Bravo Tanta! It was be nice to banks week at the Times. There was also a story in the Real Estate Section (same Sunday paper) about how the nice banks are really trying to help borrowers stay out of foreclosure.
So Gretchen is absent-mindedly working for the investors and not the general public? There is the possibility that she is a journalist, not a professional in the industry and is simply not fit to play against our Tanta.
Is the issue complex enough to excuse Gretchen in this fashion or are the sources that she used and vetted for this piece, mistakes (not merely "aspirationals" people) that many other writers could and do make? (Some of them with no such lofty pursuits as discovering the truth or crafting a solution to a problem, but merely marketing a desirable outcome.)
Hopefully Gretchen reads Tanta's critique and is redirected.
Excellent as usual. I wonder if we could raise the funds among us to turn all this into a morality play ?
Meanwhile, back at the grocery store, I can turn black bananas into banana bread thereby adding value. Sounds like that's what these guys are pretending they can do.
Perhaps there's a market for non-converted bananas to the evicted families ?
It seems that Mr. Market is thinking that CBASS might change it's mind on FICC. The deal on the table is $5.53 a share cash, the stock is at 3.93. That spread is big enough to drive a double-wide manufactured home through it. We'll find out how well the lawyers wrote that MAC clause in the definitive agreement.
Therein lies the problem with the MSM. They never acknowledge mistakes or omissions with prior pieces (or if they do bury them in a part of the paper where no one looks) and they don't leverage any of the distributed knowledge that is out there. If they did, they would have seen this mortgage mess coming a long time ago.
With fewer loans to 'work' on - how is checking a no-docs loan 'work' anyway? - maybe the supply of semi- knowledgeable mortgage brokers are simply finding something - loss-mit - to do with their time?
I'd like to see the Venn diagram on Amaranth investors and big "upper" tranche CMO buyers.
Heck why don't we all just put our portfolios on Stockpickr.com? Don't be shy...
calmo, I can't figure out whom Gretchen is working for. I guess that's my problem here.
Look, some of us have been trying for quite some time to suggest to "investors" that both the loans and the RE they wanted to buy into were looking like train wrecks. We got told, basically, to crawl back into our bear caves.
Now that the perfectly predictable events have actually occurred, we're looking for something to explain the difference between the groovy results during the boom years (very low defaults) and the current results (defaults increasing at a very high rate). So we launch onto the explanation that it's loss mit that's causing that. OK, fine. It's just that we're saying that the "proof" of this is that we don't know what, actually, the servicers are doing.
We do, though, know what the lenders are doing on the origination side: they're peeling back guidelines, not doing so many take-out refis of DLQ loans. We also know that buyers in the RE market are no longer willing to pay top dollar for properties just because that's what the seller happens to owe. Plus, we know that a lot of those "performing" loans were ARMs and HELOCs and that the artificially low interest rates are going away. And that we never made sure those borrowers had any real income when we made the loan.
Those are looking like "facts" to me. So what is causing the accelleration in DLQ? Must be all the loss mit scams being unmasked. Sure. That makes sense.
The media prefers a Enron type story with clear good and bad guys. Lending standards, MBS, bond spreads, etc are not the daily diet that sell newspapers.
The other part of this story is that they are discussing Subprime which most folks consider the bad apples so this problem doesn't concern the average middle class white person. If and when the SFH RE market has significant price corrections that create some FEAR in J6P then we may see the general media become better focused. Until then we have the Tanta factor which may become mainstream sooner then we think.
Gretchens comment about SLOW MOTION are interesting.
Why has no brought up and discussed the "RUN ON BANK" worst case scenario which will happen to Fremont.
No financial institution can survive when the depositors flee. FMT can't make loans because of its C&D order. They can't sell the loans they have because there are no bids above par. They can't borrow from the FHLB.
Deposits are racing out the door. I would be surprised to see FMT make it to the end of the week once those internet hot deposits start flowing.
People don't need to walk in the bank to withdraw money. This is happening at the speed of broadband.
Have we heard from Sebastian today? Did he buy NEW this morning at 5.25, did he sell 10 minutes ago at 5.70? We know he only has winning trades in this stock. What was his comment that went with that buy with a 17-handle?
Maybe Sebastian has decided to go buy AHM. It's getting pounded today, but not as hard as it deserves to. Apparently Gretchen's honorable mention of its nasty little HFS problem didn't send the hordes of sophisticated investors fleeing that dog. Someone's buying it today. Does anyone know what the short interest is on AHM?
Surely we can leave Seb to his miraculous trades, Brian, or do you want to speculate on how the DOW is in small positive territory (perhaps because of Seb's smart buying!) against significant losses in all the other markets? [Do remember that 1% own 40% of the stock market and ordinary people are not so fixated.]
Tanta, as a long time reader of Gretchen, I believe she's trying...which is a lot more than I can say about so many others. The "loss mitigation" like "disintermediation" is not a response designed to enlighten, but to obfuscate...like so much modern finance where the profits for a few are immediate and the dividends and investment gains for the serviced parties delayed...in some cases for eternity.
March 4th, 1933. The very day my mother was born. How soon we forget. I have a special reason for remembering as my mom would write me out of the will but what about everyone else? It was "The Day the Banks Closed." and yes it is "capitalized" if you can forgive the entendre.
IMHO, this is the story of a mature capitalist society. There is an end point of high returns productive investments. (at least until the technological revolution) when that happens, speculative investments take over and they become more and more detached from reality. More and more cash flows in the pockets of the elites who have to do something with it and assigned that responsibility to groups that make their living selling investments.
Consider stocks. The nation's richest 1% controlled 51% of the country's individually held stocks in 2004, the latest period measured. That was up from 41% in 1989. The stock holdings of the richest 1% totaled $1.9 trillion in 2004 -- about equal to the total stock wealth held by the other 99%. So when the Dow Jones Industrials tumble, as they did this week, the top 1% bears larger losses.
In 2002, the last time markets fell significantly, financial millionaires -- or those with at least $1 million in investable assets -- lost $200 billion of their total wealth of $7.6 trillion. That represented 2% of their wealth. Yet today, they're exposed to risks far less understood than stocks or bonds.
