an I.R.S. initiative to ensure that, in effect, the higher rates stick by cracking down on tax avoidance by the wealthy.
While Democrats like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have pledged to raise taxes on these voters, virtually every Republican has advanced policies that would vastly reduce their tax bills, sometimes to as little as 10 percent of their income.
At the same time, most Republican candidates favor eliminating the inheritance tax, a move that would allow the new rich, and the old, to bequeath their fortunes intact, solidifying the wealth gap far into the future. And several have proposed a substantial reduction — or even elimination — in the already deeply discounted tax rates on investment gains, a foundation of the most lucrative tax strategies.
“There’s this notion that the wealthy use their money to buy politicians; more accurately, it’s that they can buy policy, and specifically, tax policy,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who served as chief economic adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “That’s why these egregious loopholes exist, and why it’s so hard to close them.”
The Family Office
Each of the top 400 earners took home, on average, about $336 million in 2012, the latest year for which data is available. If the bulk of that money had been paid out as salary or wages, as it is for the typical American, the tax obligations of those wealthy taxpayers could have more than doubled.
Instead, much of their income came from convoluted partnerships and high-end investment funds. Other earnings accrued in opaque family trusts and foreign shell corporations, beyond the reach of the tax authorities.
The well-paid technicians who devise these arrangements toil away at white-shoe law firms and elite investment banks, as well as a variety of obscure boutiques. But at the fulcrum of the strategizing over how to minimize taxes are so-called family offices, the customized wealth management departments of Americans with hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in assets. Family offices have existed since the late 19th century, when the Rockefellers pioneered the institution, and gained popularity in the 1980s. But they have proliferated rapidly over the last decade, as the ranks of the super-rich, and the size of their fortunes, swelled to record proportions. “We have so much wealth being created, significant wealth, that it creates a need for the family office structure now,” said Sree Arimilli, an industry recruiting consultant.
Family offices, many of which are dedicated to managing and protecting the wealth of a single family, oversee everything from investment strategy to philanthropy. But tax planning is a core function. While the specific techniques these advisers employ to minimize taxes can be mind-numbingly complex, they generally follow a few simple principles, like converting one type of income into another type that’s taxed at a lower rate.
Mr. Loeb, for example, has invested in a Bermuda-based reinsurer — an insurer to insurance companies — that turns around and invests the money in his hedge fund. That maneuver transforms his profits from short-term bets in the market, which the government taxes at roughly 40 percent, into long-term profits, known as capital gains, which are taxed at roughly half that rate. It has had the added advantage of letting Mr. Loeb defer taxes on this income indefinitely, allowing his wealth to compound and grow more quickly.
The Bermuda insurer Mr. Loeb helped set up went public in 2013 and is active in the insurance business, not merely a tax dodge. Mr. Cohen and Mr. Bacon abandoned similar insurance-based strategies in recent years. “Our investment in Max Re was not a tax-driven scheme, but rather a sound investment response to investor interest in a more dynamically managed portfolio akin to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway,” said Mr. Bacon, who leads Moore Capital Management. “Hedge funds were a minority of the investment portfolio, and Moore Capital’s products a much smaller subset of this alternative portfolio.” Mr. Loeb and Mr. Cohen declined to comment.
Louis Moore Bacon, shown with his wife, Gabrielle, is the founder of a highly successful hedge fund and a leading contributor to Jeb Bush’s super PAC. Among his homes is one on Robins Island, off Long Island. Bloomberg News, via Getty Images
Organizing one’s business as a partnership can be lucrative in its own right. Some of the partnerships from which the wealthy derive their income are allowed to sell shares to the public, making it easy to cash out a chunk of the business while retaining control. But unlike publicly traded corporations, they pay no corporate income tax; the partners pay taxes as individuals. And the income taxes are often reduced by large deductions, such as for depreciation.
For large private partnerships, meanwhile, the I.R.S. often struggles “to determine whether a tax shelter exists, an abusive tax transaction is being used,” according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office. The agency is not allowed to collect underpaid taxes directly from these partnerships, even those with several hundred partners. Instead, it must collect from each individual partner, requiring the agency to commit significant time and manpower.
The wealthy can also avail themselves of a range of esoteric and customized tax deductions that go far beyond writing off a home office or dinner with a client. One aggressive strategy is to place income in a type of charitable trust, generating a deduction that offsets the income tax. The trust then purchases what’s known as a private placement life insurance policy, which invests the money on a tax-free basis, frequently in a number of hedge funds. The person’s heirs can inherit, also tax-free, whatever money is left after the trust pays out a percentage each year to charity, often a considerable sum.
Many of these maneuvers are well established, and wealthy taxpayers say they are well within their rights to exploit them. Others exist in a legal gray area, its boundaries defined by the willingness of taxpayers to defend their strategies against the I.R.S. Almost all are outside the price range of the average taxpayer.
Among tax lawyers and accountants, “the best and brightest get a high from figuring out how to do tricky little deals,” said Karen L. Hawkins, who until recently headed the I.R.S. office that oversees tax practitioners. “Frankly, it is almost beyond the intellectual and resource capacity of the Internal Revenue Service to catch.”
The combination of cost and complexity has had a profound effect, tax experts said. Whatever tax rates Congress sets, the actual rates paid by the ultra-wealthy tend to fall over time as they exploit their numerous advantages.
From Mr. Obama’s inauguration through the end of 2012, federal income tax rates on individuals did not change (excluding payroll taxes). But the highest-earning one-thousandth of Americans went from paying an average of 20.9 percent to 17.6 percent. By contrast, the top 1 percent, excluding the very wealthy, went from paying just under 24 percent on average to just over that level.
“We do have two different tax systems, one for normal wage-earners and another for those who can afford sophisticated tax advice,” said Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the University of San Diego who studies the intersection of tax policy and inequality. “At the very top of the income distribution, the effective rate of tax goes down, contrary to the principles of a progressive income tax system.”
A Very Quiet Defense
Having helped foster an alternative tax system, wealthy Americans have been aggressive in defending it.
Trade groups representing the Bermuda-based insurance company Mr. Loeb helped set up, for example, have spent the last several months pleading with the I.R.S. that its proposed rules tightening the hedge fund insurance loophole are too onerous.
The major industry group representing private equity funds spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year lobbying on such issues as “carried interest,” the granddaddy of Wall Street tax loopholes, which makes it possible for fund managers to pay the capital gains rate rather than the higher standard tax rate on a substantial share of their income for running the fund.
The budget deal that Congress approved in October allows the I.R.S. to collect underpaid taxes from large partnerships at the firm level for the first time — which is far easier for the agency — thanks to a provision that lawmakers slipped into the deal at the last minute, before many lobbyists could mobilize. But the new rules are relatively weak — firms can still choose to have partners pay the taxes — and don’t take effect until 2018, giving the wealthy plenty of time to weaken them further.
Shortly after the provision passed, the Managed Funds Association, an industry group that represents prominent hedge funds like D. E. Shaw, Renaissance Technologies, Tiger Management and Third Point, began meeting with members of Congress to discuss a wish list of adjustments. The founders of these funds have all donated at least $500,000 to 2016 presidential candidates. During the Obama presidency, the association itself has risen to become one of the most powerful trade groups in Washington, spending over $4 million a year on lobbying.
And while the lobbying clout of the wealthy is most often deployed through industry trade associations and lawyers, some rich families have locked arms to advance their interests more directly.
The inheritance tax has been a primary target. In the early 1990s, a California family office executive named Patricia Soldano began lobbying on behalf of wealthy families to repeal the tax, which would not only save them money, but also make it easier to preserve their business empires from one generation to the next. The idea struck many hardened operatives as unrealistic at the time, given that the tax affected only the wealthiest Americans. But Ms. Soldano’s efforts — funded in part by the Mars and Koch families — laid the groundwork for a one-year elimination in 2010. The tax has been restored, but currently applies only to couples leaving roughly $11 million or more to their heirs, up from those leaving more than $1.2 million when Ms. Soldano started her campaign. It affected fewer than 5,200 families last year.
“If anyone would have told me we’d be where we are today, I would never have guessed it,” Ms. Soldano said in an interview.
Some of the most profound victories are barely known outside the insular world of the wealthy and their financial managers.
In 2009, Congress set out to require that investment partnerships like hedge funds register with the Securities and Exchange Commission, partly so that regulators would have a better grasp on the risks they posed to the financial system.
The early legislative language would have required single-family offices to register as well, exposing the highly secretive institutions to scrutiny that their clients were eager to avoid. Some of the I.R.S.’s cases against the wealthy originate with tips from the S.E.C., which is often better positioned to spot tax evasion.
By the summer of 2009, several family office executives had formed a lobbying group called the Private Investor Coalition to push back against the proposal. The coalition won an exemption in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, then spent much of the next year persuading the S.E.C. to largely adopt its preferred definition of “family office.”
So expansive was the resulting loophole that Mr. Soros’s $24.5 billion hedge fund took advantage of it, converting to a family office after returning capital to its remaining outside investors. The hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller, a former business partner of Mr. Soros, took the same step.
The Soros family, which generally supports Democrats, has committed at least $1 million to the 2016 presidential campaign; Mr. Druckenmiller, who favors Republicans, has put slightly more than $300,000 behind three different G.O.P. presidential candidates.
A slide presentation from the Private Investor Coalition’s 2013 annual meeting credited the success to multiple meetings with members of the Senate Banking Committee, the House Financial Services Committee, congressional staff and S.E.C. staff. “All with a low profile,” the document noted. “We got most of what we wanted AND a few extras we didn’t request.”
A Hobbled Monitor
After all the loopholes and all the lobbying, what remains of the government’s ability to collect taxes from the wealthy runs up against one final hurdle: the crisis facing the I.R.S. President Obama has made fighting tax evasion by the rich a priority. In 2010, he signed legislation making it easier to identify Americans who squirreled away assets in Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Islands shelters.
His I.R.S. convened a Global High Wealth Industry Group, known colloquially as “the wealth squad,” to scrutinize the returns of Americans with incomes of at least $10 million a year. But while these measures have helped the government retrieve billions, the agency’s efforts have flagged in the face of scandal, political pressure and budget cuts. Between 2010, the year before Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, and 2014, the I.R.S. budget dropped by almost $2 billion in real terms, or nearly 15 percent. That has forced it to shed about 5,000 high-level enforcement positions out of about 23,000, according to the agency.
Audit rates for the $10 million-plus club spiked in the first few years of the Global High Wealth program, but have plummeted since then.
Steven A. Cohen, shown with his wife, Alexandra, is the founder of SAC Capital and owns a home in East Hampton. He is a prominent art collector and has focused his political contributions on a super PAC for Gov. Chris Christie.
The political challenge for the agency became especially acute in 2013, after the agency acknowledged singling out conservative nonprofits in a review of political activity by tax-exempt groups. (Senior officials left the agency as a result of the controversy.)
Several former I.R.S. officials, including Marcus Owens, who once headed the agency’s Exempt Organizations division, said the controversy badly damaged the agency’s willingness to investigate other taxpayers, even outside the exempt division.
“I.R.S. enforcement is either absent or diminished” in certain areas, he said. Mr. Owens added that his former department — which provides some oversight of money used by charities and nonprofits — has been decimated.
Groups like FreedomWorks and Americans for Tax Reform, which are financed partly by the foundations of wealthy families and large businesses, have called for impeaching the I.R.S. commissioner. They are bolstered by deep-pocketed advocacy groups like the Club for Growth, which has aided primary challenges against Republicans who have voted in favor of higher taxes. In 2014, the Club for Growth Action fund raised more than $9 million and spent much of it helping candidates critical of the I.R.S. Roughly 60 percent of the money raised by the fund came from just 12 donors, including Mr. Mercer, who has given the group $2 million in the last five years. Mr. Mercer and his immediate family have also donated more than $11 million to several super PACs supporting Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, an outspoken I.R.S. critic and a presidential candidate. Another prominent donor is Mr. Yass, who helps run a trading firm called the Susquehanna International Group. He donated $100,000 to the Club for Growth Action fund in September. Mr. Yass serves on the board of the libertarian Cato Institute and, like Mr. Mercer, appears to subscribe to limited-government views that partly motivate his political spending.
But he may also have more than a passing interest in creating a political environment that undermines the I.R.S. Susquehanna is currently challenging a proposed I.R.S. determination that an affiliate of the firm effectively repatriated more than $375 million in income from subsidiaries located in Ireland and the Cayman Islands in 2007, creating a large tax liability. (The affiliate brought the money back to the United States in later years and paid dividend taxes on it; the I.R.S. asserts that it should have paid the ordinary income tax rate, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars more.)
In June, Mr. Yass donated more than $2 million to three super PACs aligned with Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has called for taxing all income at a flat rate of 14.5 percent. That change in itself would save wealthy supporters like Mr. Yass millions of dollars. Mr. Paul, also a presidential candididate, has suggested going even further, calling the I.R.S. a “rogue agency” and circulating a petition in 2013 calling for the tax equivalent of regime change. “Be it now therefore resolved,” the petition reads, “that we, the undersigned, demand the immediate abolishment of the Internal Revenue Service.”
But even if that campaign is a long shot, the richest taxpayers will continue to enjoy advantages over everyone else.
For the ultra-wealthy, “our tax code is like a leaky barrel,” said J. Todd Metcalf, the Democrats’ chief tax counsel on the Senate Finance Committee. ”Unless you plug every hole or get a new barrel, it’s going to leak out.”
If you have a bank account anywhere in Europe, you need to read this article. On January 1st, 2016, a new bail-in system will go into effect for all European banks. This new system is based on the Cyprus bank bail-ins that we witnessed a few years ago. If you will remember, money was grabbed from anyone that had more than 100,000 euros in their bank accounts in order to bail out the banks. Now the exact same principles that were used in Cyprus are going to apply to all of Europe. And with the entire global financial system teetering on the brink of chaos, that is not good news for those that have large amounts of money stashed in shaky European banks.
Below, I have shared part of an announcement about this new bail-in system that comes directly from the official website of the European Parliament. I want you to notice that they explicitly say that “unsecured depositors would be affected last”. What they really mean is that any time a bank in Europe fails, they are going to come after private bank accounts once the shareholders and bond holders have been wiped out. So if you have more than 100,000 euros in a European bank right now, you are potentially on the hook when that bank goes under…
The directive establishes a bail-in system which will ensure that taxpayers will be last in the line to the pay the bills of a struggling bank. In a bail-in, creditors, according to a pre-defined hierarchy, forfeit some or all of their holdings to keep the bank alive. The bail-in system will apply from 1 January 2016.
The bail-in tool set out in the directive would require shareholders and bond holders to take the first big hits. Unsecured depositors (over €100,000) would be affected last, in many cases even after the bank-financed resolution fund and the national deposit guarantee fund in the country where it is located have stepped in to help stabilize the bank. Smaller depositors would in any case be explicitly excluded from any bail-in.
And as we have seen in the past, these rules can change overnight in the midst of a major crisis.
So they may be promising that those with under 100,000 euros will be safe right now, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be true.
It is also important to note that there has been a really big hurry to get all of this in place by January 1. In fact, at the end of October the European Commission actually sued six nations that had not yet passed legislation adopting the new bail-in rules…
The European Commission is taking legal action against member states including the Netherlands and Luxembourg, after they failed to implement rules protecting European taxpayers from funding billions in bank rescues.
Six countries will be referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for their continued failure to transpose the EU’s “bail-in” laws into national legislation, the European Commission said on Thursday.
So why was the European Commission in such a rush?
Is there some particular reason why January 1 is so important?
This is something that I will be watching.
Meanwhile, there have been major changes in the U.S. as well. The Federal Reserve recently adopted a new rule that limits what it can do to bail out the “too big to fail” banks. The following comes from CNN…
The Federal Reserve is cutting its lifeline to big banks in financial trouble.
The Fed officially adopted a new rule Monday that limits its ability to lend emergency money to banks.
In theory, the new rule should quash the notion that Wall Street banks are “too big to fail.”
If this new rule had been in effect during the last financial crisis, the Federal Reserve would not have been able to bail out AIG or Bear Stearns. As a result, the final outcome of the last crisis may have been far different. Here is more from CNN…
Under the new rule, banks that are going bankrupt — or appear to be going bankrupt — can no longer receive emergency funds from the Fed under any circumstances.
If the rule had been in place during the financial crisis, it would have prevented the Fed from lending to insurance giant AIG (AIG) and Bear Stearns, Fed chair Janet Yellen points out.
So if the Federal Reserve does not bail out these big financial institutions during the next crisis, what is going to happen?
Will we see European-style “bail-ins” when large banks start failing?
And exactly what would such a “bail-in” look like?
Essentially, what happens is that wealth is transferred from the “stakeholders” in the bank to the bank itself in order to keep it solvent. That means that creditors and shareholders could potentially lose everything if a major bank in Europe fails. And if their “contributions” are not enough to save the bank, those holding private bank accounts will have to take “haircuts” just like we saw in Cyprus. In fact, the travesty that we witnessed in Cyprus is being used as a “template” for much of the new legislation that is being enacted all over Europe.
Many Americans assume that when they put money in the bank that they have a right to go back and get “their money” whenever they want. But if we all went to the bank at the same time, there wouldn’t be nearly enough money for all of us. The reason for this is that the banks only keep a small fraction of our money on hand to satisfy the demands of those that conduct withdrawals on a day to day basis. The banks take the rest of the money that we have deposited and use it however they think is best.
If you have money at a bank that goes under, that bank will still be obligated to pay you back, but it may not be able to do so. This is where the FDIC comes in. The FDIC supposedly guarantees the safety of deposits in member banks, but at any given time it only has a very, very small amount of money on hand.
If some major crisis comes along that causes banks all over the United States to start falling like dominoes, the FDIC will be in panic mode. During such a scenario, the FDIC would be forced to ask Congress for a massive amount of money, and since we already run a giant deficit every year the government would have to borrow whatever funds would be required.
Personally, I find it very interesting that we have seen major rule changes in Europe and at the Federal Reserve just as we are entering a new global financial crisis.
Do they know something that the rest of us do not?
Be very careful with your money, because I am convinced that “bank bail-ins” will soon be making front page headlines all over the world.
Rising interest rates are a negative for real estate.
Gold and oil are still dropping.
Company earnings are not beating expectations.
So, where do we begin?
The economy has been firing on all eight cylinders for several years now. So long, in fact, that many do not or cannot accept the fact that all good things must come to an end. Since the 2008 recession, the only negative that has remained constant is the continuing dilemma of the “underemployed”.
Let me digress for a while and delve into the real issues I see as storm clouds on the horizon. Below are the top five storms I see brewing:
Real estate
Subprime auto loans
Falling commodity prices
Stalling equity markets and corporate earnings
Unpaid student loan debt
1. Real Estate
Just this past week there was an article detailing data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), disclosing that existing home sales dropped 10.5% on an annual basis to 3.76 million units. This was the sharpest decline in over five years. The blame for the drop was tied to new required regulations for home buyers. What is perplexing about this excuse is NAR economist Lawrence Yun’s comments. The article cited Yun as saying that:
“most of November’s decline was likely due to regulations that came into effect in October aimed at simplifying paperwork for home purchasing. Yun said it appeared lenders and closing companies were being cautious about using the new mandated paperwork.”
Here is what I do not understand. How can simplifying paperwork make lenders “more cautious about using… the new mandated paperwork”?
Also noted was the fact that median home prices increased 6.3% in November to $220,300. This comes as interest rates are on the cusp of finally rising, thus putting pressure (albeit minor) on monthly mortgage rate payments. This has the very real possibility of pricing out investors whose eligibility for financing was borderline to begin with.
2. Subprime auto loans
Casey Research has a terrific article that sums up the problems in the subprime auto market. I strongly suggest that you read the article. Just a few of the highlights of the article are the following points:
The value of U.S. car loans now tops $1 trillion for the first time ever. This means the car loan market is 47% larger than all U.S. credit card debt combined.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, lenders have approved 96.7% of car loan applicants this year. In 2013, they only approved 89.7% of loan applicants.
It’s also never been cheaper to borrow. In 2007, the average rate for an auto loan was 7.8%. Today, it’s only 4.1%.
For combined Q2 2015 and Q3 2015, 64% of all new auto loans were classified as subprime.
The average loan term for a new car loan is 67 months. For a used car, the average loan term is 62 months. Both are records.
The only logical conclusion that can be derived is that the finances of the average American are still so weak that they will do anything/everything to get a car. Regardless of the rate, or risks associated with it.
3. Falling commodity prices
Remember $100 crude oil prices? Or $1,700 gold prices? Or $100 ton iron ore prices? They are all distant faded memories. Currently, oil is $36 a barrel, gold is $1,070 an ounce, and iron ore is $42 a ton. Commodity stocks from Cliffs Natural Resources (NYSE:CLF) to Peabody Energy (NYSE:BTU) (both of which I have written articles about) are struggling to pay off debt and keep their operations running due to the declines in commodity prices. Just this past week, Cliffs announced that it sold its coal operations to streamline its business and strengthen its balance sheet while waiting for the iron ore business to stabilize and or strengthen. Similarly, oil producers and metals mining/exploration companies are either going out of business or curtailing their operations at an ever increasing pace.
For 2016, Citi’s predictions commodity by commodity can be found here. Its outlook calls for 30% plus returns from natural gas and oil. Where are these predictions coming from? The backdrop of huge 2015 losses obviously produced a low base from which to begin 2016, but the overwhelming consensus is for oil and natural gas to be stable during 2016. This is clearly a case of Citi sticking its neck out with a prediction that will garnish plenty of attention. Give it credit for not sticking with the herd mentality on this one.
4. Stalling equity markets and corporate earnings
Historically, the equities markets have produced stellar returns. According to an article from geeksonfinace.com, the average return in equities markets from 1926 to 2010 was 9.8%. For 2015, the markets are struggling to erase negative returns. Interestingly, the Barron’s round table consensus group predicted a nearly 10% rise in equity prices in 2015 (which obviously did not materialize) and also repeated that bullish prediction for 2016 by anticipating an 8% return in the S&P. So what happened in 2015? Corporate earnings were not as robust as expected. Commodity prices put pressure on margins of commodity producing companies. Furthermore, there are headwinds from external market forces that are also weighing on the equities markets. As referenced by this article which appeared on Business Insider, equities markets are on the precipice of doing something they have not done since 1939: see negative returns during a pre-election year. Per the article, on average, the DJIA gains 10.4% during pre-election years. With less than one week to go in 2015, the DJIA is currently negative by 1.5%
5. Unpaid student loan debt
Once again, we have stumbled upon an excellent Bloomberg article discussing unpaid student loan debt. The main takeaway from the article is the fact that “about 3 million parents have $71 billion in loans, contributing to more than $1.2 trillion in federal education debt. As of May 2014, half of the balance was in deferment, racking up interest at annual rates as high as 7.9 percent.” The rate was as low as 1.8 percent just four years ago. It is key to note that this is debt that parents have taken out for the education of their children and does not include loans for their own college education.
The Institute for College Access & Success released a detailed 36 page analysis of what the class of 2014 faces regarding student debt. Some highlights:
69% of college seniors who graduated from public and private non-profit colleges in 2014 had student loan debt.
Average debt at graduation rose 56 percent, from $18,550 to $28,950, more than double the rate of inflation (25%) over this 10-year period.
Conclusion
So, what does this all mean?
To look at any one or two of the above categories and see their potential to stymie the economy, one would be smart to be cautious. To look at all five, one needs to contemplate the very real possibility of these creating the beginnings of another downturn in the economy. I strongly suggest a cautious and conservative investment outlook for 2016. While the risk one takes should always be based on your own risk tolerance levels, they should also be balanced by the very real possibility of a slowing economy which may also include deflation. Best of health and trading to all in 2016!
The Federal Reserve did it — raised the target federal funds rate a quarter point, its first boost in nearly a decade. That does not, however, mean that the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage will be a quarter point higher when we all wake up on Thursday. That’s not how mortgage rates work.
Mortgage rates follow the yields on mortgage-backed securities. These bonds track the yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury. The bond market is still sorting itself out right now, and yields could end up higher or lower by the end of the week.
The bigger deal for mortgage rates is not the Fed’s headline move, but five paragraphs lower in its statement:
“The Committee is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction, and it anticipates doing so until normalization of the level of the federal funds rate is well under way.”
When U.S. financial markets crashed in 2008, the Federal Reserve began buying billions of dollars worth of agency mortgage-backed securities (loans backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae). As part of the so-called “taper” in 2013, it gradually stopped using new money to buy MBS but continued to reinvest money it made from the bonds it had into more, newer bonds.
“In other words, all the income they receive from all that MBS they bought is going right back into buying more MBS,” wrote Matthew Graham, chief operating officer of Mortgage News Daily. “Over the past few cycles, that’s been $24-$26 billion a month — a staggering amount that accounts for nearly every newly originated MBS.”
At some point, the Fed will have to stop that and let the private market back into mortgage land, but so far that hasn’t happened. Mortgage finance reform is basically on the back-burner until we get a new president and a new Congress. As long as the Fed is the mortgage market’s sugar daddy, rates won’t move much higher.
“Also important is the continued popularity of US Treasury investments around the world, which puts downward pressure on Treasury rates, specifically the 10-year bond rate, which is the benchmark for MBS/mortgage pricing,” said Guy Cecala, CEO of Inside Mortgage Finance. “Both are much more significant than any small hike in the Fed rate.”
Still, consumers are likely going to be freaked out, especially young consumers, if mortgage rates inch up even slightly. That is because apparently they don’t understand just how low rates are. Sixty-seven percent of prospective home buyers surveyed by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, a network of real estate brokerages, categorized the level of today’s mortgage rates as “average” or “high.”
The current rate of 4 percent on the 30-year fixed is less than 1 percentage point higher than its record low. Fun fact, in the early 1980s, the rate was around 18 percent.
So a couple of weeks ago, we did a show about how the CFPB used a site to use names, to determine the race of a borrower. If you recall, 2 out of 3 of our test subjects came out with the wrong race. I, Brian Stevens, was the only correct conclusion.
We use our show, The National Real Estate Post, to point out the absurdity of the lending ecosystem. The problem is, because we use humor as our conduit, we’re not often taken seriously. However, when you consider the point that the CFPB uses a site, with an algorithm, to determine a consumer’s race; it’s not funny. Further, when you consider that the CFPB, a government agency, then uses that information to slander and sue lenders, it becomes less funny. Finally when you consider the fact that a government agency, who uses flawed racially bias information to slander and sue lenders, then tries to hide that information, we’ve got problems that make Donald Trump’s bullshit look like a playground prank. Yet here we are.
