by Calculated Risk on 10/12/2005 12:29:00 PM

UPDATE: Dr. Thoma excerpts speeches from Greenspan and Kohn too.

Reuters reports:

Bies warns on risky lending practices Federal Reserve Board Governor Susan Bies issued a warning on Wednesday on risky real-estate lending practices, saying banks could be hurt by higher interest rates or a decline in home prices.

"Banking supervisors have become concerned recently about apparent increased risk-taking in both commercial and real estate lending," Bies said in remarks prepared for delivery to the National Bankers Association annual convention in Beverly Hills, California.
...
"There is some concern that banks' home equity loan portfolios may be vulnerable to a rise in interest rates and, in some markets, a decline in home values," she said.
...
She said regulators were conducting a survey of banks' so-called affordability lending practices and said they might offer regulatory guidance on the subject in the near future.

Bies noted U.S. housing prices had jumped 13.4 percent in the second quarter from a year ago -- the biggest gain in more than a quarter century -- and said speculative buying appeared to be a factor behind the increase.

Here is the text of Governor Susan Bies speech: Regulatory Issues.

by Calculated Risk on 10/12/2005 11:36:00 AM

Bloomberg reports: U.S. MBA's Mortgage Applications Index Fell 2.6% Last Week

U.S. mortgage applications fell last week to the lowest level since April as higher interest rates slowed both refinancing and home purchases, according to a private group's survey released today.

The Mortgage Bankers Association's gauge of applications declined 2.6 percent to 694.8 in the week ended Oct. 7 from 713.5 the previous week. The last time the index was as low was April 15, when it was 672.6.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage increased to 5.98 percent, the highest since the end of March and the fifth straight rise, according to the bankers group. Higher borrowing costs have caused purchase applications to decline in each of the last four weeks, suggesting home sales are starting to cool.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) the refinance share of activity declined as did the share of ARMs:

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 43.5 percent of total applications from 44.5 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 29.5 percent of total applications from 29.8 percent the previous week.
...
The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 5.26 percent from 5.13 percent one week earlier.

The spread between the 30 year interest rate and the 1 year ARM is now 0.72 basis points; the lowest spread since March 9, 2001.

The Riddles

With rising interest rates, why is the refinance activity so high?

With the narrow spread between fixed rate loans and ARMs (and rising rates) why is anyone using an ARM?

From Bloomberg: Bob Walters, chief economist at Quicken Loans Inc. said they are seeing more people refinance out of their adjustable rate mortgages to fixed-rate mortgages in anticipation of higher borrowing costs. That is a similar explanation as in the LA Times article, "Thinking long-term" that described similar motives of homeowners refinancing their variable rate loans to lock in the security of a fixed rate loan.

This can at least partially explain why refinance activity remains so strong, but I expect that activity to diminish rapidly. With both adjustable and fixed rates rising (and widely advertised to keep rising), those homeowners motivated by locking in a fixed rated will probably refinance soon.

But that doesn't explain the high level of ARM activity. Why is anyone using an ARM today?

Here are two possible explanations: 1) new homebuyers are continuing to stretch to buy a home and 2) existing ARM users are refinancing with ARMs to get a new low teaser rate.

If new homebuyers are using ARMs that is most likely a sign of speculation. With the current spread and direction of rates, I would expect new buyers to use fixed rate loans if they could afford the payments.

The second explanation was described in this LA Times article: Risky 'Exotic' Loans Fostering a Refi Cycle. Apparently many borrowers are desperately replacing existing ARMs and IOs with new ARMs and IOs to forestall higher payments. They are hoping the price appreciation in their homes will bail them out. This is a short term strategy and the day of reckoning is probably soon.

If the riddles are solved, the solutions are not healthy for the housing market. I expect the refinance activity to diminish rapidly and speculation (ARM users) to almost disappear as short term rates rise and the housing market slows.

by Calculated Risk on 10/11/2005 10:30:00 PM

The US Trade Balance for August will be released on Thursday. The concensus is for a deficit of $59.3 Billion or slightly less than the $60.4 Billion record deficit in February. The July trade deficit was $57.9 Billion.

My estimate for the SA petroleum trade deficit is $21.2 Billion or $2.6 Billion worse than the record petroleum deficit in July.

Imports from China will most likely set a record again based on traffic at the west coast ports. My estimate for imports from China (NSA) are just over $22 Billion. Exports to China will probably be under $3.5 Billion. SA this is about the same as July.

