by Calculated Risk on 10/25/2009 11:29:00 AM

From Carolyn Lochhead at the San Francisco Chronicle: Experts see rebounding economy shedding jobs

Forget a jobless recovery. The economy may be entering a recovery with job losses.
...
"It's not even a jobless recovery; it's a recovery with more job losses," said UCLA economist Lee Ohanian. "The idea of having essentially no net job creation after a remarkably severe recession is a real pathology for the U.S. economy."
...
Alarms are ringing at the White House and in Congress. But with a mind-boggling $1.4 trillion deficit this year, Democrats have used up their bullets. The word stimulus has such a bad connotation that the term has been banished from new efforts to goose the economy and help workers, such as extending unemployment benefits, sending $250 checks to seniors and a program the White House announced to help small businesses get loans.

As I noted earlier this week, so far the current recovery is even worse than "jobless"; it is a "job-loss" recovery.

This will be hot topic over next couple of months. Maybe the forecasts will be too pessimistic, but without jobs, it isn't much of a recovery.

by Calculated Risk on 10/25/2009 08:33:00 AM

From Drew DeSilver at the Seattle Times: Reckless strategies doomed WaMu

This is the first of two parts. Here is a section on loose lending:

"The big saying was 'A skinny file is