So the problem is, the CFPB operates as “judge, jury, and executioner” over those they regulate. For example; did you know the CFPB operates outside of congress, unaccountable to the judicial system, and off the books of taxpayers. Honestly, the CFPB is not part of the annual budget determined by congress. They are funded by the Federal Reserve, which means they can receive as little or as much money as they choose. That must be nice.
Did you know when the CFPB chooses to seemingly and ambiguously sue a lender, they use predetermined administrative law judges? In the past, they use judges from the SEC. So in the past, the CFPB gets to pick the judge on the cases they bring against lenders. How is a government agency allowed to operate under these rules? Short answer is “you’re not accountable to anyone.” This should infuriate you.
Good news is, the CFPB is no longer using SEC admin judges. The bad news is, they have white page job postings looking for their own judges. In an article by Ballard Spahr, who are probably the best CFPB law minds in the country, posted an article on July 20, that goes as follows:
The CFPB recently posted a job opening for an administrative law judge (ALJ). According to the government jobswebsite, the position is closed which suggests that it has been filled. A recent Politico article indicated that the CFPB posted the opening because it has ended its arrangement with the SEC to borrow ALJs.
OK so it’s time to insert outrage here. In case you missed it, the CFPB has a posting, on a government site, looking for judges to hire. To hire to work as the unbiased voice of reason to settle cases the CFPB has brought and will continue to bring against lenders. How can this happen?
Fast forward. It has now been proven that the CFPB has been using an algorithm to determine someone’s race based exclusively on their name. I proved this absurdity a month ago on my show “The National Real Estate Post,” and I’ll prove it again. I’m going to ask the first person I see their name, race, and identity. Here it goes.
That’s Andrew Strah, he’s a 20 something “tech support” at listing booster. After our short video clip he went back to his computer and “googled” his name. After all he was a little perplexed about the nature of my questions and wanted to find the answer to a question he never really considered. It turns out his name is Greek/Italian. His last name is Slavonian, which makes this Black/White kid Russian; according to him. How is it fair for the CFPB to use any system to determine anyone’s race when such issues are personal and complicated.
Yet this is the system the CFPB is using to pigeon hole guys like Andrew, and then bring lawsuits against lenders for being racist. If ever there was a system that made no sense this is it. Again, insert outrage here.
An agency with an unlimited budget, off the books, and unaccountable to the taxpayer. The very people they are protecting, while buying judges to bring lawsuits against people, with a protocol that makes no sense. Yet this is the system that allows the CFPB to force companies like Hudson City Savings and loan to pay 27 Million for Redlining for which they were not guilty. Insert outrage here.
Now the best part of the story. The CFPB knew that their information was bullshit. In an article from Right Side News.
Much like using a “ready-fire-aim” approach to shooting at targets, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) appears to have conducted in racial discrimination witch hunt against auto lenders in this same manner. The CFPB investigated and sought racial discrimination charges against auto lenders, as it turns out, on the basis of guessing the race and ethnicity of borrowers based on their last names, and using this “evidence” to prove their allegations. Only 54 percent of those identified as African-American by this “proxy methodology,” theWall Street Journal reported, were actually African-Americans. The CFPB drafted rules to solve a problem they only believed existed, racial discrimination in auto lending.
Further.
The Republican staff of the House Financial Services Committee has released a trove of documents showing that bureau officials knew their information was flawed and even deliberated on ways to prevent people outside the bureau from learning how flawed it was.
The bureau has been guessing the race and ethnicity of car-loan borrowers based on their last names and addresses—and then suing banks whenever it looks like the people the government guesses are white seem to be getting a better deal than the people it guesses are minorities. This largely fact-free prosecutorial method is the reason a bipartisan House super majority recently voted to roll back the bureau’s auto-loan rules.
And we wonder why lenders don’t trust and will not approach the CFPB. They are crooked and untouchable and now we know that they know it.
Strangely, I think the solution is not as severe as my opinion in this article would suggest. I believe lending needs an agency. I think the CFPB is the answer. Further, I think every lender in the country agrees. The problem is that we have the wrong CFPB. It cannot be built on lies. It cannot view lenders as the problem. It cannot be unaccountable to congress. It cannot be off the books of the taxpayers.
The CFPB needs to view lenders as its partners. It needs to enforce rules and violations where they truly exist. It need to have more than one voice in rule making. It needs to make its direction clearly stated and understandable. Finally, it needs to work toward consumer protection.
High-yield bonds have led previous big reversals in S&P 500
The junk bond market is looking more and more like the boogeyman for stock market investors.
The iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond exchange-traded fund HYG, -2.34% tumbled 2.4% in midday trade Friday, putting the ETF (HYG) on course for the lowest close since July 2009. Volume as of 12 p.m. Eastern was already more than double the full-day average, according to FactSet.
While weakness in the junk bonds — bonds with credit ratings below investment grade — is nothing new, fears of meltdown have increased after high-yield mutual fund Third Avenue Focused Credit Fund TFCIX, -2.86%TFCVX, -2.70% on Thursday blocked investors from withdrawing their money amid a flood of redemption requests and reduced liquidity.
This chart shows why stock market investors should care:
FactSet
When junk bonds and stocks disagree, junks bonds tend to be right.
The MainStay High Yield Corporate Bond Fund MHCAX, -0.19% was used in the chart instead of the HYG, because HYG started trading in April 2007.
When investors start scaling back, and market liquidity starts to dry up, the riskiest investments tend to get hurt first. And when money starts flowing again, and investors start feeling safe, bottom-pickers tend to look at the hardest hit sectors first.
There’s still no reason to believe the run on the junk bond market is nearing an end.
As Jason Goepfert, president of Sundial Capital Research, points out, he hasn’t seen any sign of panic selling in the HYG, which has been associated with previous short-term bottoms. “Looking at one-month and three-month lows [in the HYG] over the past six years, almost all of them saw more extreme sentiment than we’re seeing now,” Goepfert wrote in a note to clients.
Amid the biggest weekly collapse in high-yield bonds since March 2009, Carl Icahn gently reminds investors that he saw this coming… and that it’s only just getting started!
As we detailed previously, to be sure, no one ever accused Carl Icahn of being shy and earlier this year he had a very candid sitdown with Larry Fink at whom Icahn leveled quite a bit of sharp (if good natured) criticism related to BlackRock’s role in creating the conditions that could end up conspiring to cause a meltdown in illiquid corporate credit markets. Still, talking one’s book speaking one’s mind is one thing, while making a video that might as well be called “The Sky Is Falling” is another and amusingly that is precisely what Carl Icahn has done.
Over the course of 15 minutes, Icahn lays out his concerns about many of the issues we’ve been warning about for years and while none of what he says will come as a surprise (especially to those who frequent these pages), the video, called “Danger Ahead”, is probably worth your time as it does a fairly good job of summarizing how the various risk factors work to reinforce one another on the way to setting the stage for a meltdown. Here’s a list of Icahn’s concerns:
Low rates and asset bubbles: Fed policy in the wake of the dot com collapse helped fuel the housing bubble and given what we know about how monetary policy is affecting the financial cycle (i.e. creating larger and larger booms and busts) we might fairly say that the Fed has become the bubble blower extraordinaire. See the price tag attached to Picasso’s Women of Algiers (Version O) for proof of this.
Herding behavior: The quest for yield is pushing investors into risk in a frantic hunt for yield in an environment where risk free assets yield at best an inflation adjusted zero and at worst have a negative carrying cost.
Financial engineering: Icahn is supposedly concerned about the myopia displayed by corporate management teams who are of course issuing massive amounts of debt to fund EPS-inflating buybacks as well as M&A. We have of course been warning about debt fueled buybacks all year and make no mistake, there’s something a bit ironic about Carl Icahn criticizing companies for short-term thinking and buybacks as he hasn’t exactly been quiet about his opinion with regard to Apple’s buyback program (he does add that healthy companies with lots of cash should repurchases shares).
Fake earnings: Companies are being deceptive about their bottom lines.
Ineffective leadership: Congress has demonstrated a remarkable inability to do what it was elected to do (i.e. legislate). To fix this we need someone in The White House who can help break intractable legislative stalemates.
Corporate taxes are too high: Inversions are costing the US jobs.
Ultimately what Icahn has done is put the pieces together for anyone who might have been struggling to understand how it all fits together and how the multiple dynamics at play serve to feed off one another to pyramid risk on top of risk. Put differently: one more very “serious” person is now shouting about any and all of the things Zero Hedge readers have been keenly aware of for years.
* * *
Finally, here is Bill Gross also chiming in:
Gross: HY Fund closes exit doors. Who will get in if you can’t get out? Risk off.
Jeffrey Gundlach of DoubleLine Capital just wrapped up his latest webcast updating investors on his Total Return Fund and outlining his views on the markets and the economy.
The first slide gave us the title of his presentation: “Tick, Tick, Tick …”
Overall, Gundlach had a pretty downbeat view on how the Fed’s seemingly dead set path on raising interest rates would play out.
Gundlach expects the Fed will raise rates next week (probably!) but said that once interest rates start going up, everything changes for the market.
Time and again, Gundlach emphasized that sooner than most people expect, once the Fed raises rates for the first time we’ll quickly move to talking about the next rate hike.
As for specific assets, Gundlach was pretty downbeat on the junk bond markets and commodities, and thinks that if the Fed believe it has anything like an “all clear” signal to raise rates, it is mistaken.
Here’s our full rundown and live notes taken during the call:
Gundlach said that the title, as you’d expect, is a reference to the markets waiting for the Federal Reserve’s next meeting, set for December 15-16.
Right now, markets are basically expecting the Fed to raise rates for the first time in nine years.
Here’s Gundlach’s first section, with the board game “Kaboom” on it:
DoubleLine
Gundlach says that the Fed “philosophically” wants to raise interest rates and will use “selectively back-tested evidence” to justify an increase in rates.
Gundlach said that 100% of economists believe the Fed will raise rates and with the Bloomberg WIRP reading — which measures market expectations for interest rates — building in around an 80% chance of rates things look quite good for the Fed to move next week.
DoubleLine
Gundlach said that while US markets look okay, there are plenty of markets that are “falling apart.” He adds that what the Fed does from here is entirely dependent on what markets do.
The increase in 3-month LIBOR is noted by Gundlach as a clear signal that markets are expecting the Fed to raise interest rates. Gundlach adds that he will be on CNBC about an hour before the Fed rate decision next Wednesday.
Gundlach notes that cumulative GDP since the last rate hike is about the same as past rate cycles but the pace of growth has been considerably slower than ahead of prior cycles because of how long we’ve had interest rates at 0%.
Gundlach next cites the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow, says that DoubleLine watches this measure:
DoubleLine
The ISM survey is a “disaster” Gundlach says.
Gundlach can’t understand why there is such a divide between central bank plans in the US and Europe, given that markets were hugely disappointed by a lack of a major increase in European QE last week while the markets expect the Fed will raise rates next week.
DoubleLine
If the Fed hikes in December follow the patterns elsewhere, Gundlach thinks the Fed could looks like the Swedish Riksbank.
DoubleLine
And the infamous chart of all central banks that haven’t made it far off the lower bound.
DoubleLine
Gundlach again cites the decline in profit margins as a recession indicator, says it is still his favorite chart and one to look at if you want to stay up at night worrying.
Gundlach said that while there are a number of excuses for why the drop in profit margins this time is because of, say, energy, he doesn’t like analysis that leaves out the bad things. “I’d love to do a client review where the only thing I talk about is the stuff that went up,” Gundlach said.
DoubleLine
On the junk bond front, Gundlach cites the performance of the “JNK” ETF which is down 6% this year, including the coupon.
Gundlach said that looking at high-yield spreads, it would be “unthinkable” to raise interest rates in this environment.
Looking at leveraged loans, which are floating rates, Gundlach notes these assets are down about 13% in just a few months. The S&P 100 leveraged loan index is down 10% over that period.
“This is a little bit disconcerting, that we’re talking about raising interest rates with corporate credit tanking,” Gundlach said.
DoubleLine
Gundlach now wants to talk about the “debt bomb,” something he says he hasn’t talked about it a long time.
“The trap door falls out from underneath us in the years to come,” Gundlach said.
In Gundlach’s view, this “greatly underestimates” the extent of the problem.
DoubleLine
“I have a sneaking suspicion that defense spending could explode higher when a new administration takes office in about a year,” Gundlach said.
“I think the 2020 presidential election will be about what’s going on with the federal deficit,” Gundlach said.
DoubleLine
Gundlach now shifting gears to look at the rest of the world.
“I think the only word for this is ‘depression.'”
DoubleLine
Gundlach calls commodities, “The widow-maker.”
Down 43% in a little over a year. Cites massive declines in copper and lumber, among other things.
DoubleLine
“It’s real simple: oil production is too high,” Gundlach said.
Gundlach calls this the “chart of the day” and wonders how you’ll get balance in the oil market with inventories up at these levels.
DoubleLine
Gundlach talking about buying oil and junk bonds and says now, as he did a few months ago, “I don’t like to buy things that go down everyday.”
GUNDLACH: ‘It’s a different world when the Fed is raising interest rates’
Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO and CIO of DoubleLine Capital
Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO and CIO of DoubleLine Funds, has a simple warning for the young money managers who haven’t yet been through a rate-hike cycle from the Federal Reserve: It’s a new world.
In his latest webcast updating investors on his DoubleLine Total Return bond fund on Tuesday night, Gundlach, the so-called Bond King, said that he’s seen surveys indicating two-thirds of money managers now haven’t been through a rate-hiking cycle.
And these folks are in for a surprise.
“I’m sure many people on the call have never seen the Fed raise rates,” Gundlach said. “And I’ve got a simple message for you: It’s a different world when the Fed is raising interest rates. Everybody needs to unwind trades at the same time, and it is a completely different environment for the market.”
Currently, markets widely expect the Fed will raise rates when it announces its latest policy decision on Wednesday. The Fed has had rates pegged near 0% since December 2008, and hasn’t actually raised rates since June 2006.
According to data from Bloomberg cited by Gundlach on Tuesday, markets are pricing in about an 80% chance the Fed raises rates on Wednesday. Gundlach added that at least one survey he saw recently had 100% of economists calling for a Fed rate hike.
The overall tone of Gundlach’s call indicated that while he believes it’s likely the Fed does pull the trigger, the “all clear” the Fed seems to think it has from markets and the economy to begin tightening financial conditions is not, in fact, in place.
In his presentation, Gundlach cited two financial readings that were particularly troubling: junk bonds and leveraged loans.
Junk bonds, as measured by the “JNK” exchange-traded fund which tracks that asset class, is down about 6% this year, including the coupon — or regular interest payment paid to the fund by the bonds in the portfolio.
Overall, Gundlach thinks it is “unthinkable” that the Fed would want to raise rates with junk bonds behaving this way.Doubleline Capital
Meanwhile, leveraged loan indexes — which tracks debt taken on by the lowest-quality corporate borrowers — have collapsed in the last few months, indicating real stress in corporate credit markets.
“This is a little bit disconcerting,” Gundlach said, “that we’re talking about raising interest rates with corporate credit tanking.”
On Tuesday, West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the US benchmark, fell below $37 a barrel for the first time in over six years.
The implication with Gundlach’s December 2014 call is that not only would there be financial stress with oil at $40 a barrel, but geopolitical tensions as well.
Gundlach noted that while junk bonds and leveraged loans are a reflection of the stress in oil and commodity markets, this doesn’t mean these impacts can just be netted out, as some seem quick to do. These are the factors markets are taking their lead from.
It doesn’t seem like much of a reach to say that when compared to this time a year ago, the global geopolitical situation is more uncertain. Or as Gundlach said simply on Tuesday: “Oil’s below $40 and we’ve got problems.”
Real estate investing is all about timing, and Sam Zell knows this better than anyone.
He sold his real estate firm, Equity Office, to Blackstone Group for $39 billion near the peak of the market. This was back in February 2007—only months before real estate credit markets started to spiral out of control.
He’s doing it again.
At the end of October, his real estate fund, Equity Residential, agreed to sell more than 23,000 apartment units to Starwood Capital for $5.4 billion. The sale represents over 20 percent of the Equity Residential portfolio.
The fund plans to sell another 4,700 apartment units in the near future. Most of the proceeds will be returned to investors in the form of a dividend sometime next year.
Another real estate fund managed by Zell, Equity Commonwealth, has sold 82 office properties worth $1.7 billion since February. The fund plans to raise another $1.3 billion by selling off more properties over the next few years.
Mauldin Economics
Zell is cashing out of non-core assets after the run up in real estate prices in recent years. Rather than reinvest, much of the cash is being returned to investors. The message he is sending is clear—it’s time to sell.
High prices + rising interest rates = time to sell
REITs (real estate investment trusts) have been one of the hottest investment sectors in the aftermath of the 2008 credit crisis.
REIT prices are up 286% from their March 2009 low, compared to 209% for the S&P 500 over that same period. Real estate prices have benefited greatly from the Federal Reserve’s aggressive stimulus packages and zero-interest rate monetary policy.
Real Capital Analytics data showed that commercial property values across the country reached the highest level on record in August—up 14.5% on a nominal basis and surpassing the previous inflation adjusted mark from 2007 by 1.5%.
Mauldin Economics
High prices have led to record low cap rates (cap rates measure a property’s yield by dividing the annual income by the property value). The average cap rate on all property types across the US hit 5.25% in September. This breaks the 5.65% low from 2007, according the Green Street Advisors.
The data dependent Fed has trapped itself in a corner. On the one hand, they can see that property values and stock markets have skyrocketed. On the other hand, real economic growth appears to have stalled.
The Fed has tried to signal an end to its easy money policies all year long. However, poor US economic data and fear of a global slowdown has kept them from taking action.
Still, the potential for higher interest rates has caused REIT investors to take a pause. Higher interest rates make dividend yields from REITs less attractive than the safer alternatives, such as Treasury bonds. It also makes it more costly to finance new acquisitions and real estate developments.
Warning signs
The S&P US REIT Index has under performed the S&P 500 benchmark so far this year. If this holds, it will mark only the second year since 2009 that REITs have under performed the S&P 500 index—the other being 2013, when the Fed began its process of backing out of its aggressive bond-buying program.
Mauldin Economics
Sam Zell is not alone. Over the last twelve months, insiders were net sellers of shares at all but one of the top ten funds on the index.
Mauldin Economics
And the institutional money has started to follow suit as well. Five of the top ten REITs on the index had net outflows from institutional investors as of the most recent quarterly filing.
Mauldin Economics
As Steven Roth, CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, said on an investor call in August, “The easy money has been made in this cycle… this is a time when the smart guys are starting to build cash.” You can choose to ignore the writing on the wall or perhaps it’s time for investors to follow the smart money and move their cash out of real estate.
• No empire has ever prospered or endured by weakening its currency.
• Those who argue the Fed can’t possibly raise rates in a weakening domestic economy have forgotten the one absolutely critical mission of the Fed in the Imperial Project is maintaining U.S. dollar hegemony.
• In essence, the Fed must raise rates to strengthen the U.S. dollar ((USD)) and keep commodities such as oil cheap for American consumers.
• Another critical element of U.S. hegemony is to be the dumping ground for exports of our trading partners.
• If stocks are the tail of the bond dog, the foreign exchange market is the dog’s owner.
• No empire has ever prospered or endured by weakening its currency.
Now that the Fed isn’t feeding the baby QE, it’s throwing a tantrum. A great many insightful commentators have made the case for why the Fed shouldn’t raise rates this month – or indeed, any other month. The basic idea is that the Fed blew it by waiting until the economy is weakening to raise rates. More specifically, former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke – self-hailed as a “hero that saved the global economy” – blew it by keeping rates at zero and overfeeding the stock market bubble baby with quantitative easing (QE).
On the other side of the ledger, is the argument that the Fed must raise rates to maintain its rapidly thinning credibility. I have made both of these arguments: that the Bernanke Fed blew it big time, and that the Fed has to raise rates lest its credibility as the caretaker not just of the stock market but of the real economy implodes.
But there is another even more persuasive reason why the Fed must raise rates. It may appear to fall into the devil’s advocate camp at first, but if we consider the Fed’s action through the lens of Triffin’s Paradox, which I have covered numerous times, then it makes sense.
The core of Triffin’s Paradox is that the issuer of a reserve currency must serve two quite different sets of users: the domestic economy, and the international economy.
Those who argue the Fed can’t possibly raise rates in a weakening domestic economy have forgotten the one absolutely critical mission of the Fed in the Imperial Project is maintaining U.S. dollar hegemony.
No nation ever achieved global hegemony by weakening its currency. Hegemony requires a strong currency, for the ultimate arbitrage is trading fiat currency that has been created out of thin air for real commodities and goods.
Generating currency out of thin air and trading it for tangible goods is the definition of hegemony. Is there any greater magic power than that?
In essence, the Fed must raise rates to strengthen the U.S. dollar (USD) and keep commodities such as oil cheap for American consumers. The most direct way to keep commodities cheap is to strengthen one’s currency, which makes commodities extracted in other nations cheaper by raising the purchasing power of the domestic economy on the global stage.
Another critical element of U.S. hegemony is to be the dumping ground for exports of our trading partners. By strengthening the dollar, the Fed increases the purchasing power of everyone who holds USD. This lowers the cost of goods imported from nations with weakening currencies, who are more than willing to trade their commodities and goods for fiat USD.
But in this case, perception and signaling are more important than the actual rates: By signaling a sea change in U.S. rates, the Fed will make the USD even more attractive as a reserve currency and U.S.-denominated assets more attractive to those holding weakening currencies.
What better way to keep bond yields low and stock valuations high than insuring a flow of capital into U.S.-denominated assets?
If stocks are the tail of the bond dog, the foreign exchange market is the dog’s owner. Despite its recent thumping (due to being the most over loved, crowded trade out there), the USD is trading in a range defined by multi-year highs.
The Fed’s balance sheet reveals its basic strategy going forward: maintain its holdings of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) while playing around in the repo market in an attempt to manipulate rates higher.
Whether or not the Fed actually manages to raise rates in the real world is less important than maintaining USD hegemony. No empire has ever prospered or endured by weakening its currency.
Mortgage delinquency rates are low as long as home prices are soaring since you can always sell the home and pay off the mortgage, or most of it, and losses for lenders are minimal. Nonbank lenders with complicated corporate structures backed by a mix of PE firms, hedge funds, debt, and IPO monies revel in it. Regulators close their eyes because no one loses money when home prices are soaring. The Fed talks about having “healed” the housing market. And the whole industry is happy.
The show is run by some experienced hands: former executives from Countrywide Financial, which exploded during the Financial Crisis and left behind one of the biggest craters related to mortgages and mortgage backed securities ever. Only this time, they’re even bigger.
PennyMac is the nation’s sixth largest mortgage lender and largest nonbank mortgage lender. Others in that elite club include AmeriHome Mortgage, Stearns Lending, and Impac Mortgage. The LA Times:
All are headquartered in Southern California, the epicenter of the last decade’s subprime lending industry. And all are run by former executives of Countrywide Financial, the once-giant mortgage lender that made tens of billions of dollars in risky loans that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis.
During their heyday in 2005, non-bank lenders, often targeting subprime borrowers, originated 31% of all home mortgages. Then it blew up. From 2009 through 2011, non-bank lenders originated about 10% of all mortgages. But then PE firms stormed into the housing market. In 2012, non-bank lenders originated over 20% of all mortgages, in 2013 nearly 30%, in 2014 about 42%. And it will likely be even higher this year.
That share surpasses the peak prior to the Financial Crisis.
As before the Financial Crisis, they dominate the riskiest end of the housing market, according to the LA Times: “this time, loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, aimed at first-time and bad-credit buyers. Such lenders now control 64% of the market for FHA and similar Veterans Affairs loans, compared with 18% in 2010.”
Low down payments increase the risks for lenders. Low credit scores also increase risks for lenders. And they coagulate into a toxic mix with high home prices during housing bubbles, such as Housing Bubble 2, which is in full swing.
The FHA allows down payments to be as low as 3.5%, and credit scores to be as low as 580, hence “subprime” borrowers. And these borrowers in many parts of the country, particularly in California, are now paying sky-high prices for very basic homes.
When home prices drop and mortgage payments become a challenge for whatever reason, such as a layoff or a miscalculation from get-go, nothing stops that underwater subprime borrower from not making any more payments and instead living in the home for free until kicked out.
“Those are the loans that are going to default, and those are the defaults we are going to be arguing about 10 years from now,” predicted Wells Fargo CFO John Shrewsberry at a conference in September. “We are not going to do that again,” he said, in reference to Wells Fargo’s decision to stay out of this end of the business.
But when home prices are soaring, as in California, delinquencies are low and don’t matter. They only matter after the bubble bursts. Then prices are deflating and delinquencies are soaring. Last time this happened, it triggered the most majestic bailouts the world has ever seen.
The LA Times:
For now, regulators aren’t worried. Sandra Thompson, a deputy director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees government-sponsored mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said non-bank lenders play an important role.
“We want to make sure there is broad liquidity in the mortgage market,” she said. “It gives borrowers options.”
But another regulator isn’t so sanguine about the breakneck growth of these new non-bank lenders: Ginnie Mae, which guarantees FHA and VA loans that are packaged into structured mortgage backed securities, has requested funding for 33 additional regulators. It’s fretting that these non-bank lenders won’t have the reserves to cover any losses.
“Where’s the money going to come from?” wondered Ginnie Mae’s president, Ted Tozer. “We want to make sure everyone’s going to be there when the next downturn comes.”
But the money, like last time, may not be there.
PennyMac was founded in 2008 by former Countrywide executives, including Stanford Kurland, as the LA Times put it, “the second-in-command to Angelo Mozilo, the Countrywide founder who came to symbolize the excesses of the subprime mortgage boom.” Kurland is PennyMac’s Chairman and CEO. The company is backed by BlackRock and hedge fund Highfields Capital Management.
In September 2013, PennyMac went public at $18 a share. Shares closed on Monday at $16.23. It also consists of PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, a REIT that invests primarily in residential mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. It went public in 2009 with an IPO price of $20 a share. It closed at $16.64 a share. There are other intricacies.
According to the company, “PennyMac manages private investment funds,” while PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust is “a tax-efficient vehicle for investing in mortgage-related assets and has a successful track record of raising and deploying cost-effective capital in mortgage-related investments.”
The LA Times describes it this way:
It has a corporate structure that might be difficult for regulators to grasp. The business is two separate-but-related publicly traded companies, one that originates and services mortgages, the other a real estate investment trust that buys mortgages.
And they’re big: PennyMac originated $37 billion in mortgages during the first nine months this year.
Then there’s AmeriHome. Founded in 1988, it was acquired by Aris Mortgage Holding in 2014 from Impac Mortgage Holdings, a lender that almost toppled under its Alt-A mortgages during the Financial Crisis. Aris then started doing business as AmeriHome. James Furash, head of Countrywide’s banking operation until 2007, is CEO of AmeriHome. Clustered under him are other Countrywide executives.
