RSS Updates
Email Updates
Beazer Homes USA Inc. (NYSE: BZH) was weak earlier because of its proposed secondary offering that will add to dilution of shareholders. This morning the company’s secondary offering of 19,500,000 shares of its common stock at $4.60 per share. It also priced its $50 million in mandatory convertible subordinated notes. Beazer shares closed at $4.77 yesterday and had been up at $5.40 before the company disclosed the offering. But then came Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) showing a surprise positive earnings report this morning, and that has changed everything. This is having a broad implication in the SPDR S&P Homebuilders (NYSE: XHB) ETF, but hardly impacting the thinner-volume iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction (NYSE: ITB) ETF.
Read More
Posts related to ‘Housing’
Lennar Saves Beazer, But Sets High Mark Tone (BZH, LEN, XHB, ITB, KBH)
Vacancy Rates Rise To 8% As Homeowners Move To Leasing
It is a paradox and one that is bad for both the residential and housing real estate markets. Reis, an industry analyst group, says that the vacancy rate in the apartment sector rose 8%, the most in fifty years. Looking at the data, The Wall Street Journal reports that rents dropped 3% for the same period.
The declining cost of renting a residence is occurring at the same time that people are leaving their homes due to foreclosures or abandoning them because they are underwater due to falling prices. Read More
Commercial Real Estate Begins To Mirror Residential Market
The residential real estate crisis is over. Home prices are stable. The number of people who are in the market for a home is up. Tax credits and home prices, which are still historically low, are the cause for a rise in home shopping all over the country. All of that is true until it is not. The most recent data on mortgage defaults and pending home sales indicates that the housing market may be in for another sharp fall.
Signs Of The Apocalypse: Rich Lose Homes, Pending Homes Sales Off
Pending home sales fell in November as the National Association of Realtors index for that part of the market fell to 96 in November from 114.3 in October. The sharp drop brought with it the fear that the housing recovery is only a mirage and that unemployment and an increase in mortgage costs will push the home market back into hell.
Housing may never have left hell. Foreclosures are still rising and the $75 billion that the federal government means to put into mortgage modifications has done little to moderate mortgage default rates. Read More
The Fed Lays Blame On Everyone Else
The Federal Reserve was not to blame for any of the financial events that caused the collapse of the credit markets late in 2008. It is the same credit collapse that caused Congress to create the TARP so that the Treasury could bail out the faltering American banking system.
Ben Bernanke, the Fed chief, said at a meeting of the American Economic Association that “Stronger regulation and supervision aimed at problems with underwriting practices and lenders’ risk management would have been a more effective and surgical approach to constraining the housing bubble than a general increase in interest rates.” Read More
Top 2010 Stock Picks from… Everyone (AAPL, GE, CMCSA, MRVL, BIDU, DRYS, POT, LVLT, C, CVX, HPQ, KBH)
2009 is over, for better or worse. Now it is time to look ahead. We wanted to look for the best top stock picks for 2010 from our partners and from key financial websites. We compiled all of these 2010 stock picks into grouped lists with links directly to each, but there was one standout issue here: Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) were hardly picked for 2010. Some of the more common and widely held names that came up as common 2010 stock picks were Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL), Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU), DryShips, Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS), Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT), Level 3 Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: LVLT), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX), Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ), and KB Home (NYSE: KBH). There are literally dozens of other stock picks in 2010’s top stock picks.
We have links to the top 2010 stock picks from InvestorPlace.com, TheStreet.com, DailyFinance.com, BloggingStocks.com, MarketWatch, Fortune, Smart Money, MorningStar, and even from our own picks for 2010 and some potential 10-bagger Biotech stocks at BioHealthInvestor.com. In this we have only provided the stock names, and price targets, expectations, and every other detail is in the link at each grouping.
Read More
Credit Card Charge-Offs Rise As Firms Collect Record Interest Payments
Moody’s reports that credit card charge-offs by financial firms hit 10.56% in November. This represents sums that lenders feel they will not be able to collect .The credit rating agency expects that figure to grow to perhaps as much as 13% by the middle of 2010. That would make sense given the direction of unemployment and the falling wages of many people who do have work. Moody’s also noted that yields earned on credit cards rose to 21.09%, which may not constitute usury on a legal basis but would by any common application of the term.
Case-Shiller ETFs Bite The Dust (UMM, DMM)
The death of an ETF is generally viewed as a failure or as an ill omen for other related ETF’s. Today that is not the case despite the death of two exchange traded products. Today was supposed to be the final trading day of the MacroShares Major Metro Housing Up Trust (NYSE: UMM) and MacroShares Major Metro Housing Down Trust (NYSE: DMM). These are, ergo were, the two ETF products geared toward tracking home prices in the United States.