My guess for the August deficit: $60.5 Billion. A new record.

by Calculated Risk on 10/11/2005 11:35:00 AM

As a follow up to the previous post, DiMartino writes: Soft landing isn't in cards for U.S.

A report by Morgan Stanley chief economist Stephen Roach highlighted the differences between the rest of the world and us.
...
We're a lot more reliant on the consumer sector, Mr. Roach says:

"The U.S. stands alone in the excesses of consumerism, with personal consumption averaging fully 71 percent of GDP since early 2002 – well above the 67 percent norm that prevailed over the 25-year period, 1975 to 2000."
...
The British also had the benefit of having a cushion to fall back on. The personal savings rate in Europe is 14 percent. In Japan it's 8 percent, and in China it's too high – 35 percent.

And here? Well, it doesn't exist. The savings rate has been negative for three straight months.

"Not since 1933 – hardly a comforting comparison – have consumers spent this far beyond their means," Mr. Roach observed. "No other country or economy comes close to matching the American model of excess consumption and negative saving."

DiMartino concludes:

Where are we going?

Home prices have begun declining in some markets. National inventories of new homes are the highest ever recorded, and stocks of existing homes are following in the same straight line upward.

"As sure as night follows day, pricing will follow this inventory overhang," said David Rosenberg, chief economist at Merrill Lynch.

Higher energy prices could not hit at a worse time, and the Fed is still raising interest rates. A soft landing seems like a far-off dream.

"... as night follows day ..."

by Calculated Risk on 10/11/2005 01:30:00 AM

Bloomberg reports: U.K. Retail Sales Fell for a Sixth Month in September, BRC Says

U.K. retail sales fell for a sixth month in September, the British Retail Consortium said, a sign that a slowdown in consumer spending may be worsening.

Sales in stores open at least a year fell 0.8 percent from September last year, the BRC, a London-based lobbying group that represents 80 percent of U.K. retailers, said in an e-mailed report today. That followed a 1 percent decline in August.

It is possible that the UK is a leading indicator for the US, since the Bank of England started raising rates eight months before the Federal Reserve. The BoE started in November of 2003 and the Federal Reserve didn't start raising rates until June, 2004. The discussion now in the UK is of rate cuts:

"It is still too soon to say that things are improving," said Kevin Hawkins, director general of the BRC, in a statement. "The case for a reduction in interest rates is now as pressing as ever."

Investors have increased bets on a further quarter-point reduction by June 2006, interest-rate futures trading shows. The implied rate on the contract maturing that month was 4.25 percent late yesterday ...

Click on graph for larger image.

The graph shows the Fed Funds rate vs. the BoE Repo rate since the beginning of 2001. The question now is when the Fed Funds rate will be higher than the Repo rate.

Sales are especially difficult for the housing related sectors since the housing slowdown has already started in the UK:

MFI, Britain's largest furniture retailer, on Oct. 3 forecast an annual loss after sales dropped 31 percent in the period from Sept. 8. In the preceding 13-week period, sales fell 15 percent.

The average value of a house in the U.K. fell for a second straight month in September and annual home-price inflation slowed to a nine-year low, the Nationwide Building Society said Sept. 29.

Danielle DiMartino of the Dallas Morning News is writing on this topic this week. In Monday's column, she concluded with topics we have discussed:

"Sustained price appreciation has persuaded U.S. households to extract larger and larger amounts of home equity via cash-out refinancing, home-equity borrowing, and the housing turnover process in recent years," Jan Hatzius, senior economist at Goldman Sachs, said in a recent report.

"Judging from the decline in the personal savings rate, much of this mortgage equity withdrawal seems to have found its way into spending," he continued. "That implies a slowdown in house price appreciation is likely to depress mortgage-equity withdrawal and consumer spending."

So, we take our lumps. So, retail spending slows.

And, like Great Britain has just done, we emerge a bit wiser for the experience but relatively unharmed.

Or do we?

On Tuesday, DiMartino promises to outline some of the differences between the UK experience and the US. Hopefully some of the UK experts will critique her analysis!

by Calculated Risk on 10/10/2005 12:44:00 PM

The LA Times has another great article: Risky 'Exotic' Loans Fostering a Refi Cycle

Craig Wolynez is the kind of homeowner stoking fears about a housing bubble.