It gets more complicated, with a private equity angle. In 2014, Bermuda-based insurer Athene Holding, home to other Countrywide executives and majority-owned by PE firm Apollo Global Management, acquired a large stake in AmeriHome and announced that it would buy some of its structured mortgage backed securities, in order to chase yield in the Fed-designed zero-yield environment.
Among the hottest products the nonbank lenders now offer are, to use AmeriHomes’ words, “a wider array of non-Agency programs,” including adjustable rate mortgages (ARM), “Non-Agency 5/1 Hybrid ARMs with Interest Only options,” and “Alt-QM” mortgages.
“Alt-QM” stands for Alternative to Qualified Mortgages. They’re the new Alt-A mortgages that blew up so spectacularly, after having been considered low-risk. They might exceed debt guidelines. They might come with higher rates, adjustable rates, and interest-only payment periods. And these lenders chase after subprime borrowers who’ve been rejected by banks and think they have no other options.
Even Impac Mortgage, which had cleaned up its ways after the Financial Crisis, is now offering, among other goodies, these “Alt-QM” mortgages.
Yet as long as home prices continue to rise, nothing matters, not the volume of these mortgages originated by non-bank lenders, not the risks involved, not the share of subprime borrowers, and not the often ludicrously high prices of even basic homes. As in 2006, the mantra reigns that you can’t lose money in real estate – as long as prices rise.
The Fed Funds Futures say a December 2015 rate raise is a near sure thing at 74%.
Many major currencies are down substantially against the USD in the last 1-2 years. This is hurting exports. It is costing jobs.
A raise of the Fed Funds rate will lead to a further appreciation of the USD. That hurt exports more; and it will cost the US more jobs.
A raise of the Fed Funds rate will also lead to an automatic cut to the GDP’s of Third World and Emerging Market nations, which are calculated in USD’s.
There will likely be a nasty downward economic spiral effect that no one wants in Third World countries, Emerging Market countries, and in the US.
The Fed Funds Futures, which are largely based on statements from the Fed Presidents/Governors, are at 74% for a December 2015 raise as of November 26, 2015. This is up from 50% at the end of October 2015. If the Fed does raise the Fed Funds rate, will the raise have a positive effect or a negative one? Let’s examine a few data points.
First raising the Fed Funds rate will cause the value of the USD to go up relative to other currencies. It is expected that a Fed Funds rate raise will cause a rise in US Treasury yields. This means US Treasury bond values will go down at least in the near term. In the near term, this will cost investors money. However, the new higher yield Treasury notes and bonds will be more attractive to investors. This will increase the demand for them. That is the one positive. The US is currently in danger that demand may flag if a lot of countries decide to sell US Treasuries instead of buying them. The Chinese say they are selling so that they can defend the yuan. Their US Treasury bond sales will put upward pressure on the yields. That will in turn put upward pressure on the value of the USD relative to other currencies.
So far the Chinese have sold US Treasuries (“to defend the yuan”); but they have largely bought back later. Chinese US Treasuries holdings were $1.2391T as of January 2015. They were $1.258T as of September 2015. However, if China decided to just sell, there would be significant upward pressure on the US Treasury yields and on the USD. That would make China’s and other countries products that much cheaper in the US. It would make US exports that much more expensive. It would mean more US jobs lost to competing foreign products.
To better assess what may or may not happen on a Fed Funds rate raise, it is appropriate to look at the values of the USD (no current QE) versus the yen and the euro which have major easing in progress. Further it is appropriate to look at the behavior of the yen against the euro, where both parties are currently easing.
The chart below shows the performance of the euro against the USD over the last two years.
(click to enlarge)
The chart below shows the performance of the Japanese yen against the USD over the last two years.
(click to enlarge)
As readers can see both charts are similar. In each case the BOJ or the ECB started talking seriously about a huge QE plan in the summer or early fall of 2014. Meanwhile the US was in the process of ending its QE program. It did this in October 2014. The results of this combination of events on the values of the two foreign currencies relative to the USD are evident. The value of the USD went substantially upward against both currencies.
The chart below shows the performance of the euro against the Japanese yen over the last two years.
(click to enlarge)
As readers can see the yen has depreciated versus the euro; but that depreciation has been less than the depreciation of the yen against the USD and the euro against the USD. Further the amount of Japanese QE relative to its GDP is a much higher at roughly 15%+ per year than the large ECB QE program that amounts to only about 3%+ per year of effectively “printed money”. The depreciation of the yen versus the euro is the result that one would expect based on the relative amounts of QE. Of course, some of the strength of the yen is due to the reasonable health of the Japanese economy. It is not just due to QE amount considerations. The actual picture is a complex one; and readers should not try to over simplify it. However, they can generally predict/assume trends based on the macro moves by the BOJ, the ECB, and the US Fed.
The chart below shows the relative growth rates of the various central banks’ assets.
(click to enlarge)
As readers can see, this chart makes it appear that Japan is in trouble relative to the other countries. When this situation will explode (implode) into a severe recession for Japan is open to question. That is not the theme of this article, so I will not speculate here. Still it is good to be aware of the relative situation. Japan is clearly monetizing its debts relative to the other major currencies. That likely means effective losses in terms of “real” assets for the other countries. It means Japan is practicing mercantilism against its major competitors to a huge degree. Do the US and other economies want to allow this to continue unabated? Theoretically that means they are allowing Japanese workers to take their jobs unfairly.
I will not try to include the Chinese yuan in the above description, since it has not been completely free floating. Therefore the data would be distorted. However, the yuan was allowed to fall against other major currencies by the PBOC in the summer of 2015. In essence China is participating in the major QE program that many of the world’s central banks seem to be employing. It has also been steadily “easing” its main borrowing rate for more than a year now from 6.0% before November 23, 2014 to 4.35% after its latest cut October 23, 2015. It has employed other easing measures too. I have omitted them for simplicity’s sake. Many think China will continue to cut rates in 2016 and beyond as the Chinese economy continues to slow.
All of these countries are helping their exports via mercantilism by effectively devaluing their currencies against the USD. The table below shows the trade data for US-China trade for 2015.
(click to enlarge)
As readers can see in the table above the US trade deficit popped up in the summer about the time China devalued the yuan. Some of this pop was probably seasonal; but a good part of it was almost certainly not seasonal. This means the US is and will be losing more jobs in the future to China (and perhaps other countries), if the US does not act to correct/reverse this situation.
The US Total Trade Deficit has also been going up. ⦁ For January-September 2013, the deficit was -$365.3B. ⦁ For January-September 2014, the deficit was -$380.0B. ⦁ For January-September 2015, the deficit was -$394.9B.
The US Total Trade Deficit has clearly been trending upward. The lack of QE by the US for the last year plus and the massive QE by the US’ major trade partners is making the situation worse. The consequently much higher USD has been making the situation worse. The roughly -$30B increase in the US Total Trade Deficit for the first nine months of the year from 2013 to 2015 means the US has been paying US workers -$30B less than it would have if the level of the deficit had remained the same. If the deficit had gone down, US workers would have benefited even more.
If you take Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) as an example, it had trailing twelve month revenue of $49.6B as of its Q3 2015 earnings report. That supported about 72,000 jobs. CSCO tends to pay well, so those would be considered “good” jobs. Adjusting for three fourths of the year and three fifths of the amount of money (revenue), this amounts to roughly -57,000 well paying jobs that the US doesn’t have due to the extra deficit. If I then used the multiplier effect from the US Department of Commerce for Industrial Machinery and Equipment jobs of 9.87, that would translate into over -500,000 jobs lost. Using that logic the total trade deficit may account for more than -5 million jobs lost. Do US citizens really want to see their jobs go to foreign countries? Do US citizens want to slowly “sell off the US”? How many have seen the Chinese buying their houses in California?
The US Fed is planning to make that situation worse. A raise of the Fed Funds rate will lead directly to a raise in the yield on US Treasuries. It will lead directly to a stronger USD. That will translate into an even higher US trade deficit. That will mean more US jobs lost. Who thinks that will be good for the US economy? Who thinks the rate of growth of the US trade deficit is already too high? When you consider that oil prices are about half what they were a year and a half ago, you would think that the US Trade Deficit should not even be climbing. Yet it has, unabated. That bodes very ill for the US economy for when oil prices start to rise again. The extra level of non-oil imports will not disappear when oil prices come back. Instead the Total Trade Deficit will likely spike upward as oil prices double or more. Ouch! That may mean an instant recession, if we are not already there by then. Does the US Fed want to make the already bad situation worse?
Consider also that other countries use the USD as a secondary currency, especially South American and Latin American countries. Their GDP’s are computed in USD’s. Those currencies have already shown weakness in recent years. One of the worse is Argentina. It has lost almost -60% of its value versus the USD over the last five years (see chart below).
(click to enlarge)
The big drop in January 2014 was when the government devalued its currency from 6 pesos to the USD to 8 pesos to the USD. If the Fed causes the USD to go up in value, that will lead to an automatic decrease in the Argentine GDP in USD terms. Effectively that will lead to an automatic cut in pay for Argentine workers, who are usually paid in pesos. It will cause a more rapid devaluation of the Argentine peso due to the then increased scarcity of USD’s with which to buy imports, etc. Remember also that a lot of goods are bought with USDs in Argentina because no one has any faith in the long term value of the Argentine peso. Therefore a lot of Argentine retail and other trade is done with USD’s. The Fed will immediately make Argentinians poorer. Labor will be cheaper. The cost of Argentine exports will likely go down. The US goods will then have even more trouble competing with cheaper Argentine goods. That will in turn hurt the US economy. Will that then cause a further raise to the US Treasury yields in order to make them more attractive to buyers? There is that possibility of a nasty spiral in rates upward that will be hard to stop. Further the higher rates will increase the US Budget Deficit. Higher taxes to combat that would slow the US economy further. Ouch! The Argentine scenario will likely play out in every South American and Latin American country (and many other countries around the world). Is this what the Fed really wants to accomplish? Christine Lagarde (head of the IMF) has been begging them not to do this. Too many Third World and Emerging Market economies are already in serious trouble.
Of course, there is the argument that the US has to avoid inflation; but how can the US be in danger of that when commodities prices are so low? For October export prices ex-agriculture and import prices ex-oil were both down -0.3%. The Core PPI was down -0.3%. Industrial Production was down -0.2%. The Core CPI was only up + 0.2%. The Core PCE Prices for October were unchanged at 0.0%. Isn’t that supposed to be one of the Fed’s favorite inflation gauges? Personal Spending was only up +0.1%, although Personal Income was up +0.4%. I just don’t see the inflation the Fed seems to be talking about. Perhaps when oil prices start to rise again, it will be time to raise rates. However, when there are so many arguments against raising rates, why would the Fed want to do so early? It might send the US economy into a recession. It would only increase the rate of rise of the US Trade Deficit and the US Budget Deficit. It would only hurt Third World and Emerging Market economies.
Of course, there is the supposedly full employment argument. However, the article, “20+ Reasons The Fed Won’t RaiseEven After The Strong October Jobs Number” contains a section (near the end of the article) that explains that the US employment rate is actually 10.8% relatively to the level of employment in 2008 (before the Great Recession). The US has not come close to recovering from the Great Recession in terms of jobs; and for the US Fed or the US government to pretend that such a recovery has occurred is a deception of US citizens. I am not talking about the U6 number for people who are only partially employed. If I were, the unemployment number would be roughly 15%. I am merely adding in all of the people who had jobs in 2008, who are no longer “in the work force” because they have stopped “looking for jobs” (and therefore not in the unemployment number calculation). The unemployment number the government and the Fed are citing is a farce if you are talking about the 2008 employment level; and people should recognize this. The Fed should also be recognizing this when they are making decisions based on the unemployment level. Political posturing by Democrats (Obama et al) to improve the Democratic performance in the 2016 elections will only have a negative impact on the US economy. There is no “full employment” at the moment.
We all know that the jobs numbers are usually good due to the Christmas season. Some say those jobs don’t count because they are all part time. However, a lot of businesses hire full time temporarily. Think of all of those warehouse jobs for e-commerce. Do you think they want to train more people to work part time? Or do you think they want to train fewer people to work perhaps even more than full time? Confusion costs money. It slows things down. Fewer new people is often the most efficient way to go. A lot of the new jobs for the Christmas season are an illusion. They will disappear come late January 2016. Basing a Fed Funds rate raise on Christmas season hiring is again a mistake that will cost the US jobs in the longer term. If the Fed does this, it will be saying that the US economy exists in a US vacuum. It will be saying that the US economy is unaffected by the economies of the rest of the world. Remember the latest IMF calculation for the world economic outlook for FY2015 was cut in October 2015 to +3.1% GDP Growth. This is -0.2% below the IMF’s July 2015 estimate and -0.3% below FY2014. If the world economic growth outlook is falling, is it at all reasonable to think that US economic growth will be so high as to cause significant inflation? Is it instead more reasonable to think that a higher Fed Funds rate, higher Treasury yields, and a more highly valued USD will cause the US economy to slow further as would be the normal expectation? Does the Fed want to cause STAGFLATION?
If the Fed goes through with their plan to raise rates in December 2015, they will be committing the Sin Of Pride. That same sin is at least partially responsible for the US losing so many of its jobs to overseas competitors over the last 50 years. One could more logically argue that the Fed should be instituting its own QE program in order to combat the further lost of US jobs to the mercantilist behaviors of its trade partners. The only reason not to do this is that it believes growing its balance sheet will be unhealthy in the long run. However, the “Total Central Bank Assets (as a % of GDP)” chart above shows that the US is lagging both the ECB and the BOJ in the growth of its balance sheet. In other words our major competitors are monetizing their debts at a faster rate than we are. You could argue that someone finally has to stop this trend. However, the logical first step should be not adding to the central banks’ asset growth. Reversing the trend should not be attempted until the other major central banks have stopped easing measures. Otherwise the US Fed is simply committing the SIN OF PRIDE; and as the saying goes, “Pride goeth before a fall”. There are a lot of truisms in the Bible (Proverbs). It is filled with the wisdom of the ages; and even the Fed can benefit from its lessons. Let’s hope they do.
Term structure – contango says too much oil around.
Brent-WTI says Iran will flood the market.
Crack spreads could crack the recent lows for crude.
OPEC meeting is the next big event – signals are that these guys cannot agree on anything.
Crude oil and a turbulent world.
The price of crude oil has not looked this bad since March, when it made lows of $42.03, or on August 24, when it fell to $37.75. On Friday, November 20, active month January NYMEX crude oil settled at $41.90 per barrel. The expiring December contract traded down to lows of $38.99 on the session. There are very few positive things to say about the future prospects for the price of crude oil at this time. The fundamental structural state of the oil market is bearish for price.
Term Structure – contango says too much oil around
Two weeks ago, the IEA told us that the world is awash in crude oil. The international agency told us that worldwide inventories have swelled to 3 billion barrels.
When crude oil was trading over $100 per barrel on the active month NYMEX futures contract during the summer of 2014, the market was in backwardation. Deferred futures prices were lower than nearby prices. This condition tells us that a market is tight, or there is a supply deficit. As the price of oil began to fall, term structure moved from backwardation to contango. This told us that the market moved from deficit to a condition of oversupply. This past week, the contango on the nearby versus one-year oil spread once again validated the glut condition in crude oil.
(click to enlarge)The December 2015 versus December 2016 NYMEX crude oil spread closed last week at over $8.00 per barrel. The contango has increased to 20.46%, the highest level yet for this spread. The January 2016 versus January 2017 NYMEX spread also made a new high and traded above the $7 level.
Brent crude oil futures have rolled from December to January. The January 2016 versus January 2017 Brent crude oil spread was trading around the $7.62 or 17% level last Friday. Market structure is telling us that huge inventories of crude oil will weigh on the price in the weeks ahead. At their current levels, a new low below the current support at $37.75 seems likely. Meanwhile, a location/quality spread in crude oil is also telling us that prospects for the oil price are currently bleak.
Brent-WTI says Iran will flood the market
The benchmark for pricing North American crude is the NYMEX West Texas Intermediate (WTI) price. When it comes to European, African and Middle Eastern crudes, Brent is the benchmark pricing mechanism. For many years, Brent crude traded at a small discount to WTI. That is because WTI is sweeter crude; it has lower sulfur content. This makes WTI more efficient when it comes to processing the oil into the most ubiquitously consumed oil product, gasoline.
That changed in 2010. The Arab Spring caused uncertainty in the Middle East to rise. As the majority of the world’s oil reserves are located in this region, the price of Brent crude rose relative to the price of WTI. Brent crude included a political premium. Additionally, increasing production from the United States, due to the extraction of oil from shale, exacerbated the price differential between the two crudes. In 2011, the price of Brent traded at over a $25 premium to the price of WTI. Recently, the spread between these two crudes has been converging. While the spread on January futures was trading at a premium of $2.40 for the Brent futures as of last Friday, it had moved much lower during the week.
The premium of Brent over WTI has evaporated over the course of 2015. The reason is two-fold. First, the number of operating oil rigs in the United States has fallen dramatically over the past year, indicating that production of the energy commodity will fall. Last Friday, Baker Hughes reported that the total number of oil rigs in operation as of November 20 stands at 564 down from 1,574 at this time last year. While lower U.S. production is one reason for a decline in the spread, increased production of Iranian crude oil has had a more powerful effect on the spread.
The nuclear nonproliferation agreement with Iran means that sanctions will ease and Iran will pump and export more crude oil in the weeks and months ahead. Iran has stated that their production will initially rise by 500,000 barrels per day and it will eventually rise to over one million. These two factors have caused the Brent-WTI spread to converge. The price trend in this spread is a negative for the price of crude at this time.
Crack spreads could crack the recent lows for crude
Recently, we have seen divergence emerging in crude oil processing spreads. Gasoline cracks have been outperforming crude oil, while heating oil crack spreads continue to trade at the weakest level in years.
Last Friday, the NYMEX gasoline crack spread closed at just over $14 per barrel.
The monthly chart of the gasoline crack highlights the recent strong action in this spread. Gasoline is a seasonal product; it tends to trade at the lows during this time of year. In 2014, the high in the gasoline crack at this time of year was $12.36. Therefore, compared to last year, gasoline prices are strong relative to the price of raw crude oil. This could be due to the current low level of gasoline futures – the December NYMEX gasoline futures contract closed last Friday at $1.2866 and the January futures closed at $1.2670 per gallon. The current low level of gasoline prices has increased demand from drivers as refineries work to process heating oil as the winter is only a few weeks ahead. In September U.S. drivers set a record for miles traveled by automobile.
The heating oil processing spread is a very different story. While the gasoline crack is relatively strong, the heating oil crack is very weak.
(click to enlarge)Last Friday, the January heating oil processing spread closed at around the $17.50 per barrel level. Last year at this time, the low in this spread was $22.73. In 2013, the low was $24.53 and in 2012, the low was $37.75 per barrel. The current level of the heating oil crack spread is seasonally the lowest since November 2010 when it traded down to $12.35 per barrel. In November 2010, crude oil was trading above $84 per barrel.
One of the many reasons that the crude oil price is weak these days is that demand for seasonal products, heating oil and diesel fuel, is low and inventories of distillates are high. As you can see, there are very few bullish signs in the fundamental structure for the crude oil market these days. In two weeks, the oil cartel will sit down to decide what to do now that the commodity they seek to “control” is awash in a sea of bearishness.
OPEC meeting is the next big event – Signals are that these guys cannot agree on anything
When OPEC met in November 2014, the price of crude was around the $75 per barrel level. When they met late last spring, the price had recovered to around $60. In both cases, the cartel left production levels unchanged. The stated production ceiling for the members of OPEC is 30 million barrels per day. The member nations are currently producing over 31.5 million barrels per day and increasing Iranian production means that OPEC output will likely rise. As the price of oil falls, the members need to sell more to try to recoup revenue. For the weaker members, the oil revenue is an imperative. Even the stronger members are under pressure. Saudi Arabia recently began selling bonds; they are borrowing money from the markets to replace lost income due to the lower crude oil price.
Meanwhile, OPEC’s current strategy is to continue to produce to flush high cost producers out of the market and build market share for the cartel members. However, OPEC did not count on a global economic slowdown, particularly in China. At the December 4 meeting of oil ministers in Vienna, it is likely that demand for crude oil will be an important consideration.
Dominant members of the cartel remain at odds. Saudi Arabia and Iran are on opposite sides and are involved in a proxy war in Yemen. The weaker members of OPEC want the stronger members to shoulder the burden of production cuts, and that is not likely to happen any time soon. In a hint of the discord between the member nations, on November 17, OPEC’s board of governors was unable to agree on the cartel’s long-term strategy plan and they tabled the issue until 2016. The issues revolve around ceiling output, setting production quotas and methods of maximizing member profits.
This tells us that unless the cartel is planning a giant spoof on the market, there is probably going to be no change in production policy. The current level of cheating or daily sales above the production ceiling may even increase. At this point, I doubt whether OPEC members could agree on whether it is sunny or cloudy outside given vast political, economic and cultural divergences among member nations. This means that selling will continue and even increase over the months ahead.
Crude oil and a turbulent world
All of the news, fundamentals and technicals for crude oil point to new lows and a challenge of the December 2008 lows of $32.48 per barrel. Last week, Goldman Sachs came out with a prediction that oil could fall to $20 per barrel. This is not such a bold call given the current state of the oil market, the strength of the dollar and the overall bear market for raw material prices. Last week, copper put in another multi-year low, iron ore fell to new lows and the Baltic Shipping Index fell to the lowest level since 1985.
However, all of the bad news for crude oil is currently in the price. We have seen this before. In March when crude oil traded to lows, there were calls for crude oil to fall – Dennis Gartman, the respected commodity analyst, went on CNBC and said that crude oil could fall to $10 per barrel as the energy commodity could go the way of “whale oil.” In late August, when oil fell to recent lows at $37.75, there were multiple calls for oil to fall to the low $30s and $20s. In both cases, powerful recovery rallies followed these bearish market calls. Following the March 2015 lows, oil rallied for over two months and gained 48.9%. In August of this year, a seven-week rally took oil 35% higher. The bearish prediction by Goldman Sachs last week could just turn out to be a contrarian’s dream.
There are a number of issues, big issues, going on in the world that can turn crude oil on a dime. First, Brent has fallen relative to WTI and the political premium for oil has evaporated. In 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the price of crude oil doubled in a matter of minutes. While the Middle East has always been a turbulent and dangerous part of the world, I would argue that today, it is far more turbulent and far more violent. The odds of attacks against oil fields and refineries in the Middle East have increased exponentially particularly given the recent ISIS attacks in France and around the world. At the same time, all of the bearish fundamental news about crude oil has decreased the political premium, and it is politics and war that could turn out to outweigh all of the current fundamentals.
Moreover, a surprise from outside of the Middle East could foster an increase in the price of oil. The world is now almost counting on Chinese economic weakness. Last week, Jamie Dimon, the Chairman of JPMorgan Chase, said that he is bullish on Chinese growth. If China does begin to show signs of growth, this could turn out to be supportive of crude oil and commodities in general, which remain mired in a bear market. Right now, the price of crude oil looks awful and fundamentals support a new low. However, all of that bearish data is in the price, and any surprise, in a world that always seems be full of surprises, could ignite the price once again. We saw this in March and again in August. As oil makes new lows, keep in mind that crude oil is a complicated puzzle. It is the unknown that will likely dictate the next big price move in oil. I am watching crude oil now and wondering whether Goldman Sachs called the turn in the market with their bearish forecast.
As a bonus, I have prepared a video on my website Commodix that provides a more in-depth and detailed analysis of the current state of the oil market to illustrate the real value implications and opportunities.
People want to grow at home, but it’s not always safe
Grow closets could become the new hot amenity in home construction
Medical marijuana is legal in more than 20 U.S. states, and places like Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C., have decriminalized recreational marijuana use for adults over the last few years. Marijuana advocates say this has led to an expanding industry in the home remodeling business: creating rooms in homes in which to grow pot.
But finding a contractor who would be willing to put a “grow room” into a home was nearly impossible until recently. Such rooms need, among other things, high-voltage metal halite electric lamps, high-capacity intake and exhaust fans to maintain carbon dioxide and oxygen levels, along with the proper heavy-duty electrical wiring and plumbing in a suitably-sized room.
“No contractor would touch stuff like this a year ago,” said Eli Bilton, the chief executive of the Attis Group, an online marijuana supply company in Portland, Ore. “They didn’t want to be on a job site where cannabis plants were around,” he said.
So people who wanted to build a grow room had to learn how to do it themselves, or pay somebody to do work without the proper permits.
Fire investigators say grow rooms in homes, especially those built by amateurs without licensed contractors are a hazard. Some operations contain 800 to 1,000 pot plants in a 2,500 square foot home. Post legalization, many amateur pot growers continue to rig their homes with unsafe grow rooms while hoping to get rich quickly, said Bilton. “They don’t engineer and design correctly,” he said.
A single home of that size could produce enough pot in a year to net as much as $1.5 million once it’s harvested and sold according to Victor Massenkoff, an arson investigator with the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District in Pleasant Hill, Calif., about 20 miles east of San Francisco. California accounts for nearly half of the sales of pot in the U.S., according to ArcView, a San Francisco-based marijuana industry research firm.
Dave Perry, a property loss insurance lawyer from Littleton, Colo., said the increased use of electricity is the primary cause of most fires, as most home growing operations need as much as 600 amps of power, where a typical home only uses about 200 amps of power. And without a licensed electrician, a house could be rewired improperly, resulting in an overload. In Colorado, a year after marijuana was legalized in 2012, there were 20 marijuana-related fires, which jumped to 32 in 2014, and 50 in 2015, according to Perry.
Even more dangerous is the spread of something called hash oil or “honey butane oil,” which is a super concentrated oil containing 95% tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the drug that creates the high in marijuana. A one-inch vial of honey butane oil can sell on the streets for as much as $4,000 and cost as little as $100 to produce. But the drug needs large amounts of highly flammable butane to produce and has led to explosions and fires in homes when the butane finds an ignition source in a home like a pilot light, says Massenkoff.
Still, experienced contractors who work within the building code and permits process are beginning to build grow rooms in high-end developments, which can cost up to $2,000 to complete.
Bilton says that in Oregon many licensed contractors will build grow rooms now that marijuana is legal. “It’s becoming part of our culture here in Portland,” he said. “You’re more likely to know somebody who’s involved in the growing industry so it’s more acceptable now,” he said.
For example, in Washington, D.C., after voters in the District approved an initiative in November 2014 that legalized recreational marijuana use for adults beginning this February, Eric Hirshfield, a real estate developer, is adding grow closets to some of his condominium projects.