Since 2002, financial millionaires have more than doubled their exposure to hedge funds, private equity and other so-called alternative investments, according to Merrill Lynch and Cap Gemini. (Those investments now make up more than 20% of their portfolio.) They also have increased their exposure to stocks by 55%. Meantime, they've cut their holdings of cash and bonds, the two most stable investments. Their exposure to real-estate has stayed the same
Maria Chrin, chief executive of Circle Financial Group, a New York wealth-management firm, says the members of the group started reviewing their exposure to riskier investments in their portfolios, including hedge funds, last spring, though she declined to say if the review made them change their portfolio choices. But she adds, "Few investors are adequately evaluating the level of risk in their portfolios."
AHM has 12.4MM shares short which is more than a quarter of its float.
Calmo,
The Dow, and every other index on my screen is now down. The rally may have been due to some short covering or a thought that a fed ease is now more likely given the FMT and NEW news.
Calmo, I'm sure Gretchen is trying. I wouldn't have been so hard on her were it not for two things: I'm seeing that "crazy loss mit" meme spreading in our beloved blogosphere, and as usual I want us to stick as closely as we can to the facts. Having the same idea tossed around in the NYT--with, as far as I can tell, the same lack of underlying evidence--just makes it "respectable." A bunch of folk were quoting this article in CR comments, and so it looked to both CR and to me like something that needed to be addressed head-on. It was less my usual wanting to pick on the Big Media as my wanting to say, wait, let's not get ahead of the data. It's one thing to be suspicious. It's another thing entirely to argue from ignorance.
The other thing is that I meant it when I said that useful policy does not get made by proffering duelling sob stories. At some point we're going to have to pick through the rubble of defrauded investors and homeless vulnerable former borrowers and figure out how not to do it next time. I admit right up front that I care more about homeless families than I do some bunch of dweebs who didn't get burned enough by NASDAQ that they had to buy shares of NFI. So this is a context for my impatience with the Times piece. But even I know that turning this, as ron says, into a simple morality play isn't going to help any.
I do believe that it is going to end up just like Iraq, as far as the business press is concerned. Those who were right all along will continue to be ignored, because they're "meanies," and those who were full of shit from the get-go will get acres of ink to explain their latest argument for why we can't stop doing something stupid.
I've got a few IndyMac 3mo CD ladders at tolerable interest rates. I'm clearly one of their ordinary street stupid knuckle dragging retail depositors and I understand my returns are a slice of their lending returns but I, being stupid, thought IndyMac magically turned those MBSes into FDIC CDs. Then my reptilian hindbrain kicks in and reminds me that the PRINCIPLE is what is protected. Okay, I can suck it up and lose 1-2 months of interest accrual. What happens to the 2-5 year people? Are they left waiting years for return of principle?
I do believe that it is going to end up just like Iraq, as far as the business press is concerned. Those who were right all along will continue to be ignored, because they're "meanies," and those who were full of shit from the get-go will get acres of ink to explain their latest argument for why we can't stop doing something stupid.
Yep
But my friend, this time, they are leading their clients into the meltdown instead of a war with the common classes as the cannon fodder.
O Brian. A conspiratorial mind is supposed to wonder how the DOW can look so different from the other indices and invoke 'plunge protection team placing all their plungers on one toilet as there appears to be no end to the damage'. All those dips down, being permanent exits; all those slight increases being shorts and the larger ones PPT efforts.
The urge to get out the toilet plunger and give it a go just for the fun of it , is starting to make an impression on me.
AHM is a steal at the current pricing. They mostly deal in A credit loans and are not a sub-prime lender. They are in the top 10 mortgage lenders nationally.
For those who don't know, they just recently bought a bank and are opening shop in the Chicago area.
Labbo, just over 8% of those mostly-A loans that AHM is holding for sale are so far down (90+, I assume) that they're in nonaccrual. "Nonaccrual" means, in accounting-speak, that the lender has determined that the contractual payments are no longer collectable, and therefore the scheduled interest payments on those loans no longer accrue to income. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, AHM is borrowing money to hold those loans with. If the interest charge on the warehouse is greater than zero, there would be, like, a carry problem with those loans. Which are not in the HFS pipe because AHM intended to own them, you recall. I mean, when you see that kind of nonaccrual number in the investment portfolio, you go, damn, bad bet, hope they'll recover something on foreclosure. When you see that in the HFS pipe, you go, damn, who was supposed to be buying that? Why didn't they buy it? Who's going to buy it now? What will the final impairment be when we finally quit this "HFS" joke and have to bake some banana bread?
I wouldn't consider this a "steal" of anything except my money.
Tanta,
Excellent as usual. Thanks for pointing out the holes in Morgenson's fact-gathering and logic.
As for your question about who Morgenson works for -- she answers that in the video interview on her column's home page on the NYT site. She says her mission is to protect investors. I'm not sure which investors she's protecting with yesterday's column.
There was another story in yesterday's NYT about how the pain is spreading from the subprime meltdown. The story says mortgage execs are suffering, too. The story starts out by quoting a guy who used to drive his Ferrari Spider to work -- a guy who says he wasn't as ostentatious as those other mortgage execs who owned private jets. Oddly enough, the article doesn't say whether those folks have had to divest themselves of their Ferraris and private jets, so it's hard to know exactly how much those poor guys have suffered.
I don't know if anybody has noticed, but I've been like at DSL's Statement of Cash Flows in their 10-K. For 2006 they reported income of $200 mil, while negative amortization was $293 mil!
Tanta,
My only explaination is that the long term CD type investors have evolved beyond having a reptilian hindbrain to warn them. I am honored that you assume I am smart enough to understand the early redemention issue.
For the very few non-anthropologists among us the "flight or fight" reaction is hardwired into every higher animal. Early withdrawl penalities are likewise designed to trap those who stick their nose in too far from exiting before enough blood is extracted.
Extend the analogy to the borrowers out 30 years. There are two assumptions; one, they have skin in the game and second; they have skin at all. So many no-doc/min-doc loans have been made that even the second assumption is in question.
I think I saw the canary in the coal mine of AHR last august when the first mezz project in Chicago went nonperf and they had to step in and mkae payments. Say good bye to commercial over the next year, and by then the imploding capital markets will be something everyone takes for granted.
he who sells first has more money to buy back when the dust settles...
FIFO worlds are funny!!!
PS I decided not to scratch and dent- but I am going to whack the heloc folks down to 8 or I will do a personal loan from crapital one for the same and write it off anyway.
FED's now down 6% today, that's my biggest put position. The market seems to have decided Alt-A will go too.
August puts on DSL are still affordable, and if you are really worried about a financial meltodown, check out Profunds ultrashort financials (SKF). Just keep in mind, if it turns against you, it's ultra that way too.