Even though he had no steady income, the 33-year-old computer consultant and his wife were able to purchase a $416,000 house in the San Fernando Valley two years ago using an "interest-only" mortgage that guarantees low monthly payments for the first five years. After that, Wolynez's payments could rise sharply — making him a prime candidate for default or, even worse, foreclosure.

But like many financially stretched home buyers, Wolynez has a way out: He plans to refinance before his payments balloon. He's now shopping for a new interest-only mortgage that will keep his payments manageable longer.

"There's an urgency," he said. "We know we have to refinance."

Countless home buyers like the Wolynezes sign up for risky mortgages knowing full well they plan to refinance them — or sell their homes — before the payments go up.

And lenders are catering to these marginal buyers:

The mortgage industry not only grasps this refinancing game, it aggressively markets new loans to these borrowers, raking in additional profits from fees and other charges. And lenders continue to devise more creative loans that reduce payments further and extend purchasing power in pricey markets such as California.

"Lenders are putting people into loans where they are almost guaranteed to be refinanced," said George Yacik, vice president of SMR Research Corp., a Hackettstown, N.J.-based financial research firm.

This may work in the short term:

Over time, repeated refinancings could increase the risks of a more severe slump. Already, many fear that homeowners with interest-only mortgages will find themselves "underwater" — owing more than their homes are worth — if prices soften. For the borrower who has refinanced repeatedly, the amount of the debt is likely to be even greater, particularly for those who converted their equity into cash with each new loan or who have paid little or no principal.

Homeowners' ability to continually swap interest-only mortgages not only keeps their payments low for a longer period, it delays the day of reckoning when principal becomes due. As long as home values keep rising, borrowers are protected from becoming overextended.

"So far it's worked out well because they've been able to refinance their way out of trouble," said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of mortgage information publisher HSH Associates.
...
"I don't think refinancing is something people should be doing frequently," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "In a falling interest-rate environment you may be saving enough to make it worthwhile. But the mortgage could go bad in the future."

"So far its worked out well ..." So far.

by Calculated Risk on 10/10/2005 02:37:00 AM

Dr. Tim Duy brings us another FedWatch: Clearly Hawkish Signals. On inflation and shipping:

"... Greenspan can’t be happy with what he is hearing, especially with FedEx announcing a 5.5% increase in shipping rates (WSJ subscription), the highest increase in at least nine years. FedEx is clearly confident enough about the outlook to pass on rising fuel costs to consumers. And it’s not just FedEx that’s raising prices – the Wall Street Journal reported that railroad customers are expecting a 5.6% rate hike in the next six months. It is also widely expected that UPS will join the party as well. These are the kinds of price increases that feed their way into virtually every business in the country. The Fed will worry that other firms in other industries will decide that they too should pass on higher costs to customers. Worry enough that they will want to nip it in the bud."

Dr. Polley previews some candidates for the Nobel Prize in Economics (to be announced today).

"International economics should be due for a prize in the next couple years. Jagdish Bhagwati would be at the top of many lists in that field. Perhaps this will be his year."

And from the AP: Nobel Economics Prize Winners to Be Named

Paul Romer of Stanford University, who won the 2002 Horst Claus Recktenwald Prize in Economics, has been mentioned for his efforts in developing the New Growth Theory, which has provided new foundations for businesses and governments trying to create wealth.

The theory was developed in the 1980s as a response to criticism of the neo-classical growth model.

Another name has been that of Thomas J. Sargent of New York University, a leader of the rational expectations theory, which is used to determine future events by economic acts.

Also among those being touted for this year's prize is Jagdish Bhagwati, a noted proponent of free trade and critic of opponents of globalization. The Indian-born Columbia economics professor was an external adviser to the World Trade Organization and served as a special policy adviser on globalization to the United Nations.

And Dr. Hamilton's excerpts from an essay on the macroeconomic effects of oil shocks: Macro effects of oil shocks-- what should we be looking for next?

The key question now is ... how the Katrina-induced unemployment will interact with the other macroeconomic disruptions that are also incipient in the other September data discussed above. We'll have a much better view of this in another month. The key indicators ... are further declines in consumer sentiment and spending, the timing and magnitude of the layoffs in auto- and airline- related industries, whether investment or export spending can take the place of reduced consumption, and whether house prices and construction join in with the other negatives.

Will they or won't they? Stay tuned-- we'll find out soon enough.

by Calculated Risk on 10/10/2005 12:13:00 AM

Note: my most recent post is up on Angry Bear: Thinking Short Term

KLAS-TV reports: "Record Number of Homes for Sale"

There may be signs the housing boom is finally cooling off in Las Vegas. Real estate agents say there are now more homes for sale than ever.

