Major Banks Mask Their Risk Levels

Major banks masked their risk levels in the past five quarters by temporarily lowering their debt just before reporting it to the public, according to data from the New York Fed

Bank Earnings Will Disappoint in Q1: Dick Bove

“This is going to be one of the more interesting quarters, because over the last 12 to 13 months, bank stocks have roughly tripled because of an expectation that loan-loss provisions are going to come down and earnings are going to be quite good,” Bove told CNBC.
“And while that may be true, it’s not going [...]

Short-Selling Homes: A Good Housing Fix?

Starting today, underwater homeowners will be permitted under a government program to sell their homes for less than they owe and basically force the lender to take the loss rather than foreclose on the home. Shari Olefson, of Fowler White Boggs, and Susan Wachter, a real estate professor at Wharton, discuss.

Housing Prices May Be Heading for a Double Dip

“Case Schiller aside, we expect housing prices to fall another five percent in the coming months,” says Paul Dales, US economist at Toronto based Capital Economics. “We’ve actually seen some declines in areas of the country. That’s going to put a halt on any housing recovery.” “There’s going to be less demand for housing when [...]

Half of Commercial Mortgages to Be Underwater: Warren

“They are [mostly] concentrated in the mid-sized banks,” Warren told CNBC. “We now have 2,988 banks—mostly midsized, that have these dangerous concentrations in commercial real estate lending.”
“I’m one of those people who never liked public-private partnership to begin with. I think what they did was use public when public was useful and private when private [...]

Oppenheimer And Bernstein Cut Financial Estimates

Oppenheimer report:

Bernstein report:

Why the Bond Auction Fizzled: Fears of a ‘Fiscal Train Wreck’

A higher than expected yield on a five-year auction is sending treasuries lower today, with CNBC’s Steve Liesman and David Zervos, Jefferies Head of Fixed Income Strategy.

Bank Of America’s Mortgage Write Down—Just the Start?

It seems somehow poetic to me that on the very day the TARP watchdogs (sorry, Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program) releases a report that just rips the Treasury’s $75 billion Home Affordable Modification Program, Bank of America announces it will begin writing down principal on thousands of loans.