by Calculated Risk on 5/29/2008 06:30:00 PM

In an effort to attract better advertising, we've been asked to survey our readers. If you'd like to participate - thank you - it's short, anonymous, and hopefully painless.

Reader Survey

Thanks to all,
CR and Tanta
All: I'll probably bump this a couple of times - in the morning and on the weekend. Also, I'll post a link to the results this weekend.

by Calculated Risk on 5/29/2008 05:24:00 PM

Here is an economic letter from Stephen P. A. Brown, Raghav Virmani and Richard Alm at the Dallas Fed: Crude Awakening: Behind the Surge in Oil Prices

A good starting point is strong demand, which has pushed world oil markets close to capacity. New supplies haven’t kept up with this demand, fueling expectations that oil markets will remain tight for the foreseeable future. A weakening dollar has put upward pressure on the price of a commodity that trades in the U.S. currency. And because a large share of oil production takes place in politically unstable regions, fears of supply disruptions loom over markets.

These factors have fed the steady, sometimes swift rise of oil prices in recent years. Their persistence suggests the days of relatively cheap oil are over and the global economy faces a future of high energy prices.

See the charts in the economic letter on each of these points. And their conclusion:

At first blush, crude oil demand doesn’t offer much hope for lower prices. It is likely to grow with an expanding world economy. Higher oil prices will prompt some conservation and take some of the edge off prices—but not much.
...
Geopolitics and exchange rates aside, long-term oil prices will largely be set by supply and demand, which will affect prices directly and influence the expectations that shape futures markets. The key lies in how much new oil reaches markets. Four scenarios for conventional oil resources show a range of outcomes and impacts for the trajectory of prices:

Oil production reaches a plateau or peak—prices likely to rise further.

Oil nationalism continues to slow the development of new resources—prices likely to remain relatively high.

In a shift of strategy, OPEC increases its output sharply—prices likely to fall.

Aggressive exploration activities pay off with the quick development of significant new resources—prices likely to fall.

... International Strategy and Investment, an energy consulting business, has documented a substantial number of projects under way that would boost world oil supplies. The development of these resources could undermine the expectations underlying the higher oil price scenarios—even those of oil nationalism.

Supplies could be bolstered by nonconventional oil sources—tar sands, oil shale, coal-to-liquids. ... The substantial development of these nonconventional oil resources could mean downward pressure on crude oil prices in future years....

What’s the bottom line? Absent supply disruptions, it will be difficult to sustain oil prices above $100 (in 2008 dollars) over the next 10 years.

After reading the letter, their conclusion was a bit of a surprise!

by Calculated Risk on 5/29/2008 04:07:00 PM

From the Economist.com: House Prices: Through the Floor (hat tip Ryan)

Earlier this week, the S&P Case-Shiller National Home Price index was released showing a 14.1% decline over the last four quarters. The Economist has a chart (from Professor Shiller) putting this decline into historical perspective by showing the YoY change in U.S. house prices since 1920. The Economist notes:

Now Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale University and co-inventor of the index, has compiled a version that stretches back over a century. This shows that the latest fall in nominal prices is already much bigger than the 10.5% drop in 1932, the worst point of the Depression.

During the Depression, the rapid decline in house prices was primarily due to the extremely weak economy and high unemployment. This time prices are falling rapidly because of the excesses of the housing bubble - especially excessive speculation and loose lending standards.

This doesn't mean the economy will fall into a depression (very unlikely in my view); instead the current rapid price decline shows how ridiculous house prices and lending standards were during the bubble.

by Calculated Risk on 5/29/2008 01:45:00 PM

From The Canadian Press: CIBC loses $1.11 billion in quarter on massive credit-market hit

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (TSX:CM) posted a net loss of $1.11 billion in the second quarter as it booked a massive hit tied to the credit market.
...
The results in the second quarter of the bank's financial year included a loss of $2.48 billion, or $1.67 billion after tax, on writedowns of structured credit, added to $3.46 billion in first-quarter writedowns.
...
The CIBC World Markets investment banking division ... warned that "market and economic conditions relating to the financial guarantors may change in the future, which could result in significant future losses."
...
The bank said it expects Canadian economic growth "to remain very sluggish in the coming quarter, held back by weak exports as the U.S. appears to be entering a mild recession."

Just a couple billion (and change) more ...

by Calculated Risk on 5/29/2008 11:20:00 AM

"This is a worrisome trend. It's the kind of thing that gives regulators heartburn."
FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair, May 29, 2008 on the eroding coverage ratio.

From the FDIC: Insured Banks and Thrifts Earned $19.3 Billion in the First Quarter

Commercial banks and savings institutions insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reported net income of $19.3 billion in the first quarter of 2008, a decline of $16.3 billion (45.7 percent) from the $35.6 billion that the industry earned in the first quarter of 2007.
...
Noncurrent loans are still rising sharply. Loans that were noncurrent (90 days or more past due or in nonaccrual status) increased by $26 billion (or 24 percent) to $136 billion during the first quarter. That followed a $27 billion increase in the fourth quarter of 2007. Almost 90 percent of the increase in noncurrent loans in the first quarter consisted of real estate loans, but noncurrent levels increased in all major loan categories. At the end of the first quarter, 1.7 percent of the industry's loans and leases were noncurrent.