Hirshfeld said he used a licensed electrician to beef up the wiring for the lighting and the exhaust fans as well as plumbers to ensure the proper drainage. He also ensures that the closets are built small enough to hold just six plants, the maximum allowed by D.C. law.
“I like to include a unique amenity in each of my condo projects like a wine cooler or a dog washing station and this year the grow closet is the hot amenity for 2015,” Hirshfield said in an interview. “It’s a sign of the times,” he said.
The ranks of real estate appraisers stand to shrink substantially over the next five years, which could mean longer waits, higher fees and even lower-quality appraisals as more appraisers cross state lines to value properties.
There were 78,500 real estate appraisers working in the U.S. earlier this year, according to the Appraisal Institute, an industry organization, down 20% from 2007. That could fall another 3% each year for the next decade, according to the group. Much of the drop has been among residential, rather than commercial, appraisers.
Some say Americans are unlikely to feel the effects right now, as it’s mostly confined to rural areas and the number of appraisal certifications — many appraisers are licensed to work in multiple states — has held relatively steady. Others say it’s already happening, and rural areas are simply the start.
Since most residential mortgages require an appraiser to value a property before a sale closes, they say, a shortage of appraisers is potentially problematic — and expensive — for both home buyers, who rely on accurate valuations to ensure that they aren’t overpaying, and sellers, who can see deals fall through if appraisals come in low.
“As an appraiser, I should be quiet about this shortage because it’s great for current business,” said Craig Steinley, who runs Steinley Real Estate Appraisals in Rapid City, S.D. But “what will undoubtedly happen, since the market can’t solve this problem by adding new appraisers, [is] it will solve the problem by doing fewer appraisals.”
A shrinking and aging pool
As appraiser numbers are falling, the pool is aging: Sixty-two percent of appraisers are 51 and older, according to the Appraisal Institute (http://www.appraisalinstitute.org/), while 24% are between 36 and 50. Only 13% are 35 or younger.
Industry experts blame an increasingly inhospitable career outlook. Financial institutions used to hire and train entry-level appraisers, but few do anymore, according to John Brenan, modirector of appraisal issues for the Appraisal Foundation (http://www.appraisalfoundation.org/), which sets national standards for real estate appraisers.
That has created a marketplace where current appraisers, mostly small businesses, are fearful of losing business or shrinking their own revenue as they approach retirement. Many have opted not to hire and train replacements.
The requirements to become a certified residential appraiser have also increased over the past couple of decades. Before the early 1990s, a real estate license was often all that was needed. Today, classes and years of apprenticeship are required for certification.
And this year marked the first in which a four-year college degree was required for work as a certified residential appraiser. (It takes only two years of college to become licensed, but that limits the properties on which an appraiser can work. Some states, meanwhile, only offer full certification, not licensing.)
“If you come out of college with a finance degree, you can work for a bank for $70,000 [or] $80,000 a year with benefits,” said Appraisal Institute President Lance Coyle. “As a trainee, you might make $30,000 and get no benefits.” For some, especially those with student loans to pay, the choice may be easy.
“There were definitely easier options of career paths I could have chosen,” said Brooke Newstrom, 34, who became an apprentice for Steinley Real Estate Appraisals earlier this year. She networked for a year and a half, cold calling appraiser offices and attending professional conferences, before getting the job.
For residential appraisers, business isn’t as lucrative as it once was. Federal regulations in 2009 led to the rise of appraisal management companies, which act as a firewall between appraisers and lenders so appraisers can give an unbiased opinion of a home’s value.
But those companies take a chunk of the fee, cutting appraiser compensation. Some community lenders don’t use appraisal management companies, according to Coyle, but they are often used by mortgage brokers and large banks.
Appraiser numbers appear poised to continue shrinking, and as appraisers continue to get multiple state certifications they may be stretched more thinly, industry experts say.
For now, any shortages are likely regional, Brenan said. “There are certainly some parts of the country — and primarily some rural areas — where there aren’t as many appraisers available to perform certain assignments that there were in the past,” he said.
Elsewhere, however, the decrease in appraisers isn’t felt as acutely. In Chicago, according to appraiser John Tsiaousis, it may be difficult for young appraisers to break in but customers in search of one shouldn’t have a problem.
“I don’t believe they will allow us to run out of appraisers,” Tsiaousis said. “Some changes will be made [to the certification process]. When they will be made, I don’t know.”
Longer waits, more expensive appraisals, and quality questions
The effects of an appraiser shortage could be substantial for individuals on both sides of a real estate transaction, experts say.
Fewer appraisers means longer waits, which could hold up a closing. That delay means that borrowers might have to pay for longer mortgage rate locks, according to Sandra O’Connor, regional vice president for the National Association of Realtors (http://www.realtor.org/). (Rate locks hold interest rates firm for set periods of time and are generally purchased after a buyer with initial approval for a loan finds a home she wants.)
Longer waits also affect sellers who need the equity from one sale to purchase their next home. When they can’t close on the home they’re selling, they can’t close on the one they’re buying.
A shortage also means appraisals will likely cost more, which some say is already happening in rural areas. Appraisal fees are generally paid by borrowers.
“Appraisal fees in areas where there aren’t enough appraisers are higher than those areas where there are plenty of people to take up the cause,” said Steinley, who holds leadership roles in the Appraisal Institute and the Association of Appraiser Regulatory Officials (http://www.aaro.net/).
There is a quality issue, too: In some areas, appraisers come in from other states to value homes. While there are guidelines for these appraisers to become geographically competent, they could miss subtleties in the market, Coyle said.
And if the shortage isn’t addressed, and lenders are unable to get appraisers to value homes, lenders might ask federal regulators to relax the rules governing when traditional appraisals are needed, allowing more computer-generated analyses in their place, according to Steinley.
Automated valuation models, which are less expensive and quicker, are rarely used for mortgage originations today, Coyle said. They’re sometimes used for portfolio analysis, or when a borrower needs to demonstrate 20% equity in order to stop paying for private mortgage insurance, he added. They might be used for low-risk home-equity loans, Brenan said.
Currently, appraisers are required for mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those mortgages make up about 70% of the market by loan volume and 90% of the market by loan count, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (https://www.mba.org/).
And computer-generated appraisals can’t match the precision of one conducted by someone who has seen the property, and knows the area, many in the industry say.
The industry is beginning to address the issue. Last month, the Appraisal Foundation’s qualifications board held a hearing to gather comments and suggestions, Brenan said.
One of the options being discussed: Creating a set of competency-based exams that could shorten the time people spend as trainees. That way, someone with a background in real estate finance could become certified more quickly, Steinley said. The board is also looking to further develop courses that would allow college students to gain practical experience before graduation, Brenan said.
Proper education is important “because real estate valuation is hard to do, and you need to get it right,” Coyle said. But the unintended consequences of the current qualifications are just too much, he added. “It’s almost as if you have some regulators trying to keep people out.”
-Amy Hoak; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.co
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
The moon was a waning crescent sliver Sept. 9 when a man emerged from an oil tanker, sidled up to a well outside Cotulla, Texas, and siphoned off almost 200 barrels. Then, he drove two hours to a town where he sold his load on the black market for $10 a barrel, about a quarter of what West Texas Intermediate currently fetches.
“This is like a drug organization,” said Mike Peters, global security manager of San Antonio-based Lewis Energy Group, who recounted the heist at a Texas legislative hearing. “You’ve got your mules that go out to steal the oil in trucks, you’ve got the next level of organization that’s actually taking the oil in, and you’ve got a gathering site — it’s always a criminal organization that’s involved with this.”
From raw crude sucked from wells to expensive machinery that disappears out the back door, drillers from Texas to Colorado are struggling to stop theft that has only worsened amid the industry’s biggest slowdown in a generation. Losses reached almost $1 billion in 2013 and likely have grown since, according to estimates from the Energy Security Council, an industry trade group in Houston. The situation has been fostered by idled trucks, abandoned drilling sites and tens of thousands of lost jobs.
“You’ve got unemployed oilfield workers that unfortunately are resorting to stealing,” said John Chamberlain, executive director of the Energy Security Council.
In Texas, unemployment insurance claims from energy workers more than doubled over the past year to about 110,000, according to the Workforce Commission. In North Dakota, average weekly wages in the Bakken oil patch decreased nearly 10 percent in the first quarter of 2015, compared with the previous quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
With dismissals hitting every corner of the industry, security guards hired during boom times are receiving pink slips. That’s leaving sites unprotected.
“There are a lot less eyes out there for security,” said John Esquivel, an analyst at security consulting firm Butchko Inc. in Tomball, Texas, and a former chief executive of the U.S. Border Patrol in Laredo. “The drilling activity may be quieter, but I don’t think criminal activity is.”
Special Charges
States are trying to get a handle on the theft, which can include anything from drill bits that can fetch thousands on the resale market, to copper wiring that can be melted down, to the crude itself. Texas lawmakers met earlier this month in Austin to craft a bill that would increase penalties related to the crime. A similar measure passed both houses of the legislature this year, but Republican Governor Greg Abbott vetoed it, saying it was “overly broad.” Lawmakers, at the urging of industry, are hoping to revive it next legislative session.
In Oklahoma, law-enforcement officers recently teamed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to intensify their effort. In North Dakota, the FBI earlier this year opened an office in the heart of oil country to combat crimes including theft, drug trafficking and prostitution.
The lull in drilling has given oil companies more time to scrutinize their operations — and their losses.
During booms “they are moving at such a rapid pace there’s not a lot of auditing and inventorying going on,” said Gary Painter, sheriff in Midland County, Texas, in the oil-rich Permian Basin. “Whenever it slows down, they start looking for stuff and find out it never got delivered or it got delivered and it’s gone.”
Oil theft is as old as Spindletop, the East Texas oilfield that spewed black gold in 1901 and began the modern oil era. In the early 1900s, Texas Rangers were often deployed to carry out “town taming” in oil fields rife with roughnecks, prostitutes, gamblers and thieves. In 1932, 18 men were indicted for their role in a Mexia ring that included prominent politicians and executives and resulted in the theft of 1 million barrels.
The allure of ill-gotten oil money remains strong.
In April, the Weld County Sheriff’s office in Colorado recovered almost $300,000 worth of stolen drill bits. In January, a Texas man pleaded guilty to stealing three truckloads of oil worth nearly $60,000 after an investigation by the FBI and local law-enforcement officers. Robert Butler, a sergeant at the Texas Attorney General’s Office whose primary job is to investigate oil theft, said in the legislative hearing that he is investigating a case of 470,000 barrels stolen and sold over the past three years worth about $40 million.
In Texas, oilfield theft has become entangled with Mexican drug trafficking, as the state’s newest and biggest production area, the Eagle Ford Shale region, lies along traditional smuggling routes. That’s thrust oil workers in the middle of cartel activity, and made it even more difficult to track stolen goods across the U.S.-Mexico border, said Esquivel, the retired Border Patrol agent.
Trickling Away
Oil thieves are a slippery bunch. Criminals sand off serial numbers of stolen goods to evade detection or melt them for scrap. Tracking raw crude is even trickier, since tracing it to its originating well is almost impossible once it’s mixed with other oil. Many companies fail to report the crime, making it difficult for investigators to trace the origins of stolen goods.
Many of the crimes are inside jobs, with thieves doubling as gate guards, tank drivers or well servicers. Last year, a federal grand jury indicted three Texas men in connection with the theft of $1.5 million worth of oil from their employers, including Houston’s Anadarko Petroleum Corp.
“Your average person wouldn’t know the value of a drill bit or a piece of tubing or a gas meter,” said Chamberlain. “It’d be like breaking into a jewelry store; unless you know what’s valuable, you wouldn’t know what to steal.”
On a hilltop in Bel Air, a 100,000-square-foot giga-mansion is under construction, for no one in particular. The asking price—$500 million—would shatter records, but, as ridiculous as it sounds, in L.A.’s unbridled real-estate bubble, this house could be billed as a bargain.
My mansion really is worth $500M, claims the man behind most expensive home ever built which boasts five swimming pools, a casino and a VIP nightclub
The Bel Air home, which will be finished in 2017, is close to those of celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston and Elon Musk
The property has panoramic views of the LA basin and Pacific Ocean and will cover more than 100,000 square feet
The price works out to about $5,000 per square foot, which the property’s developer Nile Niami says is a good price for what the buyer is getting
The home will have five swimming pools, a casino, a nightclub and a lounge with jellyfish tanks replacing the walls and ceilings
Niami, behind films including action-thriller The Patriot, hopes to double the world-record for the most expensive home ever sold
A mega-mansion in Bel Air has been listed for a whopping $500million – but the extravagant home is worth its value, the real-estate developer claims.
Sitting on a hilltop with views of the San Gabriel Mountains, LA basin, Beverly Hills and the Pacific Ocean, the home will have five swimming pools, a casino, a nightclub with VIP access, a lounge with jellyfish tanks replacing the walls and ceilings, and many other amenities.
The home, which will be finished in 2017 and boasts neighbors including Jennifer Aniston and Elon Musk, will be more than 100,000 square feet – twice the size of the White House.
A home being built in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, by real-estate developer Nile Niami is being listed for $500million. Above is a depiction of what it will look like when finished.
A home being built in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, by real-estate developer Nile Niami is being listed for $500million. Above is a depiction of what it will look like when finished
The 100,000-square-foot home, which is still being built (pictured) is close to several celebrities’ houses.
The 100,000-square-foot home, which is still being built (pictured) is close to several celebrities’ houses
The price works out to about $5,000 per square foot, which Hollywood producer-turned-developer 47-year-old Nile Niami notes is less than half of what some billionaires pay for Manhattan penthouses.
Niami, pictured in 2013, said the property will be worth the cost.
Niami, pictured in 2013, said the property will be worth the cost.
‘We have a very specific client in mind,’ Niami told Details magazine. ‘Someone who already has a $100million yacht and seven houses all over the world, in London and Dubai and whatever.
‘To be able to say that the biggest, most expensive house in the world is here, that will really be good for LA.’
Niami, behind films including action-thriller The Patriot, hopes to double the world-record for the most expensive home ever sold with the $500million asking price.
He grew unpopular with neighbors last fall, when he sliced off the top of a hill to create panoramic vistas on his four-acre lot.
For weeks, dump trucks filled the neighborhood’s narrow streets as they removed about 40,000 cubic yards of dirt from the property.
Drew Fenton, the real-estate broker listing the property, said that the home is important to Los Angeles.
‘It is by far the most important estate project in Los Angeles over the last 25 years and will raise the bar for all other estates built in the city,’ he told Details.
The home will have several features that most residential properties don’t, including a two-story waterfall, temperature-controlled room for storing fresh flowers, a cigar lounge and an indoor-outdoor dance floor.
It also will have a 30-car garage, 40-seat screening room and a 6,000-square-foot master suite.
Sitting on a hilltop with views of the San Gabriel Mountains, LA basin, Beverly Hills and the Pacific Ocean, the home will have five swimming pools, a casino, a nightclub with VIP access, a lounge with jellyfish tanks replacing the walls and ceilings, and many other amenities.
Sitting on a hilltop with views of the San Gabriel Mountains, LA basin, Beverly Hills and the Pacific Ocean, the home will have five swimming pools, a casino, a nightclub with VIP access, a lounge with jellyfish tanks replacing the walls and ceilings, and many other amenities
The price works out to about $5,000 per square foot, which Hollywood producer-turned-developer Niami notes is less than half of what some billionaires pay for Manhattan penthouses.
The price works out to about $5,000 per square foot, which Hollywood producer-turned-developer Niami notes is less than half of what some billionaires pay for Manhattan penthouses.
But when inside the master suite, ‘it doesn’t look that big, because everything else is so big’, Niami said.
It will have three smaller homes, four swimming pools including a 180ft long infinity pool and a 20,000-square-foot artificial lawn to comply with California’s drought-induced water restrictions.
A glass-walled, high-ceiling library will take part of the first floor, but Niami said not to expect to find books in the room.
‘Nobody really reads books,’ he said. ‘So I’m just going to fill the shelves with white books, for looks.’
Niami sells his homes fully furnished and decorated to the buyers’ tastes.
The property’s chief architect, Paul McClean, told Details that listing prices are not often the reality.
Drew Fenton, the real-estate broker listing the property, said that the home is important to Los Angeles in that it will ‘raise the bar for all other estates built in the city.’
Drew Fenton, the real-estate broker listing the property, said that the home is important to Los Angeles in that it will ‘raise the bar for all other estates built in the city’
‘The numbers right now are crazy, no matter how you look at them,’ he said. ‘But for most people who buy these kinds of houses, it’s not a decision that they calculate based on price per square foot.
‘It’s more about the emotional draw. With Nile, we’re trying to sell a lifestyle, a sense of how people imagine they would live.’
Niami said he does not know who sold him the Bel Air plot – the secret transaction took place through a bank trust where the owner remained anonymous.
The real-estate developer declined to say how much he paid for the property, which originally included a decrepit home that has since been torn down.
As for who he’d like to live in his soon-to-be mega-mansion: ‘It doesn’t make a difference as long as they pay the money.
The home will have several features that most residential properties don’t, including a two-story waterfall, temperature-controlled room for storing fresh flowers, a cigar lounge and an indoor-outdoor dance floor. This image gives an idea of what it will look like when finished.
The home will have several features that most residential properties don’t, including a two-story waterfall, temperature-controlled room for storing fresh flowers, a cigar lounge and an indoor-outdoor dance floor. This image gives an idea of what it will look like when finished.
CBRE’s John Knott and Michael Parks announced this week the firm’s listing of the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, a partially completed hotel casino project that represents an original investment in land and improvements of more than $2 billion. At 730 feet, it stands as the tallest hotel tower on the Las Vegas Strip.
Situated on 22.65 acres on the east side of Las Vegas Boulevard south of Sahara Avenue, the project’s structure provides for flexibility relative to its completion and can be reconfigured to meet a new investor’s vision, according to Knott.
“A Las Vegas Boulevard address, coupled with adjacency to the planned expansion of the Convention Center District by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), along with the tower’s iconic height, combine to make this one of the most exciting development opportunities in Las Vegas in many years,” said Knott. “The structure has been well-maintained and is ready for immediate development to bring to fruition the vision of its next owner. This is an unparalleled asset with significant potential on one of the most landmark streets in the world. Opportunities like this are few and far between.”
Originally programmed for 3,815 keys comprised of 2,882 hotel rooms and suites, 933 condominiums, 300,000 square feet of retail, 543,000 square feet of meeting space, 155,000 square feet of gaming space and a 3,200-seat theatre, the project is significant in size, function and possibility.
“As the global and local economy rebounds and 2014 visitation to Las Vegas topped a record-setting 41 million tourists, the time is ideal to realize the potential of this incredibly valuable piece of Las Vegas real estate,” said Parks. “Hotel occupancy rates in Las Vegas are over 90 percent with record average daily rates, retail sales are strong and there is an improvement in mass market gaming numbers. The next generation of this development is limited only by the imagination and vision of its new owner.”
The property is located adjacent to the former Riviera Hotel & Casino site that is now owned by the LVCVA and is part of a planned 10-year, $2.5 billion expansion and redevelopment initiative that will add significant convention and meeting space, a World Trade Center and improve the area via aesthetic enhancements and technology upgrades. The goal of the initiative is to ensure Las Vegas remains the world’s number one tradeshow destination for decades to come.
“The Fontainebleau gives a well-heeled investor or group the opportunity to do something meaningful and wonderful that will add to the Las Vegas experience,” said Parks.
The federal government has piled up debt since the latest budget deal was signed into law, tacking $462 billion onto the national credit card since Nov. 2 as the Treasury Department replenished its funds and began another round of borrowing to take it all the way into 2017.
A staggering $339 billion in total debt was added on just the first day after President Obama signed the budget agreement — the single largest hike in history.
The debt has continued to rise, albeit more slowly, in the days since, putting the president on track to come close to the $20 trillion mark by the time he leaves office in January 2017.
Meanwhile, the early deficit numbers for fiscal year 2016, which began Oct. 1, are already looking more grim.
The government ran a deficit of $136 billion last month, up 12 percent compared with the previous October, as spending ballooned and taxes remained nearly flat. It was the worst October since 2010, when the government was still spending on the stimulus and was on pace for a deficit of more than $1 trillion that year.
The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment on the debt spike, but analysts said it wasn’t unexpected.
“It’s not going to keep rising at that pace. It’s like putting a cap on a geyser. It was being held at an artificially low pace,” said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, which pushes for policymakers to control debt and deficits. “It’ll increase at a more traditional level from this point on.”
Despite the massive spread of red ink, the government has been getting away with small debt service payments because of historically low interest rates over the past several years.
But as rates rise, so will those payments — from about $220 billion a year now to $755 billion a year in a decade.
The size of the debt has begun to take a starring role in the 2016 presidential campaigns. In the Republican debate Tuesday, Fox Business Network prodded candidates on their plans.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky poked fellow candidate Sen. Marco Rubio for a tax and defense spending plan that Mr. Paul said would hike deficits by $1 trillion.
“As we go further and further into debt, we become less and less safe. This is the most important thing we’re going to talk about tonight,” Mr. Paul said. “Can you be for unlimited military spending, and say, ‘Oh, I’m going to make the country safe?’ No, we need a safe country, but, you know, we spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined.”
Mr. Rubio said defense comes first.
“We can’t even have an economy if we’re not safe,” he said.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who as chairman of the House Budget Committee in the late 1990s helped write the deals that produced four years of surpluses, said he has plans to do it again — including a freeze on non-defense discretionary spending.
But it was just such a freeze that Congress rejected this year, forcing the budget deal that allowed for unlimited borrowing for another 16 months.
Mr. Bixby said Congress should use those months to work on long-term fixes rather than preparing for another knock-down fight over the debt limit.
“The way to keep the debt from going up is to change the policies producing the debt,” he said.
The government began bumping up against the debt limit in March and was borrowing from other funds — using “extraordinary measures” — to keep from breaching the $18.1 trillion level. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew was able to stretch that borrowing through the end of October, when Congress passed a debt holiday lasting into March 2017, allowing him to borrow as much as needed to keep the federal government operating.
The first move was to replenish all of the funds depleted under the “extraordinary measures,” which is what sent debt skyrocketing on Nov. 2.
Such spikes are normal. In 2013, when a debt deal was reached, the government added $328 billion to its borrowing in one day. After the August 2011 debt deal, the amount rose $238 billion in one day.
But the Nov. 2 spike topped them all, at $339 billion in one day.
Of that, about $199 billion is public debt, which is money borrowed from outside sources, and $140 billion is borrowing from within government accounts.
As of Monday, the gross total debt stood at $18.6 trillion, with $13.4 trillion of that public debt borrowed from the outside.
When Mr. Obama took office in 2009, total debt stood at $10.6 trillion.
Four Federal Home Loan Banks have recruited 74 members to participate in their new Mortgage Partnership Finance jumbo loan program.
The program, under which jumbo loans are packaged together and sold to Redwood Trust, a mortgage real estate investment trust, recently launched at the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Des Moines banks, with another two FHLBs also approved to offer it to their members.
The four banks “began ramping up their marketing efforts to their members in the third quarter,” according to a Redwood Trust letter to shareholders.
Redwood will purchase jumbo loans with balances as high as $1.5 million.
As of Sept. 30, “the MPF Direct program has purchased loans from only Chicago participating financial institutions, but we have active loan locks from members in other districts,” a Chicago FHLB spokeswoman said in a written response to questions.
Under MPF Direct, members can sell their jumbo loans to the Chicago FHLB, which in turn sells them to Redwood Trust. The Mill Valley, Calif., mortgage REIT prefers to package jumbos into private-label securities for sale to investors.
But that is not the best execution in the current market, according to Redwood president Brett Nicholas.
As a result, Redwood has shifted to bulk and whole loan sales to maintain its margins on jumbo loans.
“In short, a strong portfolio bid for whole loans from banks currently results in a more favorable loan sale execution for us versus securitization,” Nicholas said during a Nov. 5 conference call to investors and equity analysts.
“As a leader in private-label securitization,” Nicholas said, Redwood remains committed to issuing PLS under its Sequoia brand “to the extent the economics make sense.”
After some initial excitement, November has seen crude oil prices collapse back towards cycle lows amid demand doubts (e.g. slumping China oil imports, overflowing Chinese oil capacity, plunging China Industrial Production) and supply concerns (e.g. inventories soaring). However, an even bigger problem looms that few are talking about. As Iraq – the fastest-growing member of OPEC – has unleashed a two-mile long, 3 million metric ton barrage of 19 million barrel excess supply directly to US ports in November.
Crude prices are already falling:
But OPEC has another trick up its sleeve to crush US Shale oil producers. As Bloomberg reports,
Iraq, the fastest-growing producer within the 12-nation group, loaded as many as 10 tankers in the past several weeks to deliver crude to U.S. ports in November, ship-tracking and charters compiled by Bloomberg show.
Assuming they arrive as scheduled, the 19 million barrels being hauled would mark the biggest monthly influx from Iraq since June 2012, according to Energy Information Administration figures.
The cargoes show how competition for sales among members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is spilling out into global markets, intensifying competition with U.S. producers whose own output has retreated since summer. For tanker owners, it means rates for their ships are headed for the best quarter in seven years, fueled partly by the surge in one of the industry’s longest trade routes.
Worst still, they are slashing prices…
Iraq, pumping the most since at least 1962 amid competition among OPEC nations to find buyers, is discounting prices to woo customers.
The Middle East country sells its crude at premiums or discounts to global benchmarks, competing for buyers with suppliers such as Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest exporter. Iraq sold its Heavy grade at a discount of $5.85 a barrel to the appropriate benchmark for November, the biggest discount since it split the grade from Iraqi Light in May. Saudi Arabia sold at $1.25 below benchmark for November, cutting by a further 20 cents in December.
“It’s being priced much more aggressively,” said Dominic Haywood, an oil analyst at Energy Aspects Ltd. in London. “It’s being discounted so U.S. Gulf Coast refiners are more incentivized to take it.”
So when does The Obama Administration ban crude imports?
And now, we get more news from Iraq:
*IRAQ CUTS DECEMBER CRUDE OIL OSPS TO EUROPE: TRADERS
So taking on the Russians?
* * *
Finally, as we noted previously, it appears Iraq (and Russia) are more than happy to compete on price.. and have been successful – for now – at gaining significant market share…
Even as both Iran and Saudi Arabia are losing Asian market share to Russia and Iraq, Tehran is closely allied with Baghdad and Moscow while Riyadh is not. That certainly seems to suggest that in the long run, the Saudis are going to end up with the short end of the stick.
Once again, it’s the intersection of geopolitics and energy, and you’re reminded that at the end of the day, that’s what it usually comes down to.