[Putting on TinFoil hat], on the way to work this morning, I did see Bob Rubin and John Whitehead on Park Avenue talking on a cell phone saying "Hank, you've got to get Ben to take his foot off our throats" No doubt that Dow rally was Citi getting its Dow futures bet in place.
"just over 8% of those mostly-A loans that AHM is holding for sale are so far down (90+, I assume) that they're in nonaccrual."
Right, but nonetheless they are profitable even minus the 8% HFS nonaccruals. You would be hard-pressed to find another A credit mortgage company without some number around 10% of their totals in nonaccrual.
I believe in their management team and their ability to take advantage of struggling financial conditions in the mortgage industry. If history proves anything, it is that AHM takes advantage of situations like this in order to acquire more mortgage companies assets. Just like it did before with WaMu, Apex, and Columbia National, etc.
AHM is a solid company and will remain one for years to come regardless of the short term fallout of the mortgage industry. Only the strong survive.
"just over 8% of those mostly-A loans that AHM is holding for sale are so far down (90+, I assume) that they're in nonaccrual."
Right, but nonetheless they are profitable even minus the 8% HFS nonaccruals. You would be hard-pressed to find another A credit mortgage company without some number around 10% of their totals in nonaccrual.
I believe in their management team and their ability to take advantage of struggling financial conditions in the mortgage industry. If history proves anything, it is that AHM takes advantage of situations like this in order to acquire more mortgage companies assets. Just like it did before with WaMu, Apex, and Columbia National, etc.
AHM is a solid company and will remain one for years to come regardless of the short term fallout of the mortgage industry. Only the strong survive.
I am honored that you [Tanta] assume I am smart enough to understand the early redemention issue.
Now there are some who have no clue about the "reptilian hindbrain" (nowhere near where you think it is people --"hind" is a mislead), but more who think they, too, could be suffering from some sort of dementia, known only to the reptilians as ERI (early redemention issues).
One symptom is an intransigent belief that investors with their very own skin (not mere money, but skin, people) need to be protected from intermediaries (this means reptiles for sure) who are curiously declining this investment opportunity in order to serve their investor clients.
Well, shoot, might as well fess up to chronic ERI for me.
"The professors found almost 55,000 changes that had been made in the I/B/E/S database of stock-analyst recommendations maintained by Thomson, the Stamford, Conn., firm that is a leading vendor of financial data. The alterations made Wall Street's record of recommendations look more conservative -- hiding Strong Buy recommendations and adding Sell recommendations from 1993 to 2002. That is a period for which Wall Street has drawn heat and government sanctions for touting Internet bubble stocks.
As a result of the changes, the stock picks shown in the database would have created annual gains that were 15% to 42% better than the originally recorded recommendations, using a trading strategy based on analysts' recommendations."
"Why do the historical data now look different than they once did? The contents of the database changed at some point between September 2002 and May 2004, a period that not only coincided with close scrutiny of Wall Street research by regulators, Congress, and the courts, but also saw a substantial downsizing of research departments at most major brokerage firms in the U.S.
Who says our elites are not well educated, some folks read 1984 closely and know how to change history.
More tidbits
The net result of this was to make many specific trading strategies appear better in retrospect than they actually were. Buying top rated stocks and shorting lowest rated stocks, based on the changed data, now perform 15.9% to 42.4% better on the 2004 revised data than on the 2002 tape, the professors state.
"A former Thomson executive with knowledge of the I/B/E/S database told me he was skeptical that Thomson's validation procedures could prevent a concerted effort by Wall Street to retouch its track record. The Thomson data are maintained by overworked, inexperienced clerks, said the former executive."
My theory of the real reason for outsourcing and offshoring is that it eliminates anyone(experienced types) that might challenge management looting.
If you are wondering why LEND has been going down without a pause since around 11AM, this may have something to do with it:
"Independent mortgage companies had been thriving until last
year as Wall Street snapped up home loans to feed demand from
investors for higher-yielding securities. Many such lenders,
including Accredited Home, may struggle to remain solvent as
investors shun riskier mortgages, Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analysts
Chris Brendler and Michael Widner wrote in a report today.
Rick Howe, a spokesman for Accredited Home, said in a
voicemail message that the company ``will not be able to
comment.''
In the kabuki theater of capital market confidence, this is the point where the PR guy puts on a very straight face and says "we continue to have excellent relationships with all of our lenders". No comment is a very bad sign.
Since June of 05 when I sold my RE I have invested in short term CD's. When these run out this spring will probably stay in short term Gov't bonds. Many problems with having CD's over 6 months anywhere not the least is the FDIC cap on 100K while your principle is insured your interest is not plus early withdrawl etc. In fact last night I had a fear flash that I still had a indy/mac CD somewhere but finally found that I transfered it to another bank. I started thinking about the problems of getting the FDIC insurance to kick in etc, nothing like some fear to make an investor very careful.
Excellent post Tanta, thanks CR for letting her hijack your blog for a while.
Maybe this is why the investor is getting the sympathy from the NY Times. One of the largest shareholders' of NEW was/is the New York State Teachers Retirement Fund with 2,011,000 shares.
THere are preferred shares that pay 6% and it counts as qualified dividends. These shares essentially follow longterm bonds. Right now, that can be a good thing, plus interest taxed at 15% rate.
Labbo, I am not a forensic accountant. I'm not even just a bog standard accountant. Lama's spreadsheets mock me all the time.
Nonetheless, I have little voices in the back of my head telling me that AHM's numbers are not what God had in mind when he invented FASB. Take that for what it's worth. I hold myself to the same standards I hold Gretchen, so without further analysis on my part it's just a hunch.
In any case, there's more risk than credit risk. Always has been. If you think there is no fraud or misrepresentation in the prime world, think again. If you think prime lenders never misprice product in order to keep volume up, go re-read the stories on MLN. I don't judge a loan solely by FICO, nor do I judge a lender solely by the apparent credit quality of its loans.
Nice job, Tanta. I have been wondering myself where this latest wave of nonsense is coming from. Of course people are going to try to save loans - especially in this environment, it's both the fiscally sound and ethically correct thing to do. It's not some vast conspiracy.
AHM is a solid company and will remain one for years to come regardless of the short term fallout of the mortgage industry. Only the strong survive.
As I drive around the 'hood and see newly sprouted, chip-board condos which have just been completed and now have those brightly colored 'For Sale' signs in front of them, I mutter a "Good luck with that..." under my breath. I say the same to you Labbo.