There are currently 16,000 homes listed for sale. That's 6,000 more than last year.

And the NY Times reported:

A real estate slowdown that began in a handful of cities this summer has spread to almost every hot housing market in the country, including New York.

Inventory, inventory, inventory. That is the current housing story.

by Calculated Risk on 10/09/2005 02:55:00 PM

An ever growing chorus of pundits are expressing concern about the economy. Robert Samuelson writes in Newsweek: So Long to the Wealth Effect? and Marshall Loeb for MarketWatch: How the boom of 2006 ended

Marshall Loeb expresses concern about the current economic situation. Loeb writes from a future prespective (2007) and observes:

"We should have seen it coming.

We were living beyond our means, saving absolutely nothing, spending more than we were earning -- like there was no tomorrow.

Most Americans were doing that. Worse, the government was doing it -- piling deficit upon deficit. ... But, as it always does, profligacy caught up with us. And the economy, which had been growing at a comfortable 3 to 4% rate for many years, came crashing down last year, in 2006."

He compares Bush to LBJ:

Historians know that, for example, Lyndon Johnson brought the economy to perdition in the 1960s and 1970s by not leveling with the American people about the true total cost of the Vietnam war (about $121 billion). Reason: LBJ wanted to pursue both his war and his costly Great Society domestic programs at the same time.

So, too, George Bush tried to pursue his war in Iraq (total cost: more than $200 billion by the end of 2005) and simultaneously to spend $150 billion or more to rebuild the Gulf Coast after the catastrophes of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Unfortunately, Loeb overlooks the deleterious impact of Bush' tax shifts that are the primary cause of the significant Federal General Fund budget deficits.

The Samuelson piece is a reasonable summary of the asset based economy. Others, like Roach, Krugman and Volcker have expressed similar concerns. Dr. Thoma provides this postscript:

"The potential solutions to the global and domestic imbalance problems have been discussed extensively here and elsewhere, so I won't try and recount them all again, but one way to summarize them is that with smart monetary and fiscal policy and gradual adjustment in the U.S. and elsewhere, we have a chance of a soft landing. But if current policies continue, the chance of a more difficult adjustment period will rise." (emphasis added)

If we keep doing what we are doing, a hard landing is likely. Unfortunately, as Koeb demonstrated, many observers can't agree on what "smart" monetary, fiscal and public policy should be.

by Calculated Risk on 10/08/2005 09:04:00 PM

The Observer quotes economist Roger Bootle on housing:

'The signs that it's become a bubble in the States are blatant. It has entered the culture to an extent that mirrors, and even exceeds, the equity bubble.'

Some excerpts:

As [Bootle] says in the book ["Money for Nothing"]: 'We are entering a world in which every sort of knowledge - whether it is an idea, a piece of music, a chemical compound, a design for a dress, the plans for a building, a photographic image, a great novel, or the assembled wisdom of the ages - not only cannot be lost, but is instantaneously accessible by everyone in the world, whenever they want, always.'

Before we can reap the full benefits, though, we have to shrug off the damaging legacy of the bubble. The painful lesson he encourages the reader to learn is that it's an illusion to think we can have 'money for nothing' simply by buying and selling shares - or houses - from each other. Day-trading in equities, or dashing up the property ladder, has winners and losers - it doesn't make society, or the world, richer 'any more than taking in each other's washing'.

Genuine increases in wealth come from fresh knowledge, gains in productivity, and an expansion in the size of the market - all the things Bootle believes the next few decades will bring in spades. Meanwhile, the consequences of the dotcom years are still biting. Britain's share of the post-bubble hangover is the housing market boom, which has begun to deflate, taking consumer spending with it, and plunging GDP growth to its slowest pace for 12 years.

'For some time I have been forecasting that there would be some consumer slowdown here. I hadn't expected it to happen quite when it did, so suddenly. But I am concerned that it could go quite a bit further. If consumers should start to want to save rather more - and classically this is what they do when the housing market slows - then in that case, this economy could come perilously close to recession.'
...
He is profoundly worried about the unprecedented housing market boom on the other side of the Atlantic, pumped up, as in Britain, by the ultra-low interest rates of the post-bubble years. 'The signs that it's become a bubble in the States are blatant. It has entered the culture to an extent that mirrors, and even exceeds, the equity bubble.'