Earnings remain burdened by high provisions for loan losses. Rising levels of troubled loans, particularly in real estate portfolios, led many institutions to increase their provisions for loan losses in the quarter. Loss provisions totaled $37.1 billion, more than four times the $9.2 billion the industry set aside in the first quarter of 2007. Almost a quarter of the industry's net operating revenue (net interest income plus total noninterest income) went to building up loan-loss reserves.

Click on graph for larger image.

The industry's "coverage" ratio -- its loss reserves as a percentage of nonperforming loans -- continued to erode. Loan-loss reserves increased by $18.5 billion (18.1 percent), the largest quarterly increase in more than 20 years, but the larger increase in noncurrent loans meant that the coverage ratio fell from 93 cents in reserves for every $1.00 of noncurrent loans to 89 cents, the lowest level since 1993. "This is a worrisome trend," [FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair] said. "It's the kind of thing that gives regulators heartburn."

She added, "The banks and thrifts we're keeping an eye on most are those with high levels of exposure to subprime and nontraditional mortgages, with concentrations of construction loans in overbuilt markets, and institutions that get a large share of their revenues from market-related activities, such as from securities trading."

Here is the quarterly report.

by Calculated Risk on 5/29/2008 10:08:00 AM

Earlier this month, continued unemployment claims exceeded 3 million for the first time in four years. Now the continued claims have passed 3.1 million (see first graph).

Here is the data from the Department of Labor for the week ending May 24th.

Click on graph for larger image.

The first graph shows the continued claims since 1989.

Clearly people losing their jobs are having difficulty finding new jobs.

Notice that following the previous two recessions, continued claims stayed elevated for a couple of years after the official recession ended - suggesting the weakness in the labor market lingered. The same will probably be true for the current recession (probable).

The second graph shows the weekly claims and the four week moving average of weekly unemployment claims since 1989. The four week moving average has been trending upwards for the last few months, and the level is now solidly above the possible recession level (approximately 350K).

Labor related gauges are at best coincident indicators, and this indicator suggests the economy is in recession.

by Anonymous on 5/29/2008 07:10:00 AM

This is a big deal, and will no doubt strike real fear in the hearts of stated-income lenders everywhere. Our own Uncle Festus sent me this decision, in which Judge Leslie Tchaikovsky ruled that a National City HELOC that had been "foreclosed out" would be discharged in the debtors' Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Nat City had argued that the debt should be non-dischargeable because the debtors made material false representations (namely, lying about their income) on which Nat City relied when it made the loan. The court agreed that the debtors had in fact lied to the bank, but it held that the bank did not "reasonably rely" on the misrepresentations.

I argued some time ago that the whole point of stated income lending was to make the borrower the fall guy: the lender can make a dumb loan--knowing perfectly well that it is doing so--while shifting responsibility onto the borrower, who is the one "stating" the income and--in theory, at least--therefore liable for the misrepresentation. This is precisely where Judge Tchaikovsky has stepped in and said "no dice." This is not one of those cases where the broker or lender seems to have done the lying without the borrower's knowledge; these are not sympathetic victims of predatory lending. In fact, the very egregiousness of the borrowers' misrepresentations and chronic debt-binging behavior is what seems to have sent the Judge over the edge here, leading her to ask the profoundly important question of how a bank like National City could have "reasonably relied" on these borrowers' unverified statements of income to make this loan.

And as I argued the other day on the subject of due diligence, it isn't so much that individual loans are fraudulent than that the published guidelines by which the loans were made and evaluated encouraged fraudulent behavior, or at least made it "fast and easy" for fraud to occur. Judge Tchaikovsky directly addresses the issue of the bank's reliance on "guidelines" that should, in essence, never have been relied upon in the first place.

*************

Here follow some lengthy quotes from the decision, which was docketed yesterday and is not, as far as I know, yet published. From In re Hill (City National Bank v. Hill), United States Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of California, Case No. A.P. 07-4106 (May 28, 2008):

This adversary proceeding is a poster child for some of the practices that have led to the current crisis in our housing market.

Indeed. The debtors, the Hills, bought their home in El Sobrante, California, twenty years ago for $220,000. After at least five refinances, their total debt on the home at the time they filed for Chapter 7 in April of 2007 was $683,000. Mr. Hill worked for an automobile parts wholesaler; Mrs. Hill had a business distributing free periodicals. According to the court, their combined annual income never exceeded $65,000.

In April 2006, the Hills refinanced their existing $100,000 second lien through a mortgage broker with National City. Their new loan was an equity line of $200,000; after paying off the old lien and other consumer debt, the Hills received $60,000 in cash. On this application the Hills stated their annual income as $145,716. The property appraised for $785,000.