WTI Tumbles To $43 Handle After API Confirms Huge Inventory Build
API reported a huge 6.3 million barrel inventory build (notably larger than expected) extending the series of build to seven weeks. Even more worrying was the massive 2.5 million barrel build at Cushing, even as gasoline inventories fell 3.2mm. WTI immediately dropped 35c, breaking back to a $43 handle after-hours.
Four US Firms With $4.8 Billion In Debt Warned This Week They May Default Any Minute
The last 3 days have seen the biggest surge in US energy credit risk since December 2014, blasting back above 1000bps. This should not be a total surprise since underlying oil prices continue to languish in “not cash-flow positive” territory for many shale producers, but, as Bloomberg reports, the industry is bracing for a wave of failures as investors that were stung by bets on an improving market earlier this year try to stay away from the sector. “It’s been eerily silent,” in energy credit markets, warns one bond manager, “no one is putting up new capital here.”
The market is starting to reprice dramatically for a surge in defaults...
Eleven months of depressed oil prices are threatening to topple more companies in the energy industry. As Bloomberg details,
Four firms owing a combined $4.8 billion warned this week that they may be at the brink, with Penn Virginia Corp., Paragon Offshore Plc, Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. and Emerald Oil Inc. saying their auditors have expressed doubts that they can continue as going concerns. Falling oil prices are squeezing access to credit, they said. And everyone from Morgan Stanley to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is predicting that energy prices won’t rebound anytime soon.
The industry is bracing for a wave of failures as investors that were stung by bets on an improving market earlier this year try to stay away from the sector. Barclays Plc analysts say that will cause the default rate among speculative-grade companies to double in the next year. Marathon Asset Management is predicting default rates among high-yield energy companies will balloon to as high as 25 percent cumulatively in the next two to three years if oil remains below $60 a barrel.
“No one is putting up new capital here,” said Bruce Richards, co-founder of Marathon, which manages $12.5 billion of assets. “It’s been eerily silent in the whole high-yield energy sector, including oil, gas, services and coal.”
That’s partly because investors who plowed about $14 billion into high-yield energy bonds sold in the past six months are sitting on about $2 billion of losses, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
And the energy sector accounts for more than a quarter of high-yield bonds that are trading at distressed levels, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Barclays said in a Nov. 6 research note that the market is anticipating “a near-term wave of defaults” among energy companies. Those can’t be avoided unless commodity prices make “a very large” and “unexpected” resurgence.
“Everybody’s liquidity is worse than it was at this time last year,” said Jason Mudrick, founder of Mudrick Capital Management. “It’s a much more dire situation than it was 12 months ago.”
While the crude oil tanker backlog in Houston reaches an almost unprecedented 39 (with combined capacity of 28.4 million barrels), as The FT reports that from China to the Gulf of Mexico, the growing flotilla of stationary supertankers is evidence that the oil price crash may still have further to run, as more than 100m barrels of crude oil and heavy fuels are being held on ships at sea (as the year-long supply glut fills up available storage on land). The storage problems are so severe in fact, that traders asking ships to go slow, and that is where we see something very strange occurring off the coast near Galveston, TX.
FT reports that “the amount of oil at sea is at least double the levels of earlier this year and is equivalent to more than a day of global oil supply. The numbers of vessels has been compiled by the Financial Times from satellite tracking data and industry sources.”
The storage glut is unprecedented:
Off Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, Asia’s main oil hub, around 35m barrels of crude and shipping fuel are being stored on 14 VLCCs.
“A lot of the storage off Singapore is fuel oil as the contango is stronger,” said Petromatrix analyst Olivier Jakob. Fuel oil is mainly used in shipping and power generation.
Off China, which is on course to overtake the US as the world’s largest crude importer, five heavily laden VLCCs — each capable of carrying more than 2m barrels of oil — are parked near the ports of Qingdao, Dalian and Tianjin.
In Europe, a number of smaller tankers are facing short-term delays at Rotterdam and in the North Sea, where output is near a two-year high. In the Mediterranean a VLCC has been parked off Malta since September.
On the US Gulf Coast, tankers carrying around 20m barrels of oil are waiting to unload, Reuters reported. Crude inventories on the US Gulf Coast are at record levels.
A further 8m barrels of oil are being held off the UAE, while Iran — awaiting the end of sanctions to ramp up exports — has almost 40m barrels of fuel on its fleet of supertankers near the Strait of Hormuz. Much of this is believed to be condensate, a type of ultralight oil.
And unlike the last oil price collapse during the financial crisis only half of the oil held on the water has been put there specifically by traders looking to cash in by storing the fuel until prices recover. Instead, sky-high supertanker rates have prevented them from putting more oil into so-called floating storage, shutting off one of the safety valves that could prevent oil prices from falling further.
A widening oil market structure known as contango — where future prices are higher than spot prices — could make floating storage possible.
The difference between Brent for delivery in six months’ time and now rose to $4.50 last week, up from $1.50 in May. Traders estimate it may need to reach $6 to make sea storage viable.
JBC Energy, a consultancy, said in many regions onshore oil storage is approaching capacity, arguing oil prices may have to fall to allow more to be stored profitably at sea.
“Onshore storage is not quite full but it is at historically high levels globally,” said David Wech, managing director of JBC Energy.
“As we move closer to capacity that is creating more infrastructure hiccups and delays in the oil market, leading to more oil being backed out on to the water.”
Patrick Rodgers, the chief executive of Euronav, one of the world’s biggest listed tanker companies, said oil glut was so severe traders were asking ships to go slow to help them manage storage levels.
“We are being kept at relatively low speeds. The owners of the oil are not in a hurry to get their cargoes. They are managing their storage capacity by keeping ships at a certain speed.”
As a result of all this, something very unusual going on off the coast of Galveston, where more than 39 crude tankers w/ combined cargo capacity of 28.4 million bbls wait near Galveston (Galveston is area where tankers can anchor before taking cargoes to refineries at Houston and other nearby plants), vessel tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show, which compares w/ 30 vessels, 21 million bbls of capacity in May. Vessels wait avg of 5 days, compared w/ 3 days May.
As AP puts it, “a traffic jam of oil tankers is the latest sign of an unyielding global supply glut.”
More than 50 commercial vessels were anchored outside ports in the Houston area at the end of last week, of which 41 were tankers, according to Houston Pilots, an organization that assists in navigation of larger vessels. Normally, there are 30 to 40 vessels, of which two-thirds are tankers, according to the group.
Although the channel has been shut intermittently in recent weeks because of fog or flooding, oil traders pointed to everything from capacity constraints to a lack of buyers.
“It appears that the glut of supply in the global market is only getting worse,” said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData. Several traders said some ships might have arrived without a buyer, which can be hard to find as ample supply and end-of-year taxes push refiners to draw down inventories.
Crude Jumps After API Reports Modest Inventory Draw (First In 8 Weeks) Despite Another Big Build At Cushing
11/17/2015: After seven straight weeks of significant inventory builds, API reported a modest 482k draw. That was all the algos needed and WTI immediately ramped back above $41.00. However, what they likely missed was the 2nd weekly (huge) build in Cushing (1.5mm barrels) as we warned earlier on land storage starting to really fill…
In short: “The US is the last place with significant onshore crude storage space left.”
Which leads directly to Citi’s conclusion: “‘Sell the rally’ near-term as fundamentals remain very sloppy and inventory constraints are becoming increasingly more binding.”
Without a doubt, the main things people think of when considering buying rural land for an off-grid property are size, location and cost.
But there are several other steps and factors you’ll need to consider to ascertain if the area is viable for living in and farming, especially in the long term. Going through these guidelines will help you make a better assessment, and spare you from potential problems ahead — especially if you’ve been a city-slicker all your life and are only now transitioning into country living. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it may include items you may not have thought of.
1. Soil condition. Is the soil arable? Too rocky? Too sandy? Clay-like? Contaminated with chemicals from fertilizers used by previous owners? These factors, along with soil acidity and pH, would determine the level of success and challenges you’ll have in growing your food. I would recommend getting a soil test done, and doing so on the specific areas you’re planning a garden.
2. Safety from hazards — natural and man-made. You may wish to steer clear of known earthquake faults, nuclear plants, tornado belts, flood plains, drought-prone areas, and low-lying coastal villages (at risk of hurricanes and tsunamis).
3. Water source. This could be a stream, an underground spring, an existing well shaft or a small creek or pond. An uphill spring is perfect, so you could do a gravity-fed water catchment system. If you’re looking to drill a well, ask the neighbors how deep they were able to tap their well.
Check the water quality, and how land is — and was — used in the surrounding area, not just yours. Is or was there a commercial orchard in the distance? A mining operation? A feedlot? A factory? You don’t want any of their wastes or chemical run-off in your groundwater. Find out about water rights, too. Some states don’t even allow residents to collect rainwater right from their own roof gutters.
4. Accessibility of goods and services. Depending on your and your family’s needs, you’ll need to consider the distance and time it would take for you to get to the nearest town for supplies and hard-to-find service – for anything from automotive repair to computer parts. Probably a few non-negotiables for many folks are a hospital, trauma center, fire station or any kind of emergency response. That would be very important if you or a family member have a medical condition that could need urgent care.
5. Zoning and building restrictions. Look at land use regulations, covenants and homeowners association rules. Can residents build or dig any structure they want — a straw bale house, a tree house, a pond, some cabins to rent out? Some neighborhoods set a limit on what kind and number of livestock homeowners can keep. While some counties have strict laws, others, especially those in the most remote locations, have virtually none. And not having them could be just as bad. What if the neighbors opened a huge poultry or hog operation in the distance and the smell and the flies start sweeping over to you? If peace and privacy are critical for you, go for residential and strictly non-commercial zones, as you wouldn’t want enterprises, big or small, building structures near you – from even a small, seemingly passive thing as a cell phone tower, to an all-out, invasive industrial park. Are you near a forest reserve or property owned by the government? Make sure property lines are clear and yours is a good distance from them. Look out for companies that do fracking, timber harvesting or mining of any sort. You don’t know if they’d be looking to encroach in your area in the future.
6. Woods. The benefits of having or living near wooded areas are endless: privacy and concealment, a buffer from dust and strong winds, and availability of timber and firewood. The natural habitat would also mean edible wildlife for you and your family.
Aside from hunting and foraging, the woods could also mean hours of recreation: exploring, trail running, camping and swimming if there’s a nearby pond or river. If you’re purchasing wooded land, find out exactly if you’d be allowed to cut — and how much.
7. Clearing. On the other hand, if you’re going to do some serious homesteading, you’ll need sunny, open spaces for gardening and livestock grazing. Don’t forget areas needed for barns and animal pens, an extra storage shed, garage or workshop, and a compost pile. Budget permitting, you might also consider building a greenhouse and potting shed. Off-grid energy installations like solar panels and wind turbines might also require specific locations besides your roof. And, if you decide to use a compost toilet instead of a septic, look for the most strategic location for an outhouse.
8. Communications. Unless you’re ready to totally unplug and live without phone or Internet connection, check the availability of telecom services. Check cell phone signals in different areas of the property. Not only would you want to remain connected to loved ones and the rest of the world, you might also consider working online by selling goods and services. Find out if there’s more than one service provider, so there’s an alternative if you’re not happy with one.
9. Like-minded neighbors. Whether they be somewhat similar to you in the area of self-sufficiency, farming practices, political views or faith, living next to people who share the same values will make life a lot easier for you. Neighbors can be an important asset and even a resource when living off the grid. They can come to your aid in an emergency, they can share valuable knowledge and skills in all things faming, they can lend tools and equipment you don’t yet have; and they can provide good-old company when things get lonely.
‘They shut off the machine, took it away, printed out a ticket and gave me $80’
An Oregon woman landed on the $8 million jackpot while playing the slot machine at a Lucky Eagle Casino, but walked away empty-handed when the casino told her the machine malfunctioned.
Veronica Castillo, a mortgage loan officer from Beaverton, Oregon, took her mother to the casino in Rochester, Washington, last weekend. She was elated when she put $100 in one of the slot machines and hit the jackpot – or so she thought.
“I was very excited, happy,” she told a local CBS News affiliate. “Then I couldn’t believe it.”
The casino staff told Ms. Castillo that she hadn’t won the $8 million because the machine malfunctioned.
“They shut off the machine, took it away, printed out a ticket and gave me $80,” she said.
The casino machines all have a sticker on them informing players that a machine malfunction voids all pays and plays, CBS reported.
“To me, it’s cheating, may even be fraudulent,” Ms. Castillo said. “My first thought was, how many people has this happened to? They think they won, then going away empty-handed.”
She is working to get an attorney to claim her winnings.
Casino CEO John Setterstrom, who has been with the casino since before it opened in 1995, told CBS this has never happened there before. He said he is working to get answers from the manufacturer and wants to keep Ms. Castillo as a customer.
Planning to buy a fixer-upper, or make improvements to your existing home? The FHA 203k loan may be your perfect home improvement loan.
In combining your construction loan and your mortgage into a single home loan, the 203k loan program limits your loan closing costs and simplifies the home renovation process.
FHA 203k mortgages are available in California in loan amounts of up to $625,500.
About FHA Mortgages
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is a federal agency which is more than 80 years old. It was formed as part of the National Housing Act of 1934 with the stated mission of making homes affordable.
Prior to the FHA, home buyers were typically required to make down payments of fifty percent or more; and were required to repay loans in full within five years of closing. The FHA and its loan programs changed all that.
The agency launched a mortgage insurance program through which it would protect the nation’s lenders against “bad loans”.
In order to receive such insurance, lenders were required to confirm that loans met FHA minimum standards which included verifications of employment; credit history reviews; and, satisfactory home appraisals.
These minimum standards came to be known as the FHA mortgage guidelines and, for loans which met guidelines, banks were granted permission to offer loan terms which put home ownership within reach for U.S. buyers.
Today, the FHA loan remains among the most forgiving and favorable of today’s home loan programs.
FHA mortgages require down payments of just 3.5 percent; make concessions for borrowers with low credit scores; and provide access to low mortgage rates.
The FHA has insured more than 34 million mortgages since its inception.
What Is The FHA 203k Construction Loan?
The FHA 203k loan is the agency’s specialized home construction loan.
Available to both buyers and refinancing households, the 203k loan combines the traditional “home improvement” loan with a standard FHA mortgage, allowing mortgage borrowers to borrow their costs of construction.
The FHA 203k Loan Comes In Two Varieties.
The first type of 203k loan is the Streamlined 203k. The Streamlined 203k loan is for less extensive projects and cost are limited to $35,000. The other 203k loan type is the “standard” 203k.
The standard 203k loan is meant for projects requiring structural changes to home including moving walls, replacing plumbing, or anything else which may prohibit you from living in the home while construction is underway.
There are no loan size limits with the standard 203k but there is a $5,000 minimum loan size.
The FHA says there are three ways you can use the program.
1. You can use the FHA 203k loan to purchase a home on a plot of land, then repair it 2. You can use the FHA 203k loan to purchase a home on another plot of land, move it to a new plot of land, then repair it 3. You can use the FHA 203k loan to refinance an existing home, then repair it
All proceeds from the mortgage must be spent on home improvement. You may not use the 203k loan for “cash out” or any other purpose. Furthermore, the 203k mortgage may only be used on single-family homes; or homes of fewer than 4 units.
You may use the FHA 203k to convert a building of more than four units to a home of 4 units or fewer. The program is available for homes which will be owner-occupied only.
203k Loan Eligibility Standards
The 203k loan is an FHA-backed home loan, and follows the eligibility standards of a standard FHA mortgage.
For example, borrowers are expected to document their annual income via federal tax returns and to show a debt-to-income ratio within program limits. Borrowers must also be U.S. citizens or legal residents of the United States.
And, while there is no specific credit score required in order to qualify for the 203k rehab loan, most mortgage lenders will enforce a minimum 580 FICO.
Like all FHA loans, the minimum down payment requirement on a 203k rehab loan is 3.5 percent and FHA 203k homeowners can borrow up to their local FHA loan size limit, which reaches $625,500 in higher-cost areas including Los Angeles, New York City, New York; and, San Francisco.
Furthermore, 203k loans are available as fixed-rate or adjustable-rate loans; and loan sizes may exceed a home’s after-improvement value by as much as 10%. for borrowers with a recent bankruptcy, short sale or foreclosure; and the FHA’s Energy Efficiency Mortgage program.
What Repairs Does The 203k Loan Allow?
The FHA is broad with the types of repairs permitted with a 203k loan. However, depending on the nature of the repairs, borrowers may be required to use the “standard” 203k home loan as compared to the simpler, faster Streamlined 203k.
The FHA lists several repair types which require the standard 203k:
• Relocation of loan-bearing walls • Adding new rooms to a home • Landscaping of a property • Repairing structural damage to a home • Total repairs exceeding $35,000
For most other home improvement projects, borrowers should look to the FHA Streamlined 203k . The FHA Streamlined 203k requires less paperwork as compared to a standard 203k and can be a simpler loan to manage.
A partial list of projects well-suited for the Streamlined 203k program include :
• HVAC repair or replacement • Roof repair or replacement • Home accessibility improvements for disabled persons • Minor remodeling, which does not require structural repair • Basement finishing, which does not require structural repair • Exterior patio or porch addition, repair or replacement
Borrowers can also use the Streamlined 203k loan for window and siding replacement; interior and exterior painting; and, home weatherization.
For today’s home buyers, the FHA 203k loan can be a terrific way to finance home construction and repairs.
According to the National Association of REALTORS®, 25% of primary home buyers are single. Some of these non-married buyers, statistics show, buy homes jointly with other non-married buyers such as boyfriends, girlfriends or partners.
If you’re a non-married, joint home buyer, though, before signing at your closing, you’ll want to protect your interests.
Different from married home buyers, non-married buyers get almost no estate-planning protection on the state or federal level which can be, at minimum, an inconvenience and, at worst, result in foreclosure.
Non-Married Buyers Should Seek Professional Advice
The video clip referenced above is from 2007 but remains relevant today. It’s a four-minute breakdown which covers the risks of buying a home with a partner, and the various ways by which joint, non-married buyers can seek protection.
The process starts with an experienced real estate attorney.
The reason you’re seeking an attorney is because, at minimum, the following two documents should be drafted for signatures. They are :
Cohabitation Agreement
Property Agreement
The Cohabitation Agreement is a document which describes each person’s financial obligation to the home. It should include details on which party is responsible for payment of the mortgage, real estate taxes and insurance; the down payment made on the mortgage; and necessary repairs.
It will also describe the disposition of the home in the event of a break-up or death of one party which, unfortunately, can happen.
The second document, the Property Agreement, describes the physical property which you may accumulate while living together, and its disposition if one or both parties decide to move out.
A well-drafted Property Agreement will address furniture, appliances, plus other items brought into the joint household, and any items accumulated during the period of co-habitation.
It’s permissible to have a single real estate attorney represent both parties but, for maximum protection, it’s advised that both buyers hire counsel separately. This will add additional costs but will be worth the money paid in the event of catastrophe or break-up.
Also, remember that search engines cannot substitute for a real, live attorney. There are plenty of “cheap legal documents” available online but do-it-yourself lawyering won’t always hold up in court — especially in places where egregious errors or omissions have been made.
It’s preferable to spend a few hundred dollars on adequate legal protection as compared to the costs of fighting a courtroom battle or foreclosure.
Furthermore, a proper agreement will help keep the home out of probate in the event of a death of one or both parties.
Mortgages For First-Time Home Buyers
Many non-married, joint home buyers are also first-time home buyers and, for first-time home buyers, there are a number of low- and no-down payment mortgage options to put home ownership more within reach.
Among the most popular programs are the FHA mortgage and the USDA home loan.
The FHA mortgage is offered by the majority of U.S. lenders and allows for a minimum down payment of just 3.5 percent. Mortgage rates are often as low (or lower) than comparable loans from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac; and underwriting requirements are among the loosest of all of today’s loan types.
FHA loans can be helpful in other ways, too.
As one example, the FHA offers a construction loan program known as the 203k which allows home buyers to finance construction costs into the purchase of their home. FHA home buyers have financed new garages, new windows, new siding and new floors via the 203k program.
FHA loans are also made with an “assumable” clause. This means that when you sell a home with FHA financing attached to it, the buyer of the home can “assume” the existing mortgage at its existing interest rate.
If mortgage rates move to 8 percent in 2020, you could sell your home to a buyer with an assumable FHA mortgage attached at 4.50%.
USDA loans are also popular among first-time home buyers.
Backed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA loans are available in many suburban and rural areas nationwide, and can be made as a no-money-down mortgage.
USDA mortgage rates are often lower than even FHA mortgage rates.
Domestic and business partnerships sometimes end unhappily. Engagements end and partnerships sour. Nobody intends for it to happen, but it does. It’s best to expect the best, but prepare for the worst.
All parties should seek equal legal protection in the event of a break-up.
As part of its mission to reform the mortgage industry in favor of home buyers, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau replaced the industry’s existing lending forms with more simplified documents. These documents took effect in early October, as part of the CFPB’s “Know Before You Owe” initiative.
Here are five things to learn about these new disclosure forms.
Four forms become two.
When applying for a mortgage, you used to receive the Good Faith Estimate and Truth-in-Lending Act statements. Before closing, you were given the HUD-1 settlement and final TILA statements.
These days, you only have to worry about two mortgage documents instead of four: the Loan Estimate, which is given to you within three days of applying for a home loan, and the Closing Disclosure, which is sent to you three days before your scheduled closing.
The CFPB says the new forms, which were a few years in the making, are easier to understand and use.
The Loan Estimate helps you better compare loans …
One of the most important aspects of home buying, aside from finding the right house for you and your family, is choosing a mortgage that best suits your circumstances.
The Loan Estimate makes it easier for you to compare loan offers from multiple mortgage lenders by giving you a thorough idea of the many expenses related to a loan, including:
Your interest rate and whether it’s fixed or adjustable.
Your monthly payment amount.
What the loan may cost you over the first five years.
You get this three-page form with every mortgage application, which helps you make an apples-to-apples comparison among different loans.
… and lenders, too.
Each lender has its own set of origination charges, which include an application fee, underwriting fee and points. These charges are outlined on the second page of the Loan Estimate.
Lender fees are among the few costs over which you actually have control, meaning you can shop around for the source of your home loan. As a rule of thumb, apply for mortgages with at least two or three lenders.
‘Cash to close’ isn’t a mystery.
The first page of the Loan Estimate lists information about the approximate amount of money you should bring to the closing table to seal the deal on your home purchase.
The “Estimated Cash to Close,” as it’s called on the form, includes the closing costs attached to the loan transaction. If any of the closing costs are added to your loan amount that would also be noted on the Loan Estimate.
The cash to close amount also includes your down payment, minus any deposit you made or seller credits you’re given, and also any additional adjustments or credits.
Your closing costs can’t vary by much.
The fees listed on the Closing Disclosure – the form you receive three days before your closing – may not look identical to your Loan Estimate, but the two documents should be similar.
There are three categories of closing costs: those that cannot increase, those that can increase by up to 10 percent and those that can increase by any amount, according to the CFPB.
Lender fees and the services you aren’t allowed to shop for can’t increase, while fees for services you can shop for, such as homeowners or title insurance, can increase by any amount. Fees for certain lender-required third-party services and also recording fees can increase by up to 10 percent.
However, if your circumstances have changed significantly since you applied for a mortgage, you will probably be given a new Loan Estimate, which would restart this part of the home buying process.
For more on the Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure, check the CFPB website. Happy home buying!
According to RealtyTrac’s Q3, 2015 U.S. Home Flipping Report, shows that 43,197 single family homes and condos were flipped — sold as part of an arms-length sale for the second time within a 12-month period — in the third quarter of 2015, 5.0 percent of all single family home and condo sales during the quarter.
The 5.0 percent share in the third quarter was down 7 percent from a 5.4 percent share in the second quarter but up 18 percent from a 4.3 percent share in the third quarter of 2014 — when the share of U.S. homes flipped hit the lowest quarterly level going back to the first quarter of 2000, the earliest RealtyTrac has data on flipped home
“After curtailing flipping activity last year due to slowing home price appreciation and shrinking inventory of flip-worthy homes, real estate investors have started to jump back on the flipping bandwagon in 2015,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “On the acquisition side, investors are finding creative ways to pinpoint potential flips in the off-market arena, and on the disposition side investors have a bigger pool of potential buyers thanks to a surge in FHA buyers this year, many of them first-time buyers looking for starter homes.”
The average gross flipping profit — the difference between the purchase price and the flipped price (not including rehab costs and other expenses incurred, which flipping experts estimate typically run between 20 percent and 33 percent of the property’s after repair value) — was $62,122 for completed home flips in the third quarter. That was down slightly from an average gross flipping profit of $62,521 in the second quarter but up slightly from an average gross flipping profit of $61,781 in the third quarter of 2014.
The average gross return on investment (ROI) — the average gross profit as a percentage of the average original purchase price — was 33.8 percent for completed home flips in the third quarter, down from 34.4 percent in the previous quarter but up from 32.7 percent in the third quarter of 2014.
Best counties for flipping to millennials
Using data from the third quarter flipping report and U.S. Census demographic data, RealtyTrac identified 18 counties where the average gross return on a flipped home in the third quarter was at least 30 percent and where the millennial share of the population in 2013 (defined as those between the ages of 20 and 34 in 2013) was at least 25 percent and increased during the housing downturn between 2008 and 2013.
The top five counties for flipping to millennials were Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, Saint Louis City, Missouri, Baltimore City, Maryland, Cumberland County, North Carolina — in the Fayetteville area — and Kings County, New York — Brooklyn. All five of these counties had average gross flipping profits in the third quarter of 63 percent or more.
Best markets for flipping to baby boomers
RealtyTrac identified 15 counties where the average gross return on a flipped home in the third quarter was at least 30 percent and where the baby boomer share of the population in 2013 (defined as those between the ages of 49 and 67 in 2013) was at least 25 percent and increased between 2008 and 2013.
The top five counties for flipping to boomers were all in Florida: Charlotte and Hernando counties in southwest Florida, and Volusia, Brevard and Marion counties in central Florida. The only counties outside of Florida on the top 15 list for flipping to boomers were Skagit County, Washington between Seattle and Vancouver; Sussex County, Delaware, on the Atlantic Coast between Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia; and Henderson County, North Carolina in the Asheville metro area.
State, metros and zip codes with highest share of flipped homes
States with highest share of home flipping as a percentage of all single family home and condo sales were Nevada (8.4 percent), Florida (7.9 percent), Alabama (7.5 percent), Arizona (6.9 percent), and Tennessee (6.6 percent).
Among 101 markets with at least 75 single family and condo flips completed in the third quarter, those with highest share of flipping were Memphis (10.5 percent), Fresno (9.5 percent), Mobile, Alabama (9.2 percent), Tampa (9.1 percent) and Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, Florida (9.0 percent).