Tanta,
I'm shocked that you're not placing an order on your GorillaTrade account for AHM (Ahem). They happen to have the same high-quality auditor as NEW.
Just for laughs, read their footnote for Bad Debt Reserves, then read NEW's.
We have a NEW Sebastian trying to pump up a stock. I for one, am a middle-aged miser invested in index funds, some Nestle (common shares, not hot cocoa) and a very ugly commercial building. It's funny to read them parroting the vocabulary of the personalities on CNBC.
"As I drive around the 'hood and see newly sprouted, chip-board condos..., I mutter a "Good luck with that..." under my breath. I say the same to you Labbo."
Really??? Sounds to me like you are either jealous or unaware of how a financially sound company operates.
Luck has nothing to do with it. Solid fundamentals and a good business mind is what it takes. A lot of AHM's bread and butter business comes from small builder accounts who are financially unable to or don't have the time to form and maintain their own mortgage companies.
There will always be that small homebuilder and that is one of the reasons that I see AHM's outlook as positive. Actually, from a slowdown perspective, that just helps boost the number of small builders as the big nationwide tract builders take a pounding.
This will not be without short-term loss, but it will pass. As I suggested before, I see a time for opportunity. Do you think AHM's execs are sitting there crying over their losses or do they do as a wise business does and look to acquire more of the market? I am sure that they are looking into buying the assets of some of the "housing bubble" fallout companies. They see it as potential to improve their top 10 standing--maybe even move into the top 5.
"As I drive around the 'hood and see newly sprouted, chip-board condos..., I mutter a "Good luck with that..." under my breath. I say the same to you Labbo."
Really??? Sounds to me like you are either jealous or unaware of how a financially sound company operates.
Luck has nothing to do with it. Solid fundamentals and a good business mind is what it takes. A lot of AHM's bread and butter business comes from small builder accounts who are financially unable to or don't have the time to form and maintain their own mortgage companies.
There will always be that small homebuilder and that is one of the reasons that I see AHM's outlook as positive. Actually, from a slowdown perspective, that just helps boost the number of small builders as the big nationwide tract builders take a pounding.
This will not be without short-term loss, but it will pass. As I suggested before, I see a time for opportunity. Do you think AHM's execs are sitting there crying over their losses or do they do as a wise business does and look to acquire more of the market? I am sure that they are looking into buying the assets of some of the "housing bubble" fallout companies. They see it as potential to improve their top 10 standing--maybe even move into the top 5.
Sightly off topic: Does anyone have a good handle on just how much the growth of the sub prime market from a negliganble size in the mid to late 1990's (reading off a chart looks like sub prime originations were about $30B or so in 96) to well over 20% of the market last year (> $600 B) has been the fuel for the increase in the homeownership rate from 65.4% in 96, to 68.0% at the end of 2001 to the current 68.9%. In particular I would note that the home ownership rate for houesholds headed by someone under 25 years old has really been the area that has increased, from 18.0% in 96 to 22.5% in 01 to the current 24.8% (U.S. Census Bureau: Page not found. It strikes me that most people under 25 are probably not prime credits unless daddy co-signs the loan. Will foreclosures drive the homeownership rate back down to the historic 65-66% level where it resided for about 30 years from the mid 60's to the mid 90's?
Investors, investors, investors, shareholders. Shareholders, shareholders, shareholders. We are supposed to adore their willingness to graciously invest in anything. The most sacred thing in the world is ROE.
I would have taken Gretchens article word for word. Now, with the benefit of your commentary, I think that Gretchen Morgenson is trying, just that shes not very spot on. She certainly could have done a better job representing that IG report. Thank you for sharing your insights.
It does seem to be getting harder to figure out who are the good guys and who are the bad. Seems like bad apples exist all along the chain, starting with the borrower with the paid up Mercedes. I guess Id define a bad apple as anyone that knows the system and abuses it to the obvious detriment of others. Im certain that many justify this behavior in a twisted fashion - as the American way. Also disheartening to see that some of the good guys (NYS teachers per ww) are likely not even aware of whats going on with NEW in their retirement fund.
One more comment. Im a newbie to this whole eco thing. But I do recognize there has to be some mortgage companies that come out of this fiasco better than before. Any credence to Labbos pick of AHM, or are other companies more likely to perservere.
Tanta: Those who were right all along will continue to be ignored, because they're "meanies," and those who were full of shit from the get-go will get acres of ink to explain their latest argument for why we can't stop doing something stupid.
It's all about the limelight, baby! huffhuffhuff
STUDIO LIGHTS FLASH ON
"Boo-Yah!"
Have you considered that who is listened to is just an indication of what the market will bear? It has almost been enough for me to hop on the fMRI machine, find the empathy center of my brain, and have it surgically removed.
The Abt report did not say that HUD could predict subbess with those veriables, only that HUD didn't collect them and that there was therefore no way to tell if they would work or not. There is at least one paper by Peter Zorn at Freddie Mac that shows that there is some predictive power in those factors (not necessarily a lot) based on Freddie Mac's loss mit experience.
Will foreclosures drive the homeownership rate back down to the historic 65-66% level where it resided for about 30 years from the mid 60's to the mid 90's?
Bravo Tanta! It was be nice to banks week at the Times. There was also a story in the Real Estate Section (same Sunday paper) about how the nice banks are really trying to help borrowers stay out of foreclosure.
Mortgages - The New York Times
So Gretchen is absent-mindedly working for the investors and not the general public? There is the possibility that she is a journalist, not a professional in the industry and is simply not fit to play against our Tanta.
Is the issue complex enough to excuse Gretchen in this fashion or are the sources that she used and vetted for this piece, mistakes (not merely "aspirationals" people) that many other writers could and do make? (Some of them with no such lofty pursuits as discovering the truth or crafting a solution to a problem, but merely marketing a desirable outcome.)
Hopefully Gretchen reads Tanta's critique and is redirected.
Excellent as usual. I wonder if we could raise the funds among us to turn all this into a morality play ?
Meanwhile, back at the grocery store, I can turn black bananas into banana bread thereby adding value. Sounds like that's what these guys are pretending they can do.
Perhaps there's a market for non-converted bananas to the evicted families ?
It seems that Mr. Market is thinking that CBASS might change it's mind on FICC. The deal on the table is $5.53 a share cash, the stock is at 3.93. That spread is big enough to drive a double-wide manufactured home through it. We'll find out how well the lawyers wrote that MAC clause in the definitive agreement.