By October 2006 the Hills were short of money again, and applied directly to National City to have their HELOC limit increased to $250,000 to obtain an additional $50,000 in cash. On this application, six months later, the Hills' annual income was stated as $190,800, and the appraised value was $856,000.

At the foreclosure sale in April 2007, the first lien lender bought the house at auction for $450,000, apparently the amount of its first lien.

The Hills claimed that they did not misrepresent their income on the April loan, and that they had signed the application without reading it. The broker testified rather convincingly that the Hills had indeed read the documents before signing them--Mrs. Hill noticed an error on one document and initialed a correction to it. No doubt because the October loan, the request for increase of an existing HELOC, did not go through a broker, the Hills admitted to having misrepresented their income on that application. The Court found that:

Moreover, the Hills, while not highly educated, were not unsophisticated. They had obtained numerous home and car loans and were familiar with the loan application process. They knew they were responsible for supplying accurate information to a lender concerning their financial condition when obtaining a loan. Even if the Court were persuaded that they had signed and submitted the October Loan Application without verifying its accuracy, their reckless disregard would have been sufficient to satisfy the third and fourth elements of the Bank’s claim.

This is not an excessively soft-hearted judge who fell for some self-serving sob story from the debtors. "Reckless disregard" is rather strong language.

Unfortunately for National City, Her Honor was just as unsympathetic to its claims:

However, the Bank’s suit fails due to its failure to prove the sixth element of its claim: i.e., the reasonableness of its reliance.6 As stated above, the reasonableness of a creditor’s reliance is judged by an objective standard. In general, a lender’s reliance is reasonable if it followed its normal business practices. However, this may not be enough if those practices deviate from industry standards or if the creditor ignored a “red flag.” See Cohn, 54 F.3d at 1117. Here, it is highly questionable whether the industry standards–-as those standards are reflected by the Guidelines–-were objectively reasonable. However, even if they were, the Bank clearly deviated to some extent from those standards. In addition, the Bank ignored a “red flag” that should have called for more investigation concerning the accuracy of the income figures. . . .

Based on the foregoing, the Court concludes that either the Bank did not rely on the Debtors representations concerning their income or that its reliance was not reasonable based on an objective standard. In fact, the minimal verification required by an “income stated” loan, as established by the Guidelines, suggests that this type of loan is essentially an “asset based” loan. In other words, the Court surmises that the Bank made the loan principally in reliance on the value of the collateral: i.e., the House. If so, the Bank obtained the appraisal upon which it principally relied in making the loan. Subsequent events strongly suggest that the appraisal was inflated. However, under these circumstances, the Debtors cannot be blamed for the Bank’s loss, and the Bank’s claim should be discharged.

In short, while the Court found that the Hills knowingly made false representations to the lender, the lender's claim that it "reasonably relied" on these representations doesn't hold water, because "stated income guidelines" are not reasonable things to rely on. In essence, the Court found, such lending guidelines boil down to what the regulators call "collateral dependent" loans, where the lender is relying on nothing, at the end of the day, except the value of the collateral, not the borrower's ability or willingness to repay. If you make a "liar loan," the Judge is saying here, then you cannot claim you were harmed by relying on lies. And if you rely on an inflated appraisal, that's your lookout, not the borrower's.

This is going to give a lot of stated income lenders--and investors in "stated income" securities--a really bad rotten no good day. As it should. They have managed to give the rest of us a really bad rotten no good couple of years, with no end in sight.

Read on . . .

by Calculated Risk on 5/28/2008 11:50:00 PM

Housing Wire has more on the S&P Alt-A downgrades: S&P Lowers the Boom on 1,326 Alt-A RMBS Classes

The downgrades affect an $33.95 billion in issuance value and affect Alt-A loan pools securitized in the first half of 2007 — roughly 14 percent of S&P’s entire Alt-A universe in that timeframe.

Perhaps more telling were an additional 567 other Alt-A classes put on negative credit watch by the ratings agency.

A review of affected securities by Housing Wire found that all of the classes put on watch for a pending downgrade are currently rated AAA, suggesting that S&P’s confidence in thin overcollateralization typical of most Alt-A deals is quickly waning. The total dollar of potential downgrades to the AAA classes in question would dwarf Wednesday’s downgrades, which affected only mezzanine and equity tranches.

by Calculated Risk on 5/28/2008 07:52:00 PM

From AP: Sales of Spam rise as consumers trim food costs

And from Monty Python: Spam

by Calculated Risk on 5/28/2008 04:54:00 PM

From Bloomberg: S&P Downgrades $34 Billion of Bonds Backed by Alt-A Mortgages (hat tip ken and SC)

Standard & Poor's lowered its ratings on $34 billion of securities backed by Alternative-A mortgages, the firm's largest downgrade for the type of debt ...

Ratings on 1,326 classes of the bonds created in the first half of 2007 were downgraded, or 14 percent of the total ...