Other major markets where the share of flipped homes were above the national average in the third quarter included Las Vegas (8.7 percent), Miami (8.6 percent), Jacksonville, Florida (7.6 percent), Baltimore (7.4 percent), Birmingham, Alabama (7.4 percent), Phoenix (7.3 percent), Orlando (7.2 percent), New Orleans (6.9 percent), Virginia Beach (6.8 percent), and Riverside-San Bernardino in Southern California (6.5 percent).
Among zip codes with at least 10 single family home and condo flips completed in the third quarter, those with the highest share of flipping were 33056 in Opa Locka, Florida in the Miami metro area (30.0 percent), 38128 in Memphis (29.5 percent), 63137 in Saint Louis (28.6 percent), 33054 in Opa Locka, Florida (27.8 percent), and 44128 in Cleveland (27.5 percent).
Other zip codes in the top 20 for highest share of flipped homes included zip codes in the Baltimore, Riverside-San Bernardino, Detroit, Tampa, Phoenix, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles metro areas.
Markets with the highest average returns on flipped homes
States with the highest average gross flipping ROI on completed property flips in the third quarter were Pennsylvania (57.2 percent), Illinois (54.0 percent), Maryland (53.6 percent), Rhode Island (48.1 percent), and Louisiana (47.9 percent). The District of Columbia also posted a high average gross flipping ROI of 55.9 percent in the third quarter
Among 101 markets with at least 75 single family and condo flips in the third quarter, those with the highest average gross flipping ROI were Pittsburgh (78.4 percent), New Orleans (73.1 percent), York, Pennsylvania (64.5 percent), Punta Gorda, Florida (61.3 percent), and Clarksville, Tennessee (59.6 percent).
Among zip codes with at least 10 completed flips in the third quarter with home price data available, those with the highest average gross flipping ROI were 21229 in Baltimore (136.0 percent) and 33063 in Tampa (130.2 percent), along with three Chicago-area zip codes: 60652 in the city of Chicago (120.4 percent), 60402 in the city of Berwyn (120.3 percent), and 60629 in the city of Chicago (115.2 percent).
Saudis want Big Oil to win – have predictable working relationship with them.
Big Oil is waiting on the sidelines until the price of properties drop.
Those with DUC wells and enough reserves will be able to survive the onslaught.
U.S. shale oil remains viable, but the players are going to change.
As the strategy of Saudi Arabia becomes clearer, along with the response of shale producers to low oil prices, the question now has to be asked as to whether or not the big oil companies support the decision by Saudi Arabia to crush frackers until they have to offer their various plays at fire sale prices.
With the emergence of frackers came a significant number of new competitors in the market that didn’t have an interest in playing nice with OPEC and Saudi Arabia, as major oil companies have in the past. This was a real threat as other OPEC members and shale companies started to take share away from Saudi Arabia.
The general consensus is Saudi Arabia isn’t interested in crushing any particular competitor, rather it’ll keep production at high levels until the weakest producers capitulate. I have thought that as well until recently.
What changed my thinking was analyzing who was the biggest threat to OPEC and Saudi Arabia, and in fact it is the shale industry in the U.S. The reason I draw that conclusion is the energy industry had its traditional competitors in place for many years, and other than occasional moves to impact the price of oil using production levels as the weapon, it has been a relatively stable industry. Shale changed all that.
I think what bothered Saudi Arabia in particular was it didn’t have a working relationship with many of these new competitors, who have been very aggressive with expanding production capacity over the last few years. They were in fact real competitors who were working to take market share away from existing players. And with Saudi Arabia being the low-cost producer with the highest reserves in the world, it was without a doubt a direct assault on its authority and leverage it historically has had on the oil market. Its response to frackers is obvious: it isn’t willing to give up share for any reason.
Where the challenge for Saudi Arabia now is it has started to have to draw on its own reserves and issue bonds to make up for budget shortfalls. It has plenty of reserves, but it appears we now have a clear picture on when it would really come under pressure, which is within a four to five year period. That’s the time it has to devastate its shale competitors.
The other problem for the country is it could take down some members of OPEC in the process, where there are already significant problems they’re facing, which could lead to unrest.
From a pure oil perspective, it seems to be an easy read. Saudi Arabia can outlast the small shale producers with no problem. I think that’s its goal. But it is putting enormous pressure on other countries as well, and there will be increasing pressure for them to slow production in order to support oil prices.
This even extends to Russia, which produces more oil than any other country.
My belief is Saudi Arabia is attempting to force consolidation in the shale industry, so it can resume its dealings with big oil players it has worked with for many years. I believe it’s also what big oil players want. All they have to do is sit back and experience some temporary pain and wait for some of the attractive plays to come onto the market at low prices.
So far the price is still high in the U.S., but as time goes on, the smaller companies will be forced to sell, one way or another. That’s the big opportunity for investors. Identifying those companies with the resources and desire to acquire these properties is the key. That and evaluating the plays with the most potential for those buying them up.
At what price can Saudi crush shale oil?
There are analysts predicting oil price levels that are all over the board. I’ve seen those that believe it’s going to shoot up to over $100 per barrel again, and those that have estimated it could fall to as low as $15 per barrel.
The best way to analyze this is to consider what Saudi Arabia can handle over the longest period of time without destroying its own economy and industry, meaning at what price it can remain fairly healthy and outlast its competitors.
Looking at the price movement of oil and the range it’s now settled into, I think it’s close to what the Saudi have been looking for.
Most smaller shale producers will struggle to make it, if the price of oil remains under $60 per barrel, which it will probably do until Saudi Arabia cuts back on production. There will be occasional moves above that, and probably below $50 per barrel again as well, but I think we can now look to somewhere in the $50 per barrel area as the target being sought. We’ll probably see this be the price range oil will move in for the next couple of years, with $50 being the desired low and $60 being the desired high.
I don’t mean by this Saudi Arabia can absolutely control the price of oil, but it can influence the range it operates in, and I think that’s where we are now.
For that reason oil investors should be safe in investing under these assumptions, understanding there will be occasional price moves outside of that range because of usual trading momentum.
Response from shale oil companies
Some may question why the price of oil got slammed not too long ago, falling below $40 per barrel, if the probable price range for oil is about $10 to $20 per barrel higher.
As mentioned above, some of that was simply from trading momentum. It didn’t take long for it to rebound soon afterward.
The other element was the response by shale companies to the new price of oil, which threatened their ability to pay interest on loans that were due.
Frackers weren’t boosting production because they believed they could outlast Saudi Arabia; they kept production levels high because they had to continue to sell even into that low-price environment or default on their payments. This was a major factor in why prices dropped so far over the short term.
With the bulk of the over $5 trillion spent on shale exploration and development coming from companies operating in the U.S., that is also where the bulk of the risk is.
Much of the efficiencies have been wrung out of operations, and moving to higher producing wells that are less costly to operate can only last so long. I believe efficiencies will position some in the industry to survive the current competitive environment, but they will also have to have enough reserves to tap into in order to do so.
Top producing shale wells are at their highest level of productivity in the first 6 months it goes into operation. It gradually fades after that.
Larger players like EOG Resources (NYSE:EOG) have continued to drill, but they are stopping short of production, with approximately 320 DUC wells ready to bring online when the price of oil reaches desired levels. Its smaller competitors don’t have the resources to wait out existing production levels, which is what will again offer the opportunity for patient investors.
In other words, most of what can be done has been or is currently being done, and from now on it’s simply a waiting game to see how long the Saudis are willing to keep the oil flowing.
Most shale producers believed the lowest oil prices would sustainably fall and would be about $70 per barrel. Decisions were made based upon that assumption.
Big oil and Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia and big international energy companies have had close relationships a long time via Saudi Aramco, the state-owned firm.
Those relationships, while competitive, still operated within parameters most agreed upon. Shale producers weren’t playing that game, as they invested trillions and aggressively went after market share. If Saudi Arabia wanted to maintain market share, it had to respond.
If the smaller shale producers thought their strategy though, they must have underestimated the will of Saudi Arabia to fight back against them. Either that or they became overly optimistic and started to believe their own press about the shale revolution.
It’s a revolution for sure, but the majority of those that helped launch it won’t be finishing it.
My point is big oil, in my opinion, doesn’t mind quietly standing on the sidelines as their somewhat friendly competitors destroys their competition and prepares the way for them to acquire shale properties at extremely attractive prices.
I’ve said for some time the shale revolution will go on. The oil isn’t going anywhere. What is changing is who the players will end up being, and what properties they’ll end up acquiring.
With EOG, the strongest shale player, it said the prices of those plays now for sale are still too high; that means the smaller players still think they have some leverage.
My only thought is they are hoping for the large players to enter a bidding war and they can at least recoup some of their capital. I think they’re going to wait until they’re desperate and have no more options.
Sure, some big players may lose out on a desirable property or two, but everyone will get a piece of the action. It appears once the prices move down to levels they’re looking for, at that time they’ll swoop in and make their bids. At that time it’s going to be a buyer’s market.
Big oil companies are the preferable players Saudi Arabia wants to do business with and compete against. They will play the game with them, and there won’t be a lot of surprises.
Some of the companies to watch
Some of the larger companies that have already filed for bankruptcy this year include Hercules Offshore (NASDAQ:HERO), Sabine Oil & Gas (SOGC) and Quicksilver Resources (OTCPK:KWKAQ).
Companies known to have hired advisers for that purpose are Swift Energy (NYSE:SFY) and Energy XXI Ltd. (NASDAQ:EXXI).
Some under heavy pressure include Halcón Resources Corporation (NYSE:HK), SandRidge Energy, Inc. (NYSE:SD) and Rex Energy Corporation (NASDAQ:REXX).
There are more in each category, but I included only those that had at least a decent market cap, with the exception of those that already declared bankruptcy.
Here are a couple of other companies to look at going forward, which can be used for the purpose of analyzing ongoing low prices.
Stone Energy’s credit facility of $500 million is reaffirmed, but may not be liquid enough to endure the next couple of years, even though in the short term it does have decent liquidity. If Saudi Arabia keeps up the pressure, it’s doubtful it will be able to survive on its own. There are quite a few companies falling under these parameters, including Laredo (NYSE:LPI). The basic practice of all of them was to limit the amount of leverage they have in place in order not to have paying off interest as the priority use of their capital, while maintaining a strong credit facility.
I’m not saying these companies will survive, but they will survive if the price of oil stays low, but it will take a lot more to root them up than their highly leveraged peers.
Clayton Williams (NYSE:CWEI) recently put itself up for sale because it can’t afford to continue operating at these prices. It has approximately 340,000 acres under its control, and two of the most productive shale basins in the U.S.
Once it announced it was open to selling, the share price skyrocketed, but since it’s struggling to afford extracting the oil, it’s puzzling as to why some believe it’s going to attract a premium price. It’s possible because of the quality of assets, but it would make more sense for larger companies to wait.
This will be a good test on how big oil companies are going to respond. It’s possible they may be willing to pay for the higher quality shale plays, but under these conditions shareholders would resist paying a significant premium.
If Clayton Williams does go for a premium, it doesn’t in any way mean that’s how it’ll work out for most of the shale companies.
There would have to be a significant reason they would pay such a high price. In the case of CWEI, the catalyst would be high production.
Conclusion
All of this sounds neatly packaged, and if all things proceed as planned, this is how it will play out.
Where there could be some risk is if the Middle East explodes and oil production is interrupted. That would change this entire scenario, and if it were to happen soon, shale companies still in operation would not only survive, but thrive.
Barring that level of disruption, which would have to be something huge, this is how it will play out. After all, with everything going on there now, it hasn’t done anything to disrupt Middle East oil. It would take a big event or a series of events to bring it about. That’s definitely a possibility, but it’s one that is unlikely.
Once all of this plays out, there is no doubt in my mind the bigger oil companies will be much stronger and able to produce a lot more oil.
What we’ll probably see happen is for them to cut back on production to levels where everyone is happy, including the Saudi.
That’s what this war is all about, because shale oil deposits remain in the ground. While some companies can quickly resume production because of the nature of shale oil, which can ramp up production fast, it depends on the will and determination of Saudi Arabia and whether or not the geopolitical situation remains under control.
I don’t care too much about the number of rig counts in shale plays because production can be resumed or initiated quick. The risk is how leveraged the shale companies are, and whether or not they have to continue production at a loss in order to pay off their interest on loans in hopes the price of oil will rise.
What I’m looking for with existing plays is for companies like EOG Resources, which continues to develop wells, but does so without the idea of completing them and bringing them into production until the price of oil rebounds.
Shale oil in the U.S. is alive and well, but those companies overextended and few resources are going to be forced to sell at bargain prices. That will produce a lot of added value to the big oil companies waiting on the sidelines watching it all unfold.
All-cash transactions comprised nearly 31 percent of all single-family residential home sales nationwide in July 2015, marking a decline of more than three full percentage points year-over-year, according to CoreLogic cash sales data released on Friday.
With July’s decline, the cash sales share has fallen year-over-year every month since January 2013, a total of 31 consecutive months, according to CoreLogic. July 2015’s reported share of 30.8 percent was a drop off from the share of 34.2 percent reported in July 2014.
As has historically been the case, REO sales made up the largest portion of cash sales with 56 percent in July 2015, and resales had the second highest share at 30.2 percent (resales made up 83 percent of all home sales in July and therefore have the biggest impact on moving the overall cash sales share). Short sales comprised 28 percent of cash sales, followed by new homes at 15.6 percent. Despite REO sales making up more than half of all cash sales, REO’s share of total home sales remained low in July at 6.1 percent. In January 2011, when the cash sales share reached its peak, REO sales made up 23.9 percent of total home sales.
Previously, much of the cash sales share could be attributed to institutional investors buying distressed properties at discounts; the continued decline of the cash sales share is a likely indicator that fewer institutional investors are buying homes, and that more buyers are obtaining mortgage credit, according to CoreLogic Senior Economist Molly Boesel.
Four states had a cash sales shares higher than 40 percent in July, led by Alabama (47.4 percent), Florida (44.7 percent), New York (42.8 percent), West Virginia (41.1 percent) and New Jersey (39.5 percent). Out of the nation’s top 100 Core-Based Statistical Areas, the five with the highest cash sales share were all located in Florida: West Palm Beach (53.2 percent), Miami (52.2 percent), North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton (50.1 percent), Fort Lauderdale (48.4 percent), and Cape Coral-Fort Myers (47.9 percent). The metro area out of the top 100 with the lowest cash sales share was Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Virginia at 13.6 percent, according to CoreLogic.
At their peak in January 2011, cash sales comprised about 46.5 percent of total single-family residential home sales in the United States. The cash sales share typically averaged about 25 percent prior to the housing crisis; if the share continues to decline at the same rate it did in July 2015, CoreLogic estimates that it will fall to 25 percent by the middle of 2017.
In a story not reported on at all by any Western mainstream media source, Iceland just sentenced another five high level bankers to prison for directly contributing to the collapse of the country’s economy in 2008.
This brings the total to 26 bankers now behind bars in Iceland, with most being CEOs of large financial institutions, rather than low level traders.
Most of those jailed will serve terms of two to five years, according to a report by Iceland Magazine, which notes that three executives at Landsbankinn and two at Kaupþing, along with one prominent investor, have been prosecuted.
Their crimes include market manipulation, embezzlement, and breach of fiduciary duties. Their market manipulation destroyed the country’s economy and to this day Iceland is still having to repay the global loan sharks at the IMF, as well as governments of other countries, which kept the nation operating.
The article explains that the prosecutions have been possible because rather than protect and reward the very institutions responsible for the collapse, and the gangsters that run them, the Icelandic government let them fail, and then created a financial supervisory authority to strictly oversee the banks.
“Why are the banks considered to be the holy churches of the modern economy? Why are private banks not like airlines and telecommunication companies and allowed to go bankrupt if they have been run in an irresponsible way? The theory that you have to bail out banks is a theory that you allow bankers enjoy for their own profit, their success, and then let ordinary people bear their failure through taxes and austerity. ?People in enlightened democracies are not going to accept that in the long run.”
The President added:
“We were wise enough not to follow the traditional prevailing orthodoxies of the Western financial world in the last 30 years. We introduced currency controls, we let the banks fail, we provided support for the poor, and we didn’t introduce austerity measures like you’re seeing in Europe.”
While the country’s economy is far from what it once was, it has stabilized and is in a position to recover.
Meanwhile, the governments of the US and Europe bailed out most of those responsible for playing a direct role in the financial crisis that crippled the global economy.
Not one banker in the US has even been charged with a crime relating to the financial collapse, there is still virtually no regulation of the banks, and they are pulling in a near record $160 billion in annual profits, all from “money” created out of thin air.
The banksters continue to be protected, at all levels, and the effects of their criminal actions continue to worsen every day. Another financial catastrophe is a certainty.
Banks, when reporting earnings, are saying a few choice things about their oil-and-gas loans, which boil down to this: it’s bloody out there in the oil patch, but we made our money and rolled off the risks to others who’re now eating most of the losses.
On Monday, it was Zions Bancorp. Its oil-and-gas loans deteriorated further, it reported. More were non-performing and were charged-off. There’d be even more credit downgrades. By the end of September, 15.7% of them were considered “classified loans,” with clear signs of stress, up from 11.3% in the prior quarter. These classified energy loans pushed the total classified loans to $1.32 billion.
But energy loans fell by $86 million in the quarter and “further attrition in this portfolio is likely over the next several quarters,” Zions reported. Since the oil bust got going, Zions, like other banks, has been trying to unload its oil-and-gas exposure.
Wells Fargo announced that it set aside more cash to absorb defaults from the “deterioration in the energy sector.” Bank of America figured it would have to set aside an additional 15% of its energy portfolio, which makes up only a small portion of its total loan book. JPMorgan added $160 million – a minuscule amount for a giant bank – to its loan-loss reserves last quarter, based on the now standard expectation that “oil prices will remain low for longer.”
Banks have been sloughing off the risk: They lent money to scrappy junk-rated companies that powered the shale revolution. These loans were backed by oil and gas reserves. Once a borrower reached the limit of the revolving line of credit, the bank pushed the company to issue bonds to pay off the line of credit. The company could then draw again on its line of credit. When it reached the limit, it would issue more bonds and pay off its line of credit….
Banks made money coming and going.
They made money from interest income and fees, including underwriting fees for the bond offerings. It performed miracles for years. It funded the permanently cash-flow negative shale revolution. It loaded up oil-and-gas companies with debt.
While bank loans were secured, many of the bonds were unsecured. Thus, banks elegantly rolled off the risks to bondholders, and made money doing so. And when it all blew up, the shrapnel slashed bondholders to the bone. Banks are only getting scratched.
Then late last year and early this year, the hottest energy trade of the century took off. Hedge funds and private equity firms raised new money and started buying junk-rated energy bonds for cents on the dollar and they lent new money at higher rates to desperate companies that were staring bankruptcy in the face. It became a multi-billion-dollar frenzy.
They hoped that the price of oil would recover by early summer and that these cheap bonds would make the “smart money” a fortune and confirm once and for all that it was truly the “smart money.” Then oil re-crashed.
And this trade has become blood-soaked.
The Wall Street Journal lined up some of the PE firms and hedge funds, based on “investor documents” or on what “people familiar with the matter said”:
Magnetar Capital, with $14 billion under management, sports an energy fund that is down 12% this year through September on “billions of dollars” it had invested in struggling oil-and-gas companies. But optimism reigns. It recovered a little in October and plans to plow more money into energy.
Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone which bought a minority stake in Magnetar this year but otherwise seems to have stayed away from the energy junk-debt frenzy, offered these words last week (earnings call transcript via Seeking Alpha):
“And people have put money out in the first six months of this year…. Wow, I mean, people got crushed, they really got destroyed. And part of what you do with your businesses is you don’t do things where you think there is real risk.”
Brigade Capital Management, which sunk $16 billion into junk-rated energy companies, is “having its worst stretch since 2008.” It fell over 7% this summer and is in the hole for the year. But it remained gung-ho about energy investments. The Journal:
In an investor letter, the firm lamented that companies were falling “despite no credit-specific news” and said its traders were buying more of some hard-hit energy companies.
King Street Capital Management, with $21 billion under management, followed a similar strategy, losing money five months in a row, and is on track “for the first annual loss in its 20-year history.”
Phoenix Investment Adviser with $1.2 billion under managed has posted losses in 11 months of the past 12, as its largest fund plunged 24% through August, much of it from exposure to decomposing bonds of Goodrich Petroleum.
“The whole market was totally flooded,” Phoenix founder Jeffrey Peskind told the Journal. But he saw the oil-and-gas fiasco as an “‘unbelievable potential buying opportunity,’ given the overall strength of the US economy.”
“A lot of hot money chased into what we believe are insolvent companies at best,” Paul Twitchell, partner at hedge fund Whitebox Advisors, told the Journal. “Bonds getting really cheap doesn’t mean they are a good buy.”
After the bloodletting investors had to go through, they’re not very excited about buying oil-and-gas junk bonds at the moment. In the third quarter, energy junk bond issuance fell to the lowest level since 2011, according Dealogic. And so far in October, none were issued.
And banks are going through their twice-a-year process of redetermining the value of their collateral, namely oil-and-gas reserves. Based on the lower prices, and thus lower values of reserves, banks are expected to cut borrowing bases another notch or two this month.
Thus, funding is drying up, just when the companies need new money the most, not only to operate, but also to service outstanding debts. So the bloodletting – some of it in bankruptcy court – will get worse.
But fresh money is already lining up again.
They’re trying to profit from the blood in the street. Blackstone raised almost $5 billion for a new energy fund and is waiting to pounce. Carlyle is trying to raise $2.5 billion for its new energy fund. Someday someone will get the timing right and come out ahead.
Meanwhile, when push comes to shove, as it has many times this year, it comes down to collateral. Banks and others with loans or securities backed by good collateral will have losses that are easily digestible. But those with lesser or no protections, including the “smart money” that plowed a fortune into risks that the smart banks had sloughed off, will see more billions go up in smoke.
Next year is going to be brutal, explained the CEO of oil-field services giant Schlumberger. But then, there are dreams of “a potential spike in oil prices.” Read… The Dismal Thing Schlumberger Just Said about US Oil
The Mortgage Bankers Association announced this week at their annual national conference in San Diego that they expect to see $905 billion in purchase mortgage originations during 2016, a ten percent increase from 2015.
In contrast, MBA anticipates refinance originations will decrease by one-third, resulting in refinance mortgage originations of $415 billion. On net, mortgage originations will decrease to $1.32 trillion in 2016 from $1.45 trillion in 2015.
For 2017, MBA is forecasting purchase originations of $978 billion and refinance originations of $331 billion for a total of $1.31 trillion.
“We are projecting that home purchase originations will increase in 2016 as the US housing market continues on its path towards more typical levels of turnover based on steadily rising demand and improvements in the supply of homes for sale and under construction. Despite bumps in the road from energy and export sectors, the job market is near full employment, with other measures of employment under-utilization continuing to improve,” said Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Research and Industry Technology. “We are forecasting that strong household formation, improving wages and a more liquid housing market will drive home sales and purchase originations in the coming years.
“Our projection for overall economic growth is 2.3 percent in 2016 and 2017 and 2 percent over the longer term, which will be driven mainly by consumer spending as households continue to buy durable goods, such as cars and appliances. The housing sector will contribute more to the economy than it has in recent years. We are forecasting a 17 percent increase in single family starts in 2016 and a further increase of 15 percent in 2017. Weaker growth abroad will mean fewer US exports, which will be a drag on growth over the next couple of years. Recurring flights to quality, a demand for safe assets from investors abroad, will keep longer-term rates lower than the domestic growth environment would warrant.
“Coincident with a strengthening economy, we expect the Federal Reserve will begin to slowly raise short-term rates at the end of 2015. At some point after liftoff, the Fed will begin to allow their holdings of MBS and Treasury securities to run off, likely beginning in late 2016. Even with these actions, we expect that the 10-Year Treasury rate will stay below three percent through the end of 2016, and 30-year mortgage rates will stay below 5 percent.
“We forecast that monthly job growth will average 150,000 per month in 2016, down from about 200,000 per month in 2015, and that the unemployment rate will decrease to 4.8 percent by the end of 2016, returning to 5.0 percent in 2017 and 2018. The slight rebound will be driven by an increase in labor force participation rates to more typical levels.
“Refinance activity will continue to decline as there are few remaining households that can benefit from an interest rate reduction and because rates will gradually begin to rise from historic lows in the coming years. Home equity products may see an increase in demand as home prices continue to increase at a decelerating rate,” Fratantoni said.
According to JLL’s annual Data Center Outlook report, as more global companies move data and information to the cloud, the cloud itself is actually moving closer to them. Several North American data center markets – like Northern Virginia, Reno and Dallas – have emerged as hotspots as operators and cloud providers follow affordable utility rates, tax incentives and a demand for expanded service offerings. For an industry expected to see revenue grow by 14 percent over the next two years, footprint flexibility has proven to be a key driver. “For every penny a data center provider can save in Kilowatt hours (kwH), there is the potential to save millions in operations,” said Jon Meisel, East Region lead for JLL’s Data Center Solutions. “So our clients have to be very strategic with their footprints. It’s still about locating near infrastructure robust metropolitan areas like New York and New Jersey, which remain the most important target markets for these providers. But it’s also about finding ways to be efficient with their locations. If that means placing some part of their footprint in regions with more flexible utility costs, incentives packages or lower taxes, providers will expand into those areas.” In Northern Virginia, utility costs hover around 5.7 cents per kWh, compared to the national average of 7.4 kWh of the markets JLL surveyed. These costs are part of the reason why in 2014 Northern Virginia surpassed New Jersey in total demand with nearly 25 percent U.S. market share. Competitive utility rates and an abundance of power compared to other Tier 1 markets – like New York/New Jersey and Los Angeles – has made Northern Virginia attractive to key enterprise users like Facebook and Amazon Web Services.
But Northern Virginia is not alone as a surging data center target. In its report, JLL examined 17 markets offering highly competitive data center locations through a mix of lower tax obligations, utility pricing and demand, including:
Chicago:There has been an increase in demand for space in Chicago from West Coast technology companies who are developing sites for cloud hosting strategies in the Midwest. The Windy City also is No. 2 in data center construction with 345,595 square feet currently in development, just ahead of Silicon Valley, which has 236,000 square feet under construction.
Dallas: At 5 cents per KwH, Dallas provides one of the country’s most affordable major market utility rates. Further, Texas passed tax incentive legislation that provides 100 percent exemption of sales taxes on business personal property to operate a data center over 10 to 15 years for large users. This can equate to millions upon million in savings for a qualified project.
Minneapolis: Demand is growing significantly and supply has never been higher, driven in large part by the burgeoning healthcare sector. Also, state data center tax incentives allow companies to abate sales tax on hardware, software and power by housing their data center in a qualifying facility.