Calmo,
Therein lies the problem with the MSM. They never acknowledge mistakes or omissions with prior pieces (or if they do bury them in a part of the paper where no one looks) and they don't leverage any of the distributed knowledge that is out there. If they did, they would have seen this mortgage mess coming a long time ago.
With fewer loans to 'work' on - how is checking a no-docs loan 'work' anyway? - maybe the supply of semi- knowledgeable mortgage brokers are simply finding something - loss-mit - to do with their time?
I'd like to see the Venn diagram on Amaranth investors and big "upper" tranche CMO buyers.
Heck why don't we all just put our portfolios on Stockpickr.com? Don't be shy...
Nancy Pelosi Stocks Portfolio - Stockpickr! Your Source for Stock Ideas
calmo, I can't figure out whom Gretchen is working for. I guess that's my problem here.
Look, some of us have been trying for quite some time to suggest to "investors" that both the loans and the RE they wanted to buy into were looking like train wrecks. We got told, basically, to crawl back into our bear caves.
Now that the perfectly predictable events have actually occurred, we're looking for something to explain the difference between the groovy results during the boom years (very low defaults) and the current results (defaults increasing at a very high rate). So we launch onto the explanation that it's loss mit that's causing that. OK, fine. It's just that we're saying that the "proof" of this is that we don't know what, actually, the servicers are doing.
We do, though, know what the lenders are doing on the origination side: they're peeling back guidelines, not doing so many take-out refis of DLQ loans. We also know that buyers in the RE market are no longer willing to pay top dollar for properties just because that's what the seller happens to owe. Plus, we know that a lot of those "performing" loans were ARMs and HELOCs and that the artificially low interest rates are going away. And that we never made sure those borrowers had any real income when we made the loan.
Those are looking like "facts" to me. So what is causing the accelleration in DLQ? Must be all the loss mit scams being unmasked. Sure. That makes sense.
Actually pets.com was much better ran than this mess:
wiki
Actually pets.com was much better ran than this mess:
wiki
I did not do a double entry.
The media prefers a Enron type story with clear good and bad guys. Lending standards, MBS, bond spreads, etc are not the daily diet that sell newspapers.
The other part of this story is that they are discussing Subprime which most folks consider the bad apples so this problem doesn't concern the average middle class white person. If and when the SFH RE market has significant price corrections that create some FEAR in J6P then we may see the general media become better focused. Until then we have the Tanta factor which may become mainstream sooner then we think.
Gretchens comment about SLOW MOTION are interesting.
Why has no brought up and discussed the "RUN ON BANK" worst case scenario which will happen to Fremont.
No financial institution can survive when the depositors flee. FMT can't make loans because of its C&D order. They can't sell the loans they have because there are no bids above par. They can't borrow from the FHLB.
Deposits are racing out the door. I would be surprised to see FMT make it to the end of the week once those internet hot deposits start flowing.
People don't need to walk in the bank to withdraw money. This is happening at the speed of broadband.
Have we heard from Sebastian today? Did he buy NEW this morning at 5.25, did he sell 10 minutes ago at 5.70? We know he only has winning trades in this stock. What was his comment that went with that buy with a 17-handle?
I think Sebstian is out shopping for condos to flip in Chula Vista..
Maybe Sebastian has decided to go buy AHM. It's getting pounded today, but not as hard as it deserves to. Apparently Gretchen's honorable mention of its nasty little HFS problem didn't send the hordes of sophisticated investors fleeing that dog. Someone's buying it today. Does anyone know what the short interest is on AHM?
any confirmation on the rumor on HBB that NEW just declared BK? Can't find any info on it yet.
Surely we can leave Seb to his miraculous trades, Brian, or do you want to speculate on how the DOW is in small positive territory (perhaps because of Seb's smart buying!) against significant losses in all the other markets? [Do remember that 1% own 40% of the stock market and ordinary people are not so fixated.]
Tanta, as a long time reader of Gretchen, I believe she's trying...which is a lot more than I can say about so many others. The "loss mitigation" like "disintermediation" is not a response designed to enlighten, but to obfuscate...like so much modern finance where the profits for a few are immediate and the dividends and investment gains for the serviced parties delayed...in some cases for eternity.
March 4th, 1933. The very day my mother was born. How soon we forget. I have a special reason for remembering as my mom would write me out of the will but what about everyone else? It was "The Day the Banks Closed." and yes it is "capitalized" if you can forgive the entendre.
IMHO, this is the story of a mature capitalist society. There is an end point of high returns productive investments. (at least until the technological revolution) when that happens, speculative investments take over and they become more and more detached from reality. More and more cash flows in the pockets of the elites who have to do something with it and assigned that responsibility to groups that make their living selling investments.
Take a look at wsj
Consider stocks. The nation's richest 1% controlled 51% of the country's individually held stocks in 2004, the latest period measured. That was up from 41% in 1989. The stock holdings of the richest 1% totaled $1.9 trillion in 2004 -- about equal to the total stock wealth held by the other 99%. So when the Dow Jones Industrials tumble, as they did this week, the top 1% bears larger losses.
In 2002, the last time markets fell significantly, financial millionaires -- or those with at least $1 million in investable assets -- lost $200 billion of their total wealth of $7.6 trillion. That represented 2% of their wealth. Yet today, they're exposed to risks far less understood than stocks or bonds.
Since 2002, financial millionaires have more than doubled their exposure to hedge funds, private equity and other so-called alternative investments, according to Merrill Lynch and Cap Gemini. (Those investments now make up more than 20% of their portfolio.) They also have increased their exposure to stocks by 55%. Meantime, they've cut their holdings of cash and bonds, the two most stable investments. Their exposure to real-estate has stayed the same
Maria Chrin, chief executive of Circle Financial Group, a New York wealth-management firm, says the members of the group started reviewing their exposure to riskier investments in their portfolios, including hedge funds, last spring, though she declined to say if the review made them change their portfolio choices. But she adds, "Few investors are adequately evaluating the level of risk in their portfolios."
Sorta of a high level don't ask, don't tell.
Tanta,
AHM has 12.4MM shares short which is more than a quarter of its float.
Calmo,
The Dow, and every other index on my screen is now down. The rally may have been due to some short covering or a thought that a fed ease is now more likely given the FMT and NEW news.
How could we forget your mom's birthday, Robert?
Such a hoot! We are warming up to you. We are.
