Macro Trading the Housing Market - Over the last two years we have all seen the devestation in the housing market.  In fact some people reading this have likley been foreclosed on and driven from what is now the banks home. So what can you do now to profit from the housing crisis? Well lucky for you the crisis is far from [...]

What Happens To Your Mortgage - Since the fall of Bear Stearns in March of 2008 we have heard a lot of people ask how these businesses can lose so much money from some home loans so we felt it would be useful to go over what happens to your loan after you get it.  We also cover a bit of [...]

Need A $35000 Small Business Loan? - The new economic stimulus package has in place a very nice deal for small business owners that will guarantee $35000 worth of funds to pay off existing debts. The loan guarantees are provided by the Small Business Administration and will be provided to small business owners that are struggling to make profits. Business owners that take [...]

Deutsche Bank Analyst Michael Mayo Feels Banks Will Lose Up To $10 Billion In Fourth Quarter - The sad effects of the housing market continue to impact many companies. In a recent study the current housing market looks as though it will drop immensely in the fourth quarter also for banking companies across the globe with housing assets. It looks as though Deutsche Bank analyst Michael Mayo believes that large [...]

Shai Agassi Raises $200 Million for Ambitious Electric Car Project - Shai Agassi, known for being a pioneer and a visionary in the world of software, is making an adventurous move into an old, stubborn world: the world of auto manufacturing. No, he’s not trying to create the next Saturn or (heaven forbid) Daewoo. He’s putting his visionary nature into both capitalism and environmentalism. He’s trying [...]

Merrill Lynch CEO Biggest Casualty To Date - The biggest fly to be swatted so far by the struggling real estate market is the CEO of Merrill Lynch who finally stepped down on October 30th to clear way to a new path for Merrill Lynch. Stanley O’Neal had little choice after Merrill Lynch lost nearly $8 billion dollars during the third quarter [...]

A Quick View at What Has Led to the Morgage Crisis - Between basically 2002 and 2005 lenders started using creative mortgages in ways they’d never been used before. New mortgages were invented and sent to the market that allowed people to borrow for large homes they would normally not be able to afford. The problem with these loans was they acted like promotional credit cards – they [...]

Fed Expected to Cut Rates – Stocks Surge - The economy is slowing, and energy prices seem to be poised to go through the roof, but stocks are improving on hopes that an interest rate cut by the Fed will spark economic activity. Even as oil prices have gone over $93, the DOW average improved nearly fifty points. This can mostly be attributed to widely [...]

2 Million Homes Empty In Real Estate Market - The housing market continues to struggle with recent findings from the Census Bureau. They found out that in the previous quarter that there are over 2 million homes that don’t have residents living in them. This continues to saturate the housing market with numbers that have reached the equivalent of the amount of [...]

Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O’Neal Feeling Pressure to Quit - Stan O’Neal, who has been the CEO Merrill Lynch since 2002, is under serious scrutiny since his firm announced a multi-billion dollar quarterly loss recently. The loss came in large part due to O’Neal’s investment in mortgage backed securities that have been decimated by the recent credit crisis. Public opinion of the Merrill CEO is so [...]

Banks Will Ignore Homeowners in Mortgage Crisis - If you’re a homeowner with an adjustable rate mortgage that’s close to resetting to a higher and variable rate, I hope you’re ready to make the payment. If you can’t afford the new payment, you may not have anywhere to go for help. Specifically, don’t expect your lender to cut you any slack. Does that mean [...]

Consumers Will See $3 Gas Again Thanks to $100 Oil - The world oil markets are seeing prices on crude oil top $90 per barrel – that’s a record. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Most analysts and experts agree that prices will cruise past $100 by the end of the year. Of course, it follows that if the price of crude is flying [...]

Equity Firms Look at Mortgage Lenders as Value Buys - A day or so ago we posted about the fact that Mr Warren Buffett, widely held as the greatest investor of all time, was getting into the manufactured home business right when everyone else is bailing out on the real estate market. It’s called contrarian investing, and Mr Buffett isn’t the only one doing it. CNNMoney.com [...]

Countrywide See Its Stock Rise as It Returns to Profitability - A lot has been made lately about Countrywide Home Loans being on the brink of bankruptcy and heading toward liquidation of its assets. Bloomberg.com is reporting that things may be turning around for the mortgage giant. While it’s true that Countrywide posted a loss of $1.2 Billion in the third quarter of ‘07, company reps are [...]

Credit Crisis Affects Entire World - Economists in England are warning that the credit crunch we’re experiencing in the United States is making financial markets around the world vulnerable. You’ve heard the expression “when America sneezes the world catches a cold”? Well the folks at the Bank of England agree with you. Experts are saying they don’t feel international financial [...]

Capital Investment Stems Concerns About Recession - As everyone has watched the US housing market tank, concerns over a housing slump fueled recession have grown. There are a lot of chicken littles out there crying recession because of the cascading effect of the poor real estate market on the rest of the economy. Bloomberg.com reports that there’s not as much to be worried [...]

30 Year Mortgage Rates are Creeping Down -Will it Matter? - Freddie Mac, the government sponsored mortgage purchaser is reporting the interest rates on 30-year mortgages fell slightly in the last week – from 6.4% to 6.33%. This represents not only a drop between this week and last week, but between this year and last year at them same time. The question is does it matter? [...]

Retail Stores Like Wal-Mart Prepare For Holiday Slump Because Of Real Estate Market - Companies like Wal-Mart are offering new gimmicks and even individual Christmas shops in order to help their sales during this holiday season. Many of the retail companies are concerned that you as a consumer are not going to buy more during the holiday season because of how terrible the real estate market has been [...]

Bank Of America To Change Business Operation Structure - Bank of America is going to be shaking things up here pretty soon and that includes restructuring its investment banking unit, starting with the president of said unit. Spokesmen for Bank of America announced that Gene Taylor will step down and retire as their president of the bank’s Global Corporate and Investment Banking unit. His [...]

Abusive Lending Bill Being Debated In House - There is a current bill that is being debated Wednesday at the House Financial Services Committee to decide whether or not they should bar mortgage brokers so they don’t get bonuses to sign up borrowers for loans that are higher in price. This bill could also make lenders prove whether consumers are able to repay [...]

The Mortgage Crunch Takes a Bite out of Stocks’ Performance - Major financial firms across the US are reporting losses due to bets they made on the mortage industry over the last few years. Their stock-holders are suffering the most. Several factors play into the losses. First of all, record default and foreclosure rates are killing mortgage companies and the firms that have invested in [...]

Warren Buffett Gets Into the Lending Business? - Warren Buffett, known in the investing world as the Oracle of Omaha, is making a move into the world of lending. Of course it’s not his first. Plenty of times while he’s been building a personal net worth of over $40 Billion he’s used the banks’ money to further his investments. But this time is [...]

Countrywide Assists Its At-Risk Customers - Countrywide, a major mortgage lender in the United States, has been under fire lately both on the financial front and from critics in the financial world. The lender experienced huge growth during the mortgage boom by extending large mortgages to credit-suspect borrowers. The loans it issued were very often of the ‘creative’ variety that involved [...]