Reno: The Biggest Little City in the World is experiencing its first foray into data center development led by Apple, Switch and eBay due to an abundance of power specifically in renewable resources. Proximity to California customers and the new Nevada tax bill provide additional incentives.
Toronto: Supply has been a historical challenge for the Canadian data center market on the whole, but capital investment by Toronto Hydro within the financial core will help improve some of the city’s aging infrastructure. This will continue to draw interest in third-party data center space.
Expanding Footprints
Skyrocketing demand, low risk of natural disasters and proximity to fiber also play key roles in choosing where to locate a data center, meaning providers are being pressed to offer greater coverage and service options. Many of them are turning to mergers and acquisitions to keep pace, like Digital Realty, which recently purchased Telx for $1.9 billion, nearly doubling the provider’s footprint and adding substantial services offerings for the company. “We are seeing clear demand for a complete range of data center solutions,” said Matt Miszewski, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Digital Realty. “We are now building a unique ecosystem of open solutions powering customer growth through exceptional service, adding to our foundation of unrivalled real estate expertise. This acquisition was a strategic move for us, and reflective of what we see in the marketplace. Customers need the reach and support that we are now uniquely positioned to provide in the form of the right service offerings and global footprint.” Added Bo Bond, Central Region lead for JLL’s Data Center Solutions: “We’ve seen a large acquisition spree take place in the sector which has included many of the publicly traded data center REITs. They’re buying to increase their footprint, but also to be able to provide solutions, cloud security and connectivity. This gives companies with larger platforms access to offer more services with a larger geographic footprint. In the end, that’s going to benefit the user and increase the reach for those providers.” Shift to colocation
Construction costs associated with a new data center are high and the infrastructure investment can be as much as two to three times the amount to build, another reason why M&A has surged as small providers combine with larger ones to seek sources of capital. The expense is greater for enterprise users, who have increasingly shifted from owned facilities to the third party market to offset cost and maintain flexibility through colocation. “Colocation is the choice for more enterprise businesses that had previously built, owned and operated their own facilities due to the upfront capital expenditure associated with building, maintaining and updating the equipment to stay current with new technology efficiencies,” said Mark Bauer, West Region lead for JLL’s Data Center Solutions. “There is flexibility in colocation, and with the increased availability of experienced data center developers and operators across markets, enterprise customers can quickly acquire space and services to deploy into a colocation facility saving them time, upfront capital and leveraging the new technologies to lower their total cost of occupancy.”
When Whiting Petroleum needed cash earlier this year as oil prices plummeted, JPMorgan Chase, its lead lender, found investors willing to step in. The bank helped Whiting sell $3.1 billion in stocks and bonds in March. Whiting used almost all the money to repay the $2.9 billion it owed JPMorgan and its 25 other lenders. The proceeds also covered the $45 million in fees Whiting paid to get the deal done, regulatory filings show.
Analysts expect Whiting, one of the largest producers in North Dakota’s Bakken shale basin, to spend almost $1 billion more than it earns from oil and gas this year. The company has sold $300 million in assets, reduced the number of rigs drilling for oil to eight from a high of 24, and announced plans to cut spending by $1 billion next year. Eric Hagen, a Whiting spokesman, says the company has “demonstrated that it is taking appropriate steps to manage within the current oil price environment.” Whiting has said it will be in a position next year to have its capital spending of $1 billion equal its cash flows with an oil price of $50 a barrel.
As for Whiting’s investors, the stock is down 36 percent, as of Oct. 14, since the March issue, and the new bonds are trading at 94¢ on the dollar. More than 73 percent of the stocks and bonds issued this year by oil and gas producers are worth less today than when they were sold, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Banks’ sell-the-risk strategy underpins the shale oil boom. Lenders extended low interest credit to wildcatters desperate for cash, then—perhaps remembering the 1980s oil bust—wheeled the debt off their books by selling new stocks and bonds to investors, earning sizable fees along the way. “Everyone in the chain was making money in the short term,” says Louis Meyer, a special situations analyst at Oscar Gruss & Son. “And no one was thinking long term about what they’re going to do if prices fall.”
North American oil and gas producers have sold $61.5 billion in equity and debt since January, paying more than $700 million in fees, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Half the money was raised to repay loans or restructure debt, the data show. “Being there for our clients in all market environments, particularly the tough ones, is something we feel very strongly about,” says Brian Marchiony, a JPMorgan spokesman. “During challenging periods, companies typically look to strengthen their balance sheets and increase liquidity, and we have helped many do just that.”
Lenders have been setting aside cash to cover potential energy losses. JPMorgan bolstered its reserves by $160 million in the third quarter. Bank of America’s at-risk loans increased 15 percent from a year ago as a result of the deteriorating finances of some of its oil and gas borrowers. Still, the oil bust has left banks relatively unscathed. Asked why lenders weren’t seeing more losses from energy defaults, BofA Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan said in a conference call, “A lot of that risk is distributed out to investors.”
Citigroup, Bank of America, and JPMorgan were among the banks that courted fast-growing shale drillers in the hope that an initial loan would lead to investment banking business. Citigroup’s energy portfolio, including loans and unfunded commitments, swelled to $59.7 billion as of June 30, Bank of America’s to $47.3 billion, and JPMorgan’s to $43.6 billion, according to company filings. “They loan money at cheap rates, and the banks get the fees from the bond and share sales,” says Jason Wangler, an analyst with Wunderlich Securities. “When things are going well, it’s mutually beneficial. Now it’s a different conversation.”
When crude prices plummeted in the early 1980s, hundreds of banks failed across such oil-rich states as Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. This time around, banks were keen to limit their exposure to a boom-and-bust industry. Every year since 2009, about half the debt and equity sold by North American exploration and production companies was intended, at least in part, to restructure debt or repay loans, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Often the banks selling the securities were the ones getting repaid. “The bankers have gone through this before,” says Oscar Gruss’s Meyer. “They know how it works out in the end, and it’s not pretty. Most of the lenders have been more on top of things this time. They are not going to get caught short in the ways they got caught short before.”
The bottom line: Oil companies have sold $61.5 billion in stocks and bonds since January as oil prices have tumbled.
As the housing boom of the 2000’s minted new millionaires every second Tuesday. So, too, the shale oil boom minted wealth faster than McDonald’s mints new diabetics.
Estimates by the UND Center for Innovation Foundation in Grand Forks, are that the North Dakota shale oil boom was creating 2,000 millionaires per year. For instance, the average income in Montrail County has more than doubled since the boom started.
Despite the Great Recession, the oil boom resulted in enough jobs to provide North Dakota with the lowest unemployment rate in the United States. The boom has given the state of North Dakota, a state with a 2013 population of about 725,000, a billion-dollar budget surplus. North Dakota, which ranked 38th in per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in 2001, rose steadily with the Bakken boom, and now has per capita GDP 29% above the national average.
I wonder how many North Dakotan’s have any idea the effect low oil prices are going exert on their living standards, freshly elevated house prices, employment stats, and government revenues.
We’re all about to find out. Here is the last piece in our 5-part series by Harris Kupperman exploring what this means for the fracking industry, oil in general, and the one topic nobody is paying much attention to: the petrodollar.
Enjoy!
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Date: 27 September 2015
Subject: There Will Be Blood – Part V
Starting at the end of 2014, I wrote a number of pieces detailing how QE was facilitating the production of certain real assets like oil where the production decision was no longer being tied to profitability. For instance, shale producers could borrow cheaply, produce at a loss and debt investors would simply look the other way because of the attractive yields that were offered on the debt. The overriding theme of these pieces was that the eventual crack-up in the energy sector would precipitate a crisis that was much larger than the great subprime crisis of last decade as waves of shale defaults would serve as the catalyst for investors to stop reaching for yield and once again try to understand what exactly they owned.
Fast forward 9 months from the last piece and most of these shale producers are mere shells of themselves. If you got out of the way—good for you. Amazingly, these companies can still find creative ways to tap the debt markets, stay alive and flood the market with oil. Eventually, most won’t make it and I believe that the ultimate global debt write-off is in the hundreds of billions of dollars—maybe even a trillion depending on which larger players stumble. That doesn’t even include the service companies or the employees who have their own consumer and mortgage debt.
I believe that shale producers are the “sub-prime” of this decade. As they vaporize hundreds of billions in investor capital, thus far, there has been a collective shrug as everyone ignores the obvious – until suddenly it begins to matter. By way of timelines, I think we are now getting to the early summer of 2008 – suddenly the smart people are beginning to realize that something is wrong. Credit spreads are the life-line of the global financial world. They’re screaming danger. I think the equity markets are about to listen.
High-yield – 10-year spread is blowing out
Then again, a few hundred billion is a rounding error in our QE world. There is a much bigger animal and no one is talking about it yet – the petrodollar.
Roughly defined, petrodollars are the dollars earned by oil exporting countries that are either spent on goods or more often tucked away in central bank war chests or sovereign wealth funds to be invested. I’ve read dozens of research reports on the topic and depending on how its calculated, this flow of capital has averaged between $500 billion and $1 trillion per year for most of the past decade. This is money that has been going into financial assets around the world – mainly in the US. This flow of reinvested capital is now effectively shut off. Since many of these countries are now running huge budget deficits, it seems only natural that if oil stays at these prices, this flow of capital will go in reverse as countries are forced to sell foreign assets to cover these deficits.
Over the past year, the carnage in the emerging markets has been severe. Barring another dose of QE, I think this carnage is about to come to the more developed world as the petrodollar flow unwinds and two decades of central bank inspired lunacy erupts.
We agree with Harris, and not coincidentally the petrodollar unwind forms a part of the global USD carry trade unwind I’ve been harping on about recently.
Capitalist Exploits subscribers will receive a free report on 3 actionable trades in the oil and gas sector later this week. Leave us your email address here to get the report.
– Chris
“So, ladies and gentlemen… if I say I’m an oil man you will agree. You have a great chance here, but bear in mind, you can lose it all if you’re not careful.” – Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Some 88% of property managers raised their rent in the last 12 months and 68% predict that rental rates will continue to rise in the next year by an average of 8%, according to a survey of more than 500 of Rent.com’s property management customers, which the site says represents thousands of rental properties and hundreds of thousands of rental units. That’s nearly three times the wage increase that most employees can expect this year.
What’s more, 55% of property managers said that they are less likely to offer concessions or lower rents in order to fill vacancies. One reason why they’re getting even tougher: They are in a stronger position than they were this time last year.
More than 46% of property managers surveyed reported a decrease in rental vacancies in Rent.com’s survey and, in the second quarter of 2015, vacancy rates in the U.S. for rental housing was 6.8%, the lowest it has been in almost 20 years, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Despite this, many renters are spending more than 30% of their income on rent (the amount generally recommended) and need help qualifying for the lease.
Yardi Survey
Mish reader “BJ” is retired but works part-time a number of hours each week, surveying apartments for rent. He reports …
I am retired but work part-time for Yardi from my home, surveying apartments for rents. Yardi runs a full survey 3 times a year, Jan, May and Sept. These generally run about 6 weeks.
Yardi has the country divided into 24 sectors and we normally work 6-7 sectors once a month for a week on a rotating basis. Toward the end of the survey, we can work any market and I’ve been keeping track of a few select places. From what I see, rents are up and up a lot. Some of the places I watch are up 7% or more than last year for the same apartments.
The absolute worst places to be looking for a rental unit are San Fran and North LA. If anyone does answer the phone in those areas, it’s either a new building just opening, or they don’t have anything. You can’t even get on a waiting list. I’ve seen apartments in tight areas where they want you to make 3X net before they will talk to you.
Portland, Seattle, Washington DC, northern NJ, Miami and Boston are also difficult. I talked to a complex in Portland last week that had 3500 apartments under management with a total of 7 open apartments.
I am amazed by the amount of apartments that are either tax credit or subsidized in some manner. All of them have long waiting lists.
Measuring Housing Inflation
The Fed wants inflation. But how do they measure it?
If you’re a fan of dovish policymakers who are committed to Keynesian insanity, you can always count on Minneapolis Fed chief Narayana Kocherlakota who, as we’ve detailed extensively, is keen on the idea that if the US wants to help itself out, it will simply issue more monetizable debt, because that way, the Fed will have more room to ease in the event its current easing efforts continue to prove entirely ineffective (and yes, the irony inherent in that assessment is completely intentional).
On Thursday, Kocherlakota is out with some fresh nonsense he’d like you to blindly consider and what you’ll no doubt notice from the following Bloomberg bullet summary is that, as the latest dot plot made abundantly clear, NIRP is in now definitively in the playbook.
KOCHERLAKOTA SAYS FED SHOULD CONSIDER NEGATIVE RATES
KOCHERLAKOTA: TAPERING ASSET PURCHASES LED TO SLOWER JOB GAINS
KOCHERLAKOTA SAYS JOBS SLOWDOWN ‘NOT SURPRISING’ GIVEN POLICY
KOCHERLAKOTA: TAPERING ASSET PURCHASES LED TO SLOWER JOB GAINS
So not only should the Fed take rates into the Keynesian NIRP twilight zone, but in fact, the subpar September NFP print was the direct result of not printing enough money which is particularly amusing because Citi just got done telling the market that the Fed should hike (i.e. tighten policy) because jobs data at this time of the year is prone to being biased to the downside.
“Can’t Princeton turn out a half decent person these days instead of the constant stream of “pinky and the brain” economists they have created lately?!”
HSBC’s Steven Major is out with a bold new forecast.
In a client note on Thursday titled “Yanking down the yields,” the interest-rates strategist projected that bond yields would be much lower than the markets expected because central banks including the Federal Reserve were reluctant to raise interest rates.
Major sees the benchmark US 10-year yield, now at 2.05%, averaging 2.10% in the fourth quarter, but then tumbling to 1.5% by the third quarter of 2016. He also lowered projections for European bond yields.
According to Bloomberg, the median strategist’s forecast is for the 10-year yield to rally to 2.9% by Q3 2016 and 3.0% by Q4 2016. Of 65 published forecasts, Major’s 1.5% call is the only one below 1.65%.
He wrote:
Much of the shift lower in our yield forecasts derives from the view that the ECB [European Central Bank] will continue to buy bonds in its QE [Quantitative Easing] program. The forecast for a ‘bowing-in’ of curves reflects our opinion that a long period of unconventional policy will create an unconventional outcome. Central banks did not forecast the persistently weak growth or recent decline in inflation. So data dependency does not easily justify lifting rates from the zero-bound — it might suggest the opposite.
In September, the Federal Reserve passed on what would have been its first interest-rate hike in nine years, as concerns about the labor market and global weakness weighed on voting members’ minds. Also last month, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said the ECB would expand its stimulus program if needed.
For years, pros across Wall Street have argued that interest rates have nowhere to go but up. Major was one of the few forecasters to correctly predict that in 2014 bond yields would fall and end the year lower. Others had predicted that yields would rise as the Fed wound down its massive bond-buying program known as quantitative easing.
“The conventional view has been that a normalization of monetary policy would be led by the Federal Reserve, involve a rise in short rates and a flatter curve,” Major wrote. “This has already been proven completely wrong.”
Once again, Major is going against the grain to say yields will fall even further, though the Fed has maintained that it could raise short-term interest rates this year.
Major is in the small minority, with others including Komal Sri-Kumar, president of Sri-Kumar Global Strategies, who wrote on Business Insider earlier this week that the 10-year yield would slide below 2% to 1.5%.
Also, DoubleLine Capital’s Jeff Gundlachforecast in June that bond yields would end 2015 near where they started the year. Gundlach also noted in his presentation that yields had risen in previous periods in which the Fed raised rates.
The 10-year yield was at 2.17% at the beginning of January. On Thursday, it was near 2.05%.
Typically, higher interest rates make existing bonds less attractive to buyers, since they can get new notes at loftier yields. And as demand for these bonds falls, their prices also fall, and yields rise.
This chart shows Major’s forecasts versus the consensus:
“Officially joining the 0% bond club, the U.S. Treasury sold a new government security on Monday containing a three-month maturity and a yield of zero for the first time on record. In essence, buyers gave a free short-term loan to the government in exchange for a highly liquid debt instrument for their portfolio. The result adds to the diminishing expectations – stoked by Friday’s disappointing jobs report – that the Fed will keep interest rates at basement levels throughout 2015.”
Record times. Should we break out the bubbly and celebrate, or get out the Valium? Now, after a lifetime of 40-hour weeks, you too can lend your hard-earned money to Uncle Sam and get a negative 2% return for your trouble. (Let’s not forget about that big elephant in the room called inflation.) Figure it into your return calculations and you lose 2% annualized on this “investment”.
The U.S. Treasury has finally joined a rarefied club, along with Germany, Japan and others.
If you are the patriotic type and feel like giving Uncle Sam an interest free loan, be my guest. Do you also pay more tax than required because you think Uncle Sam could use a break dealing with those big deficits? Do you have so much money with no place to go that you’d rather see it locked up, safe and sound for 3 months in Uncle Sam’s vaults than chance it being stolen from underneath your mattress?
Be my guest. I have better ideas for those dollars.
Here’s how the Wall Street Journal reported this astounding event.
By MIN ZENG
Updated Oct. 5, 2015 7:51 p.m.
The U.S. Treasury sold a new government security with a three-month maturity and a yield of zero for the first time on record, reflecting the highest demand since June.
In essence, buyers gave a free short-term loan to the U.S. government in exchange for a highly liquid debt instrument for their portfolio.
The result reflects diminishing expectations in financial markets that the Federal Reserve would raise short-term rates before year-end after Friday’s disappointing jobs report. Yields on these short-term Treasury-debt instruments are highly sensitive to changes in the Fed’s interest-rate policy outlook.
The move occurred on a day that stocks surged, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average adding 304.06 points, or 1.8%, to 16776.43.
The prospect of continued ultra loose monetary support bolstered demand on Monday for riskier assets, including stocks and commodities. That in turn diluted the appeal of relatively safer assets, boosting the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note to 2.058% Monday, from a five-month low of 1.989% Friday. Bond yields rise as prices fall.
The Fed is off the table for 2015 no matter what they say,” said Andrew Brenner, head of international fixed income for broker dealer National Alliance Capital Markets. Investors “will claw their way back” in riskier assets between now and year-end, he said.
Monday’s $21 billion auction of three-month Treasury bills drew $4.14 in bids for each dollar offered, and the resulting bid-to-cover ratio was the highest since June 22. Bills are Treasury debt maturing in a year or less. The Treasury sells bills maturing in one month, three months and six months on a weekly basis.
In terms of demand, concern about Fed hikes in 2015 is evaporating, particularly following the disappointing jobs numbers,” said Andrew Hollenhorst, U.S. short-term interest-rate strategist at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in New York.
Competition to obtain bills has been intensifying lately. Of the past six one-month bill auctions, five sales were offered at a zero yield.
In the secondary market, some bills have been yielding slightly below zero or around zero for weeks. On Monday, the yield on the one-month bill traded at negative-0.02% and the three-month yield was zero. An investor who holds the one-month bill through maturity will log a moderate capital loss, but that is the price the buyer has been willing to pay to obtain the bills.
It is a bizarre outcome, but that is the world we are living in right now,” said Thomas Simons, money-market economist in the Fixed Income Group at Jefferies LLC. “For many investors investing in short-term markets, bills are the only game in town.”
Bizarre outcome, indeed
Last week, I wrote an article about a bank offering a “high yield” of 1.05% to depositors. I disparaged the misnomer, calling such a product high yield, when clearly, even in ZIRP world, alternatives exist.
Little did I imagine that we’d now be referring to last week’s 3-month Treasury yield of .08% as high yield in comparison to today’s offering of 0%. What have we come to, where anything higher than 0% is now considered high yield?
If there was any doubt in anyone’s mind that we’re stuck at low rates for longer, I think this latest pricing has cleared things up. Which brings us to yet another crossroads:
A. Recognize that this is yet another gift and a tip of the hat to equity markets because cheap money is here to stay, a while longer at least, allowing the equities markets greater running room to extend the six-day rally and re-inflate investors’ wallets. Champagne? Yes, please.
B. Remain downtrodden because we have no place to store our hard-earned money safely and earn any return whatsoever. A little Valium to calm the nerves? Retirees used to being able to comfortably park their money in safe investments like Treasuries and CDs continue to feel the brunt of this zero interest rate policy and perceive that after being thrown under the bus for almost nine years of low rates, now at 0% it feels like that bus keeps crushing them over and over.
I choose alternative A. To accept this proposition from the Treasury is a most certain guarantee that when we are repaid in three months time, we will have lost 2% purchasing power on an annual basis. That strikes me as pure madness.
According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for July 2015, U.S. home prices continued their rise across the country over the last 12 months.
Year-over-Year
The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, recorded a slightly higher year-over-year gain with a 4.7% annual increase in July 2015 versus a 4.5% increase in June 2015. The 10-City Composite was virtually unchanged from last month, rising 4.5% year-over-year. The 20-City Composite had higher year-over-year gains, with an increase of 5.0%. San Francisco, Denver and Dallas reported the highest year-over-year gains among the 20 cities with price increases of 10.4%, 10.3%, and 8.7%, respectively. Fourteen cities reported greater price increases in the year ending July 2015 over the year ending June 2015.
San Francisco and Denver are the only cities with a double digit increase, and Phoenix had the longest streak of year-over-year increases. Phoenix reported an increase of 4.6% in July 2015, the eighth consecutive year over-year increase. Boston posted a 4.3% annual increase, up from 3.2% in June 2015; this is the biggest jump in year-over year gains this month.
Month-over-Month
Before seasonal adjustment, the National Index posted a gain of 0.7% month-over-month in July. The 10-City Composite and 20-City Composite both reported gains of 0.6% month-over-month. After seasonal adjustment, the National index posted a gain of 0.4%, while the 10-City and 20-City Composites were both down 0.2% month-over-month. All 20 cities reported increases in July before seasonal adjustment; after seasonal adjustment, 10 were down, nine were up, and one was unchanged.
Market Analysis
“Prices of existing homes and housing overall are seeing strong growth and contributing to recent solid growth for the economy,” says David M. Blitzer, Managing Director and Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices.
“The S&P/Case Shiller National Home Price Index has risen at a 4% or higher annual rate since September 2012, well ahead of inflation. Most of the strength is focused on states west of the Mississippi. The three cities with the largest cumulative price increases since January 2000 are all in California: Los Angeles (138%), San Francisco (116%) and San Diego (115%). The two smallest gains since January 2000 are Detroit (3%) and Cleveland (10%). The Sunbelt cities – Miami, Tampa, Phoenix and Las Vegas – which were the poster children of the housing boom have yet to make new all-time highs.
“The economy grew at a 3.9% real annual rate in the second quarter of 2015 with housing making a major contribution. Residential investment grew at annual real rates of 9-10% in the last three quarters (2014:4th quarter, 2015:1st-2 nd quarters), far faster than total GDP.
Further, expenditures on furniture and household equipment, a sector that depends on home sales and housing construction, also surpassed total GDP growth rates. Other positive indicators of current and expected future housing activity include gains in sales of new and existing housing and the National Association of Home Builders sentiment index. An interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve, now expected in December by many analysts, is not likely to derail the strong housing performance.”
According to Realtor.com’s ‘Advance Read of September Trends‘, with month-over-month declining prices and increased time on market, the September 2015 housing market has transitioned into a buyer’s market. This means that it is now easier for buyers to purchase a home than it has been any time so far this year.
“The spring and summer home-buying seasons were especially tough on potential buyers this year with increasing prices and limited supply,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for Realtor.com. “Buyers who are open to a fall or winter purchase should find some relief with lower prices and less competition from other buyers. However, year-over-year comparisons show that fall buyers will have it tougher than last year as the housing market continues to show improvement.”
Housing demand is in its seasonally weaker period and as a result, median list prices are continuing to decline from July’s peak. Likewise, inventory has also peaked for 2015, so buyers will see fewer choices through the end of the year. Top line findings of the monthly report that draws on residential inventory and demand trends over the first three weeks of the month include:
National median list price is $230,000 down decreased 1 percent over August and up 6 percent year-over-year.
Median age of inventory is now 80 days, up 6.7 percent from August, but down 5 percent year-over-year, reflecting the seasonal trend for fall listings to stay longer on the market as the day becomes shorter.
Listings inventory will likely end the month down 0.5 percent from August.
Realtor.com September 2015 Market Hotness Data
The 20 hottest markets in the country, ranked by number of views per listing on Realtor.com and the median age of inventory in each market, in September 2015 are:
Key takeaway from Realtor.com September Hotness Index:
California maintains 11 cities on the Hotness Index due to continued tight supply and turbo charged economy. Markets in the state have been characterized as having extremely tight supply all year, so frustrated buyers who have not been able to find a home so far remain active, supporting continued strength in sales across much of Northern and Southern California.
Texas and Michigan also continue to feature multiple markets also driven by job growth, but compared especially to the California markets have more affordable inventory attracting a broader base of potential buyers.
Fort Wayne, Ind., and Modesto, Calif., both entered the top 20 list in September having just missed in August. Both markets benefit from strong housing affordability for their regions.
“The hottest markets are little changed in September as supply remains tight and demand remains strong,” Smoke commented. “Sellers across all these markets continue to see listings move much more quickly than the rest of the country in September, and the seasonal slow-down is not as strong in these markets.”
According to a study by Wealth-X and the Sotheby’s International Realty, a growing number of ultra-high net worth (UHNW) individuals view homes as ‘opportunity gateways’, driving buying decisions that are based on potential opportunities from owning these luxury residential properties.
The UHNW Luxury Real Estate Report: Homes As Opportunity Gateways reveals two trends that are fueling the rise in the number of ultra wealthy individuals who are buying luxury homes: 1) International home-buying by UHNW individuals (defined as those with at least US$30 million in assets) from emerging nations seeking a safe investment diversification. 2) Home-buying as part of a program to gain citizenship or residency status in foreign nations. The report provides insight into the UHNW residential real estate opportunities in Sydney and Vancouver for buyers seeking safe investment diversification; and Malta, the Bahamas and Sao Paulo, which may appeal to ultra wealthy buyers who are seeking citizenship or residency through property investment.
Key report findings include:
12% of second homes purchased by UHNW individuals in emerging countries (those who reside in BRICS nations) are located outside their country of residence.
Recent market fluctuations in emerging nations are leading a new generation of UHNW investors to consider investing in luxury residential real estate in Western markets.
Chinese UHNW individuals make up the third largest share of foreign UHNW homeowners in the United States, behind only Canada and the United Kingdom.
Twenty nations in Europe and the Americas now offer citizenship or residency programs to individuals willing to invest in domestic residential real estate.
Many residential real estate markets with such programs – including Sao Paulo, Malta, and the Bahamas – offer good long-term investment opportunities.