Calmo, I'm sure Gretchen is trying. I wouldn't have been so hard on her were it not for two things: I'm seeing that "crazy loss mit" meme spreading in our beloved blogosphere, and as usual I want us to stick as closely as we can to the facts. Having the same idea tossed around in the NYT--with, as far as I can tell, the same lack of underlying evidence--just makes it "respectable." A bunch of folk were quoting this article in CR comments, and so it looked to both CR and to me like something that needed to be addressed head-on. It was less my usual wanting to pick on the Big Media as my wanting to say, wait, let's not get ahead of the data. It's one thing to be suspicious. It's another thing entirely to argue from ignorance.
The other thing is that I meant it when I said that useful policy does not get made by proffering duelling sob stories. At some point we're going to have to pick through the rubble of defrauded investors and homeless vulnerable former borrowers and figure out how not to do it next time. I admit right up front that I care more about homeless families than I do some bunch of dweebs who didn't get burned enough by NASDAQ that they had to buy shares of NFI. So this is a context for my impatience with the Times piece. But even I know that turning this, as ron says, into a simple morality play isn't going to help any.
I do believe that it is going to end up just like Iraq, as far as the business press is concerned. Those who were right all along will continue to be ignored, because they're "meanies," and those who were full of shit from the get-go will get acres of ink to explain their latest argument for why we can't stop doing something stupid.
Tanta has done a wonderful job of explaining the inner workings of these rat traps. thank you.
I've got a few IndyMac 3mo CD ladders at tolerable interest rates. I'm clearly one of their ordinary street stupid knuckle dragging retail depositors and I understand my returns are a slice of their lending returns but I, being stupid, thought IndyMac magically turned those MBSes into FDIC CDs. Then my reptilian hindbrain kicks in and reminds me that the PRINCIPLE is what is protected. Okay, I can suck it up and lose 1-2 months of interest accrual. What happens to the 2-5 year people? Are they left waiting years for return of principle?
Robert, did anyone explain to the 2-5 year people how return is related to length of investment, and what early withdrawal penalties are there for?
You knew I'd have to ask that.
I do believe that it is going to end up just like Iraq, as far as the business press is concerned. Those who were right all along will continue to be ignored, because they're "meanies," and those who were full of shit from the get-go will get acres of ink to explain their latest argument for why we can't stop doing something stupid.
Yep
But my friend, this time, they are leading their clients into the meltdown instead of a war with the common classes as the cannon fodder.
O Brian. A conspiratorial mind is supposed to wonder how the DOW can look so different from the other indices and invoke 'plunge protection team placing all their plungers on one toilet as there appears to be no end to the damage'. All those dips down, being permanent exits; all those slight increases being shorts and the larger ones PPT efforts.
The urge to get out the toilet plunger and give it a go just for the fun of it , is starting to make an impression on me.
AHM is a steal at the current pricing. They mostly deal in A credit loans and are not a sub-prime lender. They are in the top 10 mortgage lenders nationally.
For those who don't know, they just recently bought a bank and are opening shop in the Chicago area.
Do I hear B-A-R-G-A-I-N???
Labbo
Labbo, just over 8% of those mostly-A loans that AHM is holding for sale are so far down (90+, I assume) that they're in nonaccrual. "Nonaccrual" means, in accounting-speak, that the lender has determined that the contractual payments are no longer collectable, and therefore the scheduled interest payments on those loans no longer accrue to income. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, AHM is borrowing money to hold those loans with. If the interest charge on the warehouse is greater than zero, there would be, like, a carry problem with those loans. Which are not in the HFS pipe because AHM intended to own them, you recall. I mean, when you see that kind of nonaccrual number in the investment portfolio, you go, damn, bad bet, hope they'll recover something on foreclosure. When you see that in the HFS pipe, you go, damn, who was supposed to be buying that? Why didn't they buy it? Who's going to buy it now? What will the final impairment be when we finally quit this "HFS" joke and have to bake some banana bread?
I wouldn't consider this a "steal" of anything except my money.
Tanta,
Excellent as usual. Thanks for pointing out the holes in Morgenson's fact-gathering and logic.
As for your question about who Morgenson works for -- she answers that in the video interview on her column's home page on the NYT site. She says her mission is to protect investors. I'm not sure which investors she's protecting with yesterday's column.
There was another story in yesterday's NYT about how the pain is spreading from the subprime meltdown. The story says mortgage execs are suffering, too. The story starts out by quoting a guy who used to drive his Ferrari Spider to work -- a guy who says he wasn't as ostentatious as those other mortgage execs who owned private jets. Oddly enough, the article doesn't say whether those folks have had to divest themselves of their Ferraris and private jets, so it's hard to know exactly how much those poor guys have suffered.
I don't know if anybody has noticed, but I've been like at DSL's Statement of Cash Flows in their 10-K. For 2006 they reported income of $200 mil, while negative amortization was $293 mil!
Tanta,
My only explaination is that the long term CD type investors have evolved beyond having a reptilian hindbrain to warn them. I am honored that you assume I am smart enough to understand the early redemention issue.
For the very few non-anthropologists among us the "flight or fight" reaction is hardwired into every higher animal. Early withdrawl penalities are likewise designed to trap those who stick their nose in too far from exiting before enough blood is extracted.
Extend the analogy to the borrowers out 30 years. There are two assumptions; one, they have skin in the game and second; they have skin at all. So many no-doc/min-doc loans have been made that even the second assumption is in question.
The numbers for FED in 2006 are income of $129 mil and neg am of $153 mil.
I think I saw the canary in the coal mine of AHR last august when the first mezz project in Chicago went nonperf and they had to step in and mkae payments. Say good bye to commercial over the next year, and by then the imploding capital markets will be something everyone takes for granted.
he who sells first has more money to buy back when the dust settles...
FIFO worlds are funny!!!
PS I decided not to scratch and dent- but I am going to whack the heloc folks down to 8 or I will do a personal loan from crapital one for the same and write it off anyway.
FED's now down 6% today, that's my biggest put position. The market seems to have decided Alt-A will go too.
August puts on DSL are still affordable, and if you are really worried about a financial meltodown, check out Profunds ultrashort financials (SKF). Just keep in mind, if it turns against you, it's ultra that way too.
Calmo,
[Putting on TinFoil hat], on the way to work this morning, I did see Bob Rubin and John Whitehead on Park Avenue talking on a cell phone saying "Hank, you've got to get Ben to take his foot off our throats" No doubt that Dow rally was Citi getting its Dow futures bet in place.