The underlying value of the trusts will be determined based on the November 24, 2009 release of the Reference Value of the S&P/Case-Shiller Composite-10 Home Price Index, plus or minus any interest and expenses accrued in the trust for the period. MacroShares Housing Depositor has confirmed via press release that today was the final day of trading for these exchange traded products.
On January 6th, a final distribution payment will be made to the UMM and DMM shareholders of record as of December 31st based on the underlying value of the Up and Down MacroShares Trusts.
Most will agree that these ETF products were not at all useful and not at all successful. The “Housing UP” or UMM ETF traded very low volume and even managed to go three consecutive days this month with no shares traded at all. There were only three days in the last 90 days where this traded over 10,000 shares in one day and the initial momentum of the ETF launch in late June was never sustained. The “Housing Down” of the “DMM” also only had three days in the last 90 with volume over 10,000 shares in a day. This volume here also never really took off or kept its early momentum.
Whether you agree with them or not is another issue, but RealMoney noted these as “two dangerous ETFs closed” and MarketWatch wrote “Shed no tears for departed funds.”
Not all ETF and ETN products are good. There are hundreds and hundreds of ETF and ETN products which are listed on NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ now. Some big traditional investors love the instruments and some hate them. You can expect more and more of the lackluster products not making the cut in trading volume and/or in tracking the actual index to see their demise in 2010.
JON C. OGG
Job Cuts Outstrip Berkshire Hathaway Shares (BRK-A, BNI)
There was an interesting filing out during the Christmas holiday showing that Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) weren’t in the holiday spirit for much of 2008. There were 21,000 fewer employees at Berkshire Hathaway entities in 2009 compared to 2008’s 246,000 employees.
Bloomberg called this “a slump at its manufacturing and retail units.” The new tally of about 225,000 workers according to documents pertaining to the planned acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: NBI).
Read More
A Very Sharp Rise In Mortgage Rates May Damage Housing Recovery
It is not clear whether there is a housing recovery underway in the US. Home sales have, in some cases, picked up. Most of the activity has been due to low mortgage ratesm which have been below 5%, and new homeowner credits created by the government of as much as $8,000.
There is evidence that foreclosures and defaults, which are still rising, could drive home prices down further than they dropped in 2009. “Interest rate” only loans will begin to default in 2010. There are $71 billion of these that will reset in the next year that will push up the monthly payments on the mortgages.
The most biggest enemy to the housing market may be a sharp increase in the interest rates on 30-year mortgages. Read More
“Unlimited” Support For Fannie Mae (FNM) And Freddie Mac (FRE)
The Treasury Department announced that it would give Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM)and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) “unlimited” financial support for the next three years, which seems like an awful lot. Some members of Congress said the Administration made the announcement as people were busy with holidays and travel. It is unlikely that the decision will go unnoticed simply because of its timing. Read More
The Government’s Loan Modification Program Does Not Have To Fail
The government’s “Home Affordable Modification Program” needed $75 billion of taxpayer money to alter home loans so that these loans could be more affordable for creditworthy homeowners who could not make their earlier mortgage payments. The program has been a failure for several reasons. Read More
An Unreasonable Case That Housing Is Undervalued
IHS Global Insight has released a report that say that housing price in the US rose by .2% in the third quarter compared to the second. The research firm looks at 300 metropolitan markets. Prices rose in 169 of these markets.
The odd part of the study was that IHS says that housing in now undervalued, at least based on its Byzantine methodology. The firm writes “For the nation as a whole, the housing market is now slightly undervalued – 8.6 percent when weighted by market value; 10.1 percent when weighted by housing units.” Read More
Foreclosure Backlog Hits 1.7 Million Homes
There are 1.7 million homes on the market which have gone through the foreclosure process. The number is at the highest level in history. The number, up from 1.1 million a year earlier, is likely to keep rising through the middle of next year or later, said Mark Fleming, chief economist of First American CoreLogic, the real estate research firm that released the study Read More
Fannie & Freddie Christmas Gift: No Foreclosures (FNM, FRE)
It seems that Uncle Sam does not want to be the Grinch this Christmas and is giving a gift of no foreclosures during the holidays. At least its GSE mortgage lenders in government conservatorship, Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), both announced today that they are not going to evict homeowners during the Christmas holiday season. Both companies have ordered its eviction attorneys to suspend all evictions involving foreclosed occupied single family properties with Fannie-owned or Freddie-owned mortgages during December 19, 2009 to January 3, 2010.