The UHNW Residential Real Estate index, tracked by Wealth-X, rose to 115.2 in Q2 2015, an 8.3% rise year-on-year, and the sixth consecutive quarter in which the index has risen. The continued rise in the index reflects the confidence of UHNW individuals to invest in luxury residential real estate. The index takes into account the full range of luxury residential properties that are owned by the world’s wealthiest individuals. Wealth-X data shows there are 211,275 UHNW individuals globally, who collectively hold nearly $3 trillion in real estate assets, equal to 10% of their net worth.
Wealth-X President David Friedman commented, “Wealth-X is pleased to partner with the Sotheby’s International Realty brand for this third luxury real estate report for 2015. This new joint study explores the trends and home-buying motivations of a distinct group of ultra wealthy individuals in the emerging markets. As their wealth grows, so will their investment fueled by various motivations, be it to diversify their portfolio or to gain citizenship or residency in a foreign country.” According to Philip White, president and chief executive officer, Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates LLC, this joint report was designed to provide an understanding of the trends driving buying decisions of ultra-high net worth individuals around the world. “The research reveals trends that go beyond traditional motivations and help guide real estate investments that contribute to long-term wealth,” he said. “It underscores the important role real estate plays in a larger strategy to build a valuable asset portfolio.”
“$20,000 on drinks is a plain night on the town,” says one local restaurateur, as big-time Chinese money pours into Los Angeles, consuming everything from wine to diamonds to watches to cars to prime real estate (in one case, 25,000 square feet for a teenage college student).
A version of this story first appeared in the Oct. 9 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
The ultra-wealthy Chinese tend to get what they want, and right now most of them want one thing: to get out. More than 60 percent of China’s most affluent citizens have already left the country or are planning to leave it, according to the Los Angeles Times. And L.A. — a politically stable and always-comfortable metropolis where catering to the rich is a way of life — is among their most coveted destinations. The numbers don’t lie: In 2014, a full 20 percent of the city’s $8 billion in real estate sales was purchased by Chinese buyers. Showing no signs of slowing down, this injection of Chinese capital and influence can be felt at every level of L.A.’s culture of consumption.
Thanks to big import and consumption taxes introduced in recent years by President Xi Jinping, most wealthy Chinese consider the cost of homes and luxury goods in L.A. to be something of a bargain. “They’ll buy high-end watches in threes and fours,” says Korosh Soltani, owner of Rodeo Drive jewelry store David Orgell, of his Chinese clientele, who’ll typically drop $200,000 on gifts in a single shopping spree. (Soltani has so many Chinese customers, he asks companies like Corum and Baume & Mercier to send him watches bearing the Mandarin logos they are more familiar with.)
Brand names are essential: Hermes tableware, Lalique crystal and yellow-gold jewelry from Carrera y Carrera — gold is the most popular gift among Chinese — are consistent hot sellers. Spending can easily soar much higher if shopping for a special occasion: “We just had a Chinese family come in looking for the finest, most vivid canary yellow diamond you can have. Fortunately I had one,” says Beverly Hills jeweler Martin Katz of a recent engagement ring purchase. “It was a seven-figure-priced stone in the six-carat range.”
While money is frequently no object, the Chinese still like to negotiate and won’t close a deal without getting “big discounts … it’s in the culture,” Soltanti says. They also expect a little something extra: “We ask our brands to give us pens or hats that will keep them happy. They’re very appreciative of it.”
The Beverly Center, meanwhile, has taken active steps toward luring China’s big spenders: The high-end shopping mall — which houses Louis Vuitton, Prada and Fendi boutiques — provides a Chinese version of its website and brochures, staffs Mandarin-speaking concierges, accepts China UnionPay credit cards and promotes itself on Sina Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter.
“They arrive with this endless stream of money without working or earning it. It’s just Monopoly money to them,” says Gotham Dream Cars’ Rob Ferretti of Chinese customers who come to him in search of an exotic ride. They lease cars like the $397,000 Maybach 57S for $2,200 a day. Color-wise, “They love these light blues,” Ferretti says. They’re even particular about the car’s VIN number: They like when it has as many eights in it as possible.
“Eight in Chinese rhymes with the word for prosperity. It’s extremely significant,” explains architect Anthony Poon of Beverly Hills-based Poon Design Inc. The Chinese fixation on the number can verge on the obsessive: One client, whose husband is a major film director, wanted Poon to design her an 8,888-square-foot home, while another Chinese developer working on a luxury community in Pacific Palisades insists that it have eight estates.
“They understand vertical living very well, and they love new construction, so condos are very much in their wheelhouse,” says Beverly Hills realtor (and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star) Mauricio Umansky of his Chinese clients, most of whom are relocating from densely packed urban centers like Shanghai to the comparative expansiveness of Arcadia, an L.A. suburb and Chinese-wealth magnet. If their kids are attending UCLA, parents will think nothing of spending $1 million to $3 million or more on a Westwood pied-a-terre instead of putting their children up in dorms. “The wealth and lack of reference point can be staggering,” marvels Poon, before sharing an anecdote about the family who purchased a 25,000-square-foot home in the Hollywood Hills for their teenage son. On the ultra-high-end market — mansions that cost $50 million and above — Umansky estimates that about 25 percent of sales are made to Chinese, a figure he says is climbing due to ongoing “political and financial uncertainty in China.”
When it comes to design, feng shui — the ancient philosophy of living in harmony with your surroundings — is a top priority among Chinese buyers, with architects scrambling to accommodate its highly specific criteria. According to Poon, a contained foyer is preferable to an open-plan entryway (it helps retain life force, or chi); floor plans must be simple, with no awkward or cramped spaces; furniture should be placed away from doors and be round, not rectangular; sloping backyards are a no-no (again, to avoid chi loss); and, says Umansky, “you don’t want the staircase facing the front door because it’s the money and fortune flowing out.”
Dining, too, comes with its own set of Chinese rules. For a taste of home, Chinese emigres gravitate to authentic dumpling houses like Din Tai Fung — either the original in Arcadia or either of two trendier outposts in Costa Mesa and Glendale. (The latter location, nestled in Rick Caruso’s Americana at Brand, serves the much-coveted black-truffle soup dumplings, a Hong Kong delicacy.) Restaurateur Peter Garland, owner of Porta Via on Canon Drive, notes that uber-wealthy Chinese diners spend freely on high-end wines — especially chardonnay and California cabernet. That extends to any restaurant boasting a stellar wine list, as Beverly Hills mainstays like Cut or Mastro’s regularly draw a deep-pocketed Chinese clientele who’ll think nothing at dropping four-figures on rare vintages and for whom “$20,000 on drinks in one night is a plain night on the town,” says Poon.
When it comes to fall foliage, America is truly blessed…with spectacular, breath-taking autumn scenes of falling leaves of every color in the rainbow…and then some. It’s so blessed, in fact that we could easily have a Top 20 list and still not get in all the beautiful places. One of the best ways to experience fall foliage is in the comfort of a car, driving while enveloped in an ever-changing kaleidoscope of color.
5 – DALLAS DIVIDE AND LIZARD HEAD PASS, SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO – You can begin your journey in the town of Ridgway, heading west on Colorado 62 over Dallas Divide. You’ll get fantastic views of the Sneffels Range, with a carpet brilliant-gold aspens at its feet. At Placerville, head southeast toward Telluride on Colorado 145. All the way to Lizard Head Pass you’ll drive through dense groves of white-barked (and rich, gold-colored leafed) aspens, with dramatic panoramas of 14,023-foot Wilson Peak. Where to stay? My favorite is Dunton Hot Springs, where you can soak in historic hot springs (it’s an old mining town that later became a ghost town) surrounded by snow-capped peaks, and then retire to a real log cabin that combines luxury and the Old West. I also like Scarp Ridge Lodge, an elegantly-restored 19th-Century mason’s lodge in Crested Butte, surrounded by the ruddy colors of the Ruby Range.
4 – FAYETTE STATION ROAD, WEST VIRGINIA – Exploring Fayette Station Road is to travel back in time, to before the modern New River Gorge Bridge was built in 1977 (it’s the longest single-arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere). This 100-year-old road of hairpin turns winds down to the bottom of the gorge, across a narrow bridge, and back up the other side. Visible along the way are vistas of the river and bridges, a dense hardwood forest framing both sides of the river, remnants of the New River Gorge communities that once teemed with activity, and a painter’s palette of fall colors. For a place to stay, I love the ACE Adventure Resort, with great lodging and food, and more exciting outdoor activities than you could experience if Fall Foliage lasted a month!
3 – BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY, NORTH CAROLINA – The winding, climbing and diving Blue Ridge Parkway is often called the most beautiful road in America – and it’s not hard to see why. It’s especially magnificent during fall foliage, when its waterfalls and gorges and mountains and valleys are bathed in lush, iridescent layers of greens, reds, rusts, purples, and yellows. This is one highway on which you can’t be in a hurry – because you’ll probably be stopping at every scenic overlook. The air is sweet and fragrant with the cooler temperatures. And the boiled peanuts being cooked on the front porches of wood-frame houses in nearby towns bring an especially wonderful taste to autumn. One of those towns is Bryson City, overlooked by my favorite place to stay in the Great Smokey Mountains, Lands Creek Log Cabins. These are among the most beautiful cabins I’ve ever seen. They sit on top of a mountain with daytime views into Tennessee, and black-velvet nighttime views deep into the heavens. And, because they sit on stilts on top of Lands Creek, you’ll fall asleep to the sounds of the rushing creek right under you.
2 – THE ENCHANTED CIRCLE, NEW MEXICO – The Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway is an 83-mile loop in north-central New Mexico that winds its way through stunning mountain ranges, the Carson National Forest, vast meadows, and historic old villages. During Fall Foliage the route is especially beautiful, as the colors seem to literally burst out of the mountains. The Enchanted Circle passes New Mexico’s highest mountain, 13,161-foot Wheeler Peak, and moves through the towns of Taos, Questa, Red River (great skiing in a month or two!), Eagle Nest, Angel Fire, and the Taos Ski Valley (more great skiing!). Each community has its own unique character – 300-year-old Taos, of course, with its scenic old Plaza and adobe architecture, is the birthplace of Southwestern Art – and these towns all host colorful special events throughout the fall. You can get up-close-and-personal with the fall colors on the area’s numerous hiking and mountain-biking trails, camping in the Carson National Forest, and private campgrounds around the Circle.
1 – LAKE COEUR D’ALENE SCENIC BYWAY – In the northern Idaho Panhandle, Lake Coeur d’Alene is about 30 miles in length, with some 115 miles of shoreline edged by forest and mountains. And the scenic byway that runs along it is one of the best ways to experience the deep, vibrant colors of Fall Foliage here. The road begins at the junction of Interstate 90 and Idaho 97 and follows Idaho 97 south and east along Lake Coeur d’Alene to Idaho 3. On the way, you’ll pass lakes, mountains, wide-open spaces and interesting villages dotting the landscape, only 90 miles from the Canadian border. The byway is also home to a variety of wildlife, including moose, deer, elk, bear and several bird species, and the lake is home to bald eagles and the largest population of nesting osprey in the Western states. Take a break and stretch your legs on the Mineral Ridge Trail, which offers panoramic views of the lake. The route continues through gentle hills and dense forests to the charming town of Harrison. At the northern end of the lake, and convenient to the scenic byway, is the town of Coeur d’Alene, with red-brick sidewalks, interesting shops and restaurants with flower boxes outside, and beautiful old Pacific Northwest/Victorian homes. Here you’ll find my favorite place to stay in the Inland Pacific Northwest, the Coeur d’Alene Resort, with eye-popping views of lake and mountains, several excellent restaurants, cool shops and pubs, a lake-cruise boat, the world’s only floating golf green, and the opportunity to take off and land in the lake in the resort’s own flight-seeing plane. Well, there you have my favorite Fall Foliage drives. Let us know yours!
If investors in stocks of home builders are wondering why they are losing money Thursday despite such upbeat new home sales data, traders of lumber futures may be smugly thinking: “Told you so.”
New home sales for Augustjumped more than expected to the highest level since February 2008. But the SPDR S&P Home builders exchange-traded fund XHB, +0.17% fell 0.5% in afternoon trade Thursday, and was down as much as 2.1% earlier in the session. The home builder-sector tracker (XHB) has lost 2.8% this week, and slumped 8.8% since it hit an 8 1/2-year high on Aug. 19.
FactSet Pullback in home builder stocks may be just the beginning
Some chart watchers might say, that’s easy.
Tom McClellan, publisher of the investment newsletter McClellan Market Report, said his research suggests lumber prices seem to foretell, about 12 months in advance, changes in the rate of new home sales. “That is important because lumber has been falling rapidly this year, which suggests a corresponding drop in new home sales in store over the next 12 months,” McClellan wrote in a recent report to clients.
Based on that assessment, home builder stocks appear to be well overdue for a bigger selloff.
Continuous lumber futures LBX5, -0.09% declined 0.1% Thursday to the lowest level in nearly four years, as they have tumbled 34% so far this year.
Selloff in lumber prices may suggest home builder stocks are overdue for bigger decline
What’s worse, McClellan said this week that recent data in the Commitment of Traders Report, published by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, regarding the recent activity of commercial traders—the so-called “smart money”–suggests log prices are likely to see a further big drop over the next couple of months.
“And that is another sign of economic troubles about to befall not only the lumber market but also the rest of the economy,” McClellan said.
Migaloo SubmariesPart yacht, part private island, Kokomo Ailand is a new model for luxury on the high seas.
Yacht design has gotten pretty extravagant in recent years, but nothing compares to Kokomo Ailand.
More mobile island than yacht, Kokomo is a floating, semi-submersed vessel with a level of luxury that rivals a four-star resort. According to renderings, the “private floating habitat” features multiple decks and amenities, a sky-high penthouse suite, and a beach club.
The company behind it, Migaloo Private Submarines, hasn’t received any orders yet, but it claims Kokomo can be built to specification immediately with existing technology. According to a representative, “the price depends strongly on the client’s wishes.”
Keep scrolling to see the renderings for this insane new billionaire toy.
Part massive yacht, part private island, Kokomo Ailand has all the trappings of a luxury resort.
Migaloo Submaries
The owner’s penthouse sits 260 feet above sea level with two elevators, a glass-bottomed Jacuzzi, a private beach club, and ocean views.
Migaloo Submaries
Eight engines allow the mammoth platform to chug along at speeds up to 8 knots, or about 9 mph.
Migaloo Submaries
One of the most exotic features is the jungle deck.
Migaloo Submaries
It includes palm trees, vertical gardens, and waterfalls.
Migaloo Submaries
There’s also a spa deck with a gym, a massage parlor, and beauty salons.
Migaloo Submaries
The garden deck is reserved for outdoor dining and lounging.
Migaloo Submaries
The real draw is the beach deck, replete with multiple pools, barbecue areas, underwater dining, a shark-feeding station, and an outdoor cinema.
Migaloo Submaries
Designed with infinity pools and private balconies, the VIP and guest deck is under the beach deck.
Migaloo Submaries
A helipad allows easy entry and exit to the island.
Hedge fund titan Bill Ackman, the founder of $19 billion Pershing Square Capital Management, slammed the US government on Tuesday night for keeping all of the profits from mortgage guarantors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Ackman called it “the most illegal act of scale” he has ever seen the US government do.
Ackman spoke on Tuesday evening during a panel at Columbia University for the launch of Bethany McLean’s new book “Shaky Ground.” McLean and former Fannie Mae CEO Frank Raines were also panelists. Ackman, however, did most of the talking.
During the financial crisis, Fannie and Freddie needed massive bailouts and were taken over by the government. It’s been seven years since the financial crisis and the companies are still in a state of conservatorship. Today, the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) make billions in profits, all of which goes directly to the Treasury.
“And there is no way they will not be allowed to stand, from a legal point of view. And the reason for that is if the US government can step in and take 100% of profits of a corporation forever, then we are in a Stalinist state and no private property is safe — and take your money out of every financial institution, put it into gold or bitcoin and just get the hell out because we’re done, maybe the clothes on your back, but other than that nothing is safe,” he said.
A man stands outside Fannie Mae in Washington
In Ackman’s view, Fannie and Freddie are vital to the US economy. Right now, he said, the biggest threat to the US middle class is rising rental rates.
“If you don’t own a home, and you’re a member of the middle class, you have a problem,” he said. “This is the biggest threat to the middle class livelihood is that your cost of living, the roof over your head is not fixed, it’s floating.”
Ackman said that Fannie and Freddie were set up to make middle class housing more accessible. Together, they have enabled widespread availability and affordability with the 30-year, fixed-rate, pre-payable mortgage—a system that’s been in place for 45 years.
Ackman said he’s optimistic about the future of Fannie and Freddie. He has said before that with the right reforms they could be worth a lot more. He has given the GSEs a price target ranging between $23 and $47, which is well above the current $2 range.
First, there were actual caves. Then came man caves. So what’s the next hot thing in gender-specific sanctuaries? Meet the “she shed,” a backyard haven for busy women seeking a quiet reprieve from the world.
We’ve rounded up some of our favorites, from the humble aluminum-sided storage shed to the tricked-out den retreat.
Get inspired, then get away from everyone.
First, define the purpose of your She Shed
Whether it’s for reading, crafting or indulging a fave hobby, like gardening.
Or simply make it about chilling out
No dirt allowed in this elegant hideaway.
Make it fancy
Ever say, “This is why we can’t have nice things”? Solution: Put all your nice things in your own private place (hello, crystal chandelier collection).
Sometimes, a gal just needs a moment to herself
And a 45-minute nap in a padlocked hut finished with coordinating throw pillows.
Serenity Now
Bedeck your bungalow with ivy and practically disappear into nature.
Tree House chic
Just add lights, a daybed and a glass of wine.
A Fresh Coat of Paint Goes a Long Way
The secret to transforming any shed into a personal reprieve.
As Does a Trip to the Salvage Yard
This guy is made from recycled glass doors and windows.
Hang a hammock for a lazy day
Um, is that an outdoor shower?
What makes you feel relaxed?
For some, it’s about blurring the line between indoor and outdoor space…
And for others…
It’s about creating a glorified bunker that says, “leave me be.”
Keep it contemporary
With minimalist accessories and clean, modern lines.
Or really own your theme
Like this quirky Zen den fit for a yoga goddess.
And for that rare time you’re feeling neighborly
Throw open the door, add bar stools and a few bottles. The backyard pub is open for business.
The Bush and Obama administrations have not convicted a single senior bank officer for leading the fraud epidemics that triggered the crisis.
The banksters have learned to optimize “accounting control fraud” schemes and learned that they can grow immensely wealthy by leading those fraud epidemics with complete impunity.
We have known for decades that repealing the rule of law for elite white-collar criminals and relying on corporate fines always produces abject failure and massive corporate fraud.
By issuing its new memorandum the Justice Department is tacitly admitting that its experiment in refusing to prosecute the senior bankers that led the fraud epidemics that caused our economic crisis failed. The result was the death of accountability, of justice, and of deterrence. The result was a wave of recidivism in which elite bankers continued to defraud the public after promising to cease their crimes. The new Justice Department policy, correctly, restores the Department’s publicly stated policy in Spring 2009. Attorney General Holder and then U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch ignored that policy emphasizing the need to prosecute elite white-collar criminals and refused to prosecute the senior bankers who led the fraud epidemics.
It is now seven years after Lehman’s senior officers’ frauds destroyed it and triggered the financial crisis. The Bush and Obama administrations have not convicted a single senior bank officer for leading the fraud epidemics that triggered the crisis. The Department’s announced restoration of the rule of law for elite white-collar criminals, even if it becomes real, will come too late to prosecute the senior bankers for leading the fraud epidemics. The Justice Department has, effectively, let the statute of limitations run and allowed the most destructive white-collar criminal bankers in history to become wealthy through fraud with absolute impunity. This will go down as the Justice Department’s greatest strategic failure against elite white-collar crime.
The Obama administration and the Department have failed to take the most basic steps essential to prosecute elite bankers. They have not restored the “criminal referral coordinators” at the banking regulatory agencies and they have virtually ignored the whistle blowers who gave them cases against the top bankers on a platinum platter. The Department has not even trained its attorneys and the FBI to understand, detect, investigate, and prosecute the “accounting control frauds” that caused the financial crisis. The restoration of the rule of law that the new policy promises will not happen in more than a token number of cases against senior bankers until these basic steps are taken.
The Justice Department, through Chris Swecker, the FBI official in charge of the response to mortgage fraud, issued two public warnings in September 2004 — eleven years ago. First, there was an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud. Second it would cause a financial “crisis” if it were not stopped. The Department’s public position, for decades, was that the only way to stop serious white-collar crime was by prosecuting the elite officials who led those crimes. For eleven years, however, the Department failed to prosecute the senior bankers who led the fraud epidemic. The Department’s stated “new” position is its historic position that it has refused to implement. Words are cheap. The Department is 4,000 days late and $24.3 trillion short. Economists’ best estimate is that the financial crisis will cause that massive a loss in U.S. GDP — plus roughly 15 million jobs lost or not created.
Americans need to come together to demand that the Department act, not just talk, to restore the rule of law and prosecute the bankers that led the fraud epidemics that drove the financial crisis. There is very little time left to prosecute, so the effort must be vigorous and urgent and a top priority.
Here is an example, in the cartel context, of the Department’s long-standing position that deterrence of elite white-collar crimes requires the prosecution and incarceration of the businessmen that lead the crimes. It contains the classic quotation that the Department has long used to explain its position. Note that the public statement of this position was early in the Obama administration (April 3, 2009), but plainly was already long-standing. The Department’s official made these passages her first two paragraphs in order to emphasize the points – and the fact that deterrence through the criminal prosecution of elite white-collar criminals works.
“It is well known that the Antitrust Division has long ranked anti-cartel enforcement as its top priority. It is also well known that the Division has long advocated that the most effective deterrent for hard core cartel activity, such as price fixing, bid rigging, and allocation agreements, is stiff prison sentences. It is obvious why prison sentences are important in anti-cartel enforcement. Companies only commit cartel offenses through individual employees, and prison is a penalty that cannot be reimbursed by the corporate employer. As a corporate executive once told a former Assistant Attorney General of ours: “[A]s long as you are only talking about money, the company can at the end of the day take care of me . . . but once you begin talking about taking away my liberty, there is nothing that the company can do for me.”(1) Executives often offer to pay higher fines to get a break on their jail time, but they never offer to spend more time in prison in order to get a discount on their fine.
We know that prison sentences are a deterrent to executives who would otherwise extend their cartel activity to the United States. In many cases, the Division has discovered cartelists who were colluding on products sold in other parts of the world and who sold product in the United States, but who did not extend their cartel activity to U.S. sales. In some of these cases, although the U.S. market was the cartelists’ largest market and potentially the most profitable, the collusion stopped at the border because of the risk of going to prison in the United States.”
As prosecutors, (real) financial regulators, and criminologists, we have known for decades that the only effective means to deter elite white-collar crimes is to imprison the elite officers that grew wealthy by leading those crimes (which include the largest “hard core cartels” in history – by three orders of magnitude). In the words of a Deutsche Bank senior officer, the bank’s participation in the Libor cartel produced a “mountain of money” for the bank (and the officers). Holder’s bank fines were useless – and the Department’s real prosecutors told him why they were useless from the beginning. No one, of course, thinks Holder went rogue in refusing to prosecute fraudulent bank officers. President Obama would have requested his resignation six years ago if he were upset at Holder’s grant of de facto immunity to our most destructive elite white-collar criminals.
Our saying during the savings and loan debacle was that in our response we must not be the ones “chasing mice while lions roam the campsite.” Holder, and his predecessors under President Bush, chased mice – and fed them to the lions. They overwhelmingly prosecuted working class homeowners who had supposedly deceived the most fraudulent bankers in world history – acting like a collection agency for the worst bank frauds.
As a U.S. attorney, Loretta. Lynch failed to prosecute any of the officers of HSBC that laundered a billion dollars for Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel and violated international and U.S. anti-terrorism sanctions. The HSBC officers committed tens of thousands of felonies and were caught red-handed, but now Attorney General Lynch refused to prosecute any of them – even the low-level fraud “mice.” Dishonest corporate leaders are delighted to trade off larger fines – which are paid for by the shareholders – to prevent the prosecution of even low-level officers who might “flip” and blow the whistle on the senior banksters that led the fraud schemes. To its shame, the Department’s senior leadership, including Holder and Lynch, have pretended for at least 11 years that the useless bank fines were a brilliant success. Those bank fines are paid by the shareholders. The Department’s cynical sweetheart deals with the elite criminals allowed them to keep their jobs and massive bonuses that they received because of the frauds they led. The Department compounded its shame by bragging that it was working with Obama’s (non) regulators to create guilty plea “lite” in which banks that admitted they committed tens of thousands of felonies involving hundreds of trillions of dollars of fraud were relieved of the normal restrictions that a fraud “mouse” is invariably subjected to for committing a single act of fraud involving $100.
The Department’s top criminal prosecutor, Lanny Breuer, publicly stated his paramount concern about the fraud epidemics that devastated our nation – he was “losing sleep at night over worrying about what a lawsuit might result in at a large financial institution.” That’s right – he was petrified of even bringing a civil “lawsuit” – much less a criminal prosecution – against “too big to prosecute” banks and banksters. I lose sleep over what fraud epidemics the banksters will lead against our Nation. The banksters have learned to optimize “accounting control fraud” schemes and learned that they can grow immensely wealthy by leading those fraud epidemics with complete impunity. None of them has a criminal record and even those that lost their jobs are overwhelmingly back in financial leadership positions. In the aftermath of the savings and loan debacle, because of the prosecutions and criminal records of the elites that led those frauds, no senior S&L fraudster who was prosecuted was able to become a leader of the fraud epidemics that caused our most recent financial crisis.
We have known for decades that repealing the rule of law for elite white-collar criminals and relying on corporate fines always produces abject failure and massive corporate fraud. We have known for millennia that allowing elites to commit crimes with impunity leads to endemic fraud and corruption. If the Department wants to restore the rule of law I am happy to help it do so. We have known for over 30 years the steps we need to take to succeed against elite white-collar criminals through vigorous regulators and prosecutors. We must not simply prosecute the current banksters, but also prevent and limit future fraud epidemics through regulatory and supervisory changes. I renew my long-standing offers to the administration to, pro bono, (1) provide the anti-fraud training and regulatory policies, (2) help restore the agency criminal referral process, and (3) embrace the whistle blowers and the scores of superb criminal cases against elite bankers that they have handed the Department on a platinum platter. We can make the “new” Justice Department policy a reality within months if that is truly Obama and Lynch’s goal.
Investors Bancorp
FactSet
Easy Money Martin 
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