How does that sound?
"just over 8% of those mostly-A loans that AHM is holding for sale are so far down (90+, I assume) that they're in nonaccrual."
Right, but nonetheless they are profitable even minus the 8% HFS nonaccruals. You would be hard-pressed to find another A credit mortgage company without some number around 10% of their totals in nonaccrual.
I believe in their management team and their ability to take advantage of struggling financial conditions in the mortgage industry. If history proves anything, it is that AHM takes advantage of situations like this in order to acquire more mortgage companies assets. Just like it did before with WaMu, Apex, and Columbia National, etc.
AHM is a solid company and will remain one for years to come regardless of the short term fallout of the mortgage industry. Only the strong survive.
Labbo
"just over 8% of those mostly-A loans that AHM is holding for sale are so far down (90+, I assume) that they're in nonaccrual."
Right, but nonetheless they are profitable even minus the 8% HFS nonaccruals. You would be hard-pressed to find another A credit mortgage company without some number around 10% of their totals in nonaccrual.
I believe in their management team and their ability to take advantage of struggling financial conditions in the mortgage industry. If history proves anything, it is that AHM takes advantage of situations like this in order to acquire more mortgage companies assets. Just like it did before with WaMu, Apex, and Columbia National, etc.
AHM is a solid company and will remain one for years to come regardless of the short term fallout of the mortgage industry. Only the strong survive.
Labbo
Still warming to Robert:
I am honored that you [Tanta] assume I am smart enough to understand the early redemention issue.
Now there are some who have no clue about the "reptilian hindbrain" (nowhere near where you think it is people --"hind" is a mislead), but more who think they, too, could be suffering from some sort of dementia, known only to the reptilians as ERI (early redemention issues).
One symptom is an intransigent belief that investors with their very own skin (not mere money, but skin, people) need to be protected from intermediaries (this means reptiles for sure) who are curiously declining this investment opportunity in order to serve their investor clients.
Well, shoot, might as well fess up to chronic ERI for me.
"The professors found almost 55,000 changes that had been made in the I/B/E/S database of stock-analyst recommendations maintained by Thomson, the Stamford, Conn., firm that is a leading vendor of financial data. The alterations made Wall Street's record of recommendations look more conservative -- hiding Strong Buy recommendations and adding Sell recommendations from 1993 to 2002. That is a period for which Wall Street has drawn heat and government sanctions for touting Internet bubble stocks.
As a result of the changes, the stock picks shown in the database would have created annual gains that were 15% to 42% better than the originally recorded recommendations, using a trading strategy based on analysts' recommendations."
"Why do the historical data now look different than they once did? The contents of the database changed at some point between September 2002 and May 2004, a period that not only coincided with close scrutiny of Wall Street research by regulators, Congress, and the courts, but also saw a substantial downsizing of research departments at most major brokerage firms in the U.S.
Barrons
<a href="http://bigpicture.typepad.com/>Big Picture
Who says our elites are not well educated, some folks read 1984 closely and know how to change history.
More tidbits
The net result of this was to make many specific trading strategies appear better in retrospect than they actually were. Buying top rated stocks and shorting lowest rated stocks, based on the changed data, now perform 15.9% to 42.4% better on the 2004 revised data than on the 2002 tape, the professors state.
"A former Thomson executive with knowledge of the I/B/E/S database told me he was skeptical that Thomson's validation procedures could prevent a concerted effort by Wall Street to retouch its track record. The Thomson data are maintained by overworked, inexperienced clerks, said the former executive."
My theory of the real reason for outsourcing and offshoring is that it eliminates anyone(experienced types) that might challenge management looting.
If you are wondering why LEND has been going down without a pause since around 11AM, this may have something to do with it:
"Independent mortgage companies had been thriving until last
year as Wall Street snapped up home loans to feed demand from
investors for higher-yielding securities. Many such lenders,
including Accredited Home, may struggle to remain solvent as
investors shun riskier mortgages, Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analysts
Chris Brendler and Michael Widner wrote in a report today.
Rick Howe, a spokesman for Accredited Home, said in a
voicemail message that the company ``will not be able to
comment.''
In the kabuki theater of capital market confidence, this is the point where the PR guy puts on a very straight face and says "we continue to have excellent relationships with all of our lenders". No comment is a very bad sign.
- Bloomberg.com
Robert:
Since June of 05 when I sold my RE I have invested in short term CD's. When these run out this spring will probably stay in short term Gov't bonds. Many problems with having CD's over 6 months anywhere not the least is the FDIC cap on 100K while your principle is insured your interest is not plus early withdrawl etc. In fact last night I had a fear flash that I still had a indy/mac CD somewhere but finally found that I transfered it to another bank. I started thinking about the problems of getting the FDIC insurance to kick in etc, nothing like some fear to make an investor very careful.
Excellent post Tanta, thanks CR for letting her hijack your blog for a while.
Maybe this is why the investor is getting the sympathy from the NY Times. One of the largest shareholders' of NEW was/is the New York State Teachers Retirement Fund with 2,011,000 shares.
Who is this Messier guy?
ron, Treasury bills looks competitive now. If you are in a state with income tax, it is hard for any CD to beat the state tax-free bills.
Check this calculator to see how the current state-tax-free yields compare with alternative investments (non state-tax free).
Zoho Sheet
THere are preferred shares that pay 6% and it counts as qualified dividends. These shares essentially follow longterm bonds. Right now, that can be a good thing, plus interest taxed at 15% rate.
Labbo, I am not a forensic accountant. I'm not even just a bog standard accountant. Lama's spreadsheets mock me all the time.
Nonetheless, I have little voices in the back of my head telling me that AHM's numbers are not what God had in mind when he invented FASB. Take that for what it's worth. I hold myself to the same standards I hold Gretchen, so without further analysis on my part it's just a hunch.
In any case, there's more risk than credit risk. Always has been. If you think there is no fraud or misrepresentation in the prime world, think again. If you think prime lenders never misprice product in order to keep volume up, go re-read the stories on MLN. I don't judge a loan solely by FICO, nor do I judge a lender solely by the apparent credit quality of its loans.
Gretchen and her editors are no doubt trying as hard as their paper's advertisers and board will let them.
Nice job, Tanta. I have been wondering myself where this latest wave of nonsense is coming from. Of course people are going to try to save loans - especially in this environment, it's both the fiscally sound and ethically correct thing to do. It's not some vast conspiracy.