Read More
Moody’s Calls Bottom in Homebuilders, Sort Of (XHB, ITB, HOV)
Moody’s Investors Service has raised the bias and outlook on the U.S. homebuilder sector this morning. Its report was titled “U.S. Homebuilding Industry Shows Signs of Stability” and the ratings agency raised the sector’s outlook to Stable from Negative. In short, Moody’s believes or suggests that a bottom has been reached. There are some concerns still present here that might be worth a consideration before just hoping that the key stocks in the sector or that the key ETFs tracking housing will be great buys in 2010.
The SPDR S&P Homebuilders (NYSE: XHB) is down only about 0.25% at $14.83 on the day versus a 52-week trading range of $8.00 to $16.75. The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction (NYSE: ITB) is down about 0.8% at $11.63 verss a 52-week trading range of $6.33 to $13.93. Both ETFs have recovered from their lows. Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. (NYSE: HOV) had a huge day yesterday on the heels of the housing starts data, but the after-hours and pre-market reaction to its earnings, ergo losses, was a selling of the stock. The homebuilder posted a wider-than-expected loss and it noted a 24% cancellation rate during the quarter. The stock was down over 10% after earnings in the after-hours session, but came up substantially off of its lows to being down 6% and we had shares trading at the similar level this morning in pre-market. At 10:35 AM we have shares down only about 4% at $4.06 (versus 52-week trading range of $0.52 to $5.75), and part of this recovery may be due to the Moody’s report.
Moody’s synopsis is that the stable outlook expresses a view that fundamental credit conditions in the industry will neither erode nor improve materially over the next 12 to 18 months.
Read More
Housing Recovery Can Wait Until 2011
The Wall Street Journal pointed out that many people are defaulting on their home mortgages not because they have to but because it makes sense. Some homeowners can afford the monthly payment, but they know that their houses will never give them a financial return.
Most research shows that the rate at which foreclosures is rising is slowing, but that trend is almost certainly temporary. A large number of people who took “interest only” loans three years ago are about to have monthly payments reset. The government’s mortgage modification plan has signed up very few permanent clients, and unemployment is likely to be above 10% during 2010. Read More
The Interest In Buying Foreclosures Craters
People do not have an interest in buying homes in foreclosure at anywhere near the level that they did earlier this year. Trulia.com and RealtyTrac released the latest results of an ongoing survey tracking homebuyers’ attitudes towards foreclosures. The new online poll conducted between November 5th and 9th by Harris Interactive showed a notable decrease in consumers’ willingness to buy foreclosed properties, “with 43 percent of U.S. adults age 18 and above indicating that they are at least somewhat likely to consider purchasing a foreclosed home in the future, compared to the 55 percent of U.S. adults age 18 and above surveyed online by between May 1-5, 2009.” Read More
A Good Sign For Housing: Foreclosure Activity Down 8% In November
It may be another sign of a bottoming in the housing market, both in terms of foreclosures and prices. RealtyTrac reports that foreclosure filings fell 8% in November compared to the previous month, down to 306,627. One in every 417 homes in the US received a foreclosure filing during the month. The figure was up 18% from November 2008. Read More
Home Values Get More Stable
Zillow, the real estate home price research company, says that the value of residential real estate ended its sickening drop in 2009. The firm’s chief economist writes, “Total home values in the United States fell $489 billion in the first 11 months of 2009. A large drop, to be sure, but it marks a significant improvement from 2008, when homes lost a total of $3.6 trillion in values.” Zillow says that residential real estate values actually rose in 48 of the 154 markets that it tracks.
-
Today’s top tickerspy Indexes Tobacco and Tobac... +2.6% Optical Networkin... +2.6% Hospital Stocks +2.0% Chinese Online Ga... +1.7% Vehicle Rental St... +1.6% 
-
-
-
- Write-Offs: 03.18.10
- Let It Be Known, Larry Summers Does NOT Appreciate Being Referred To As A ‘Little Punk’
- Ever Wondered How They Deal With The Naughty Finance Execs In North Korea?
- Alan Greenspan Admits Some Balls Were Dropped During His Tenure At The Fed
- At Least Europe Knows How To Deal With Dangerous Hedge Fund Managers
- Let’s Have A Serious Discussion (About Tiger’s Texts)
-
- paidContent - Palm's Struggles Will Handicap Its Ability To Ward Off Upcoming Competition
- paidContent - Yahoo's Schneider To Oversee Sales Temporarily
- paidContent - Video: Michael Kinsley @ The 'Separate But Equal' Digital Ellies
- paidContent - iVillage Plans Larger Health And Wellness Rollout
- paidContent - T-Mobile USA Confirms Partnership Talks WIth Clearwire
- paidContent - paidContent Quick Hits 03.18.2010
-