AHM is a solid company and will remain one for years to come regardless of the short term fallout of the mortgage industry. Only the strong survive.
As I drive around the 'hood and see newly sprouted, chip-board condos which have just been completed and now have those brightly colored 'For Sale' signs in front of them, I mutter a "Good luck with that..." under my breath. I say the same to you Labbo.
tanta, please tell me, or get, a paypal account. i would like to express my thanks
same for cl
Curious who were the big Alt-A lenders?
Tanta,
I'm shocked that you're not placing an order on your GorillaTrade account for AHM (Ahem). They happen to have the same high-quality auditor as NEW.
Just for laughs, read their footnote for Bad Debt Reserves, then read NEW's.
We have a NEW Sebastian trying to pump up a stock. I for one, am a middle-aged miser invested in index funds, some Nestle (common shares, not hot cocoa) and a very ugly commercial building. It's funny to read them parroting the vocabulary of the personalities on CNBC.
"As I drive around the 'hood and see newly sprouted, chip-board condos..., I mutter a "Good luck with that..." under my breath. I say the same to you Labbo."
Really??? Sounds to me like you are either jealous or unaware of how a financially sound company operates.
Luck has nothing to do with it. Solid fundamentals and a good business mind is what it takes. A lot of AHM's bread and butter business comes from small builder accounts who are financially unable to or don't have the time to form and maintain their own mortgage companies.
There will always be that small homebuilder and that is one of the reasons that I see AHM's outlook as positive. Actually, from a slowdown perspective, that just helps boost the number of small builders as the big nationwide tract builders take a pounding.
This will not be without short-term loss, but it will pass. As I suggested before, I see a time for opportunity. Do you think AHM's execs are sitting there crying over their losses or do they do as a wise business does and look to acquire more of the market? I am sure that they are looking into buying the assets of some of the "housing bubble" fallout companies. They see it as potential to improve their top 10 standing--maybe even move into the top 5.
Labbo
"As I drive around the 'hood and see newly sprouted, chip-board condos..., I mutter a "Good luck with that..." under my breath. I say the same to you Labbo."
Really??? Sounds to me like you are either jealous or unaware of how a financially sound company operates.
Luck has nothing to do with it. Solid fundamentals and a good business mind is what it takes. A lot of AHM's bread and butter business comes from small builder accounts who are financially unable to or don't have the time to form and maintain their own mortgage companies.
There will always be that small homebuilder and that is one of the reasons that I see AHM's outlook as positive. Actually, from a slowdown perspective, that just helps boost the number of small builders as the big nationwide tract builders take a pounding.
This will not be without short-term loss, but it will pass. As I suggested before, I see a time for opportunity. Do you think AHM's execs are sitting there crying over their losses or do they do as a wise business does and look to acquire more of the market? I am sure that they are looking into buying the assets of some of the "housing bubble" fallout companies. They see it as potential to improve their top 10 standing--maybe even move into the top 5.
Labbo
Sightly off topic: Does anyone have a good handle on just how much the growth of the sub prime market from a negliganble size in the mid to late 1990's (reading off a chart looks like sub prime originations were about $30B or so in 96) to well over 20% of the market last year (> $600 B) has been the fuel for the increase in the homeownership rate from 65.4% in 96, to 68.0% at the end of 2001 to the current 68.9%. In particular I would note that the home ownership rate for houesholds headed by someone under 25 years old has really been the area that has increased, from 18.0% in 96 to 22.5% in 01 to the current 24.8% (U.S. Census Bureau: Page not found. It strikes me that most people under 25 are probably not prime credits unless daddy co-signs the loan. Will foreclosures drive the homeownership rate back down to the historic 65-66% level where it resided for about 30 years from the mid 60's to the mid 90's?
Labbo,
labbo
'Tis funny, but I'm sure it's just a coincidence. You have the same habit of signing with your handle that 'NEW Excellent Investment' Sebastian did!
Mark,
I have been doing that for a long time and it is a hard habit to break.
Funny??? Yes. Are we anything alike??? I've never put a dime into NCEN. Fundamentals are everything.
Labbo
Investors, investors, investors, shareholders. Shareholders, shareholders, shareholders. We are supposed to adore their willingness to graciously invest in anything. The most sacred thing in the world is ROE.
Tanta,
I would have taken Gretchens article word for word. Now, with the benefit of your commentary, I think that Gretchen Morgenson is trying, just that shes not very spot on. She certainly could have done a better job representing that IG report. Thank you for sharing your insights.
It does seem to be getting harder to figure out who are the good guys and who are the bad. Seems like bad apples exist all along the chain, starting with the borrower with the paid up Mercedes. I guess Id define a bad apple as anyone that knows the system and abuses it to the obvious detriment of others. Im certain that many justify this behavior in a twisted fashion - as the American way. Also disheartening to see that some of the good guys (NYS teachers per ww) are likely not even aware of whats going on with NEW in their retirement fund.
One more comment. Im a newbie to this whole eco thing. But I do recognize there has to be some mortgage companies that come out of this fiasco better than before. Any credence to Labbos pick of AHM, or are other companies more likely to perservere.
Again, very enjoyable reading. Thank you. Bob
Tanta:
Those who were right all along will continue to be ignored, because they're "meanies," and those who were full of shit from the get-go will get acres of ink to explain their latest argument for why we can't stop doing something stupid.
It's all about the limelight, baby!
huff huff huff
STUDIO LIGHTS FLASH ON
"Boo-Yah!"
Have you considered that who is listened to is just an indication of what the market will bear? It has almost been enough for me to hop on the fMRI machine, find the empathy center of my brain, and have it surgically removed.
Oops, they did it again!
Tanta
The Abt report did not say that HUD could predict subbess with those veriables, only that HUD didn't collect them and that there was therefore no way to tell if they would work or not. There is at least one paper by Peter Zorn at Freddie Mac that shows that there is some predictive power in those factors (not necessarily a lot) based on Freddie Mac's loss mit experience.
Will foreclosures drive the homeownership rate back down to the historic 65-66% level where it resided for about 30 years from the mid 60's to the mid 90's?
That would be a YES!!!
Who is this Messier guy?
Guy Messier? I thought he played left wing for the Canadiens?
Morgenson is a hack.
W.C. Varones Blog: Better late than never
Damn, hindsight is golden! Wonder what 'labbo' above thought of his AHM stock on 08.10.07?
American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. - Google Finance
Tanta, your voice is sorely missed. Thank you for what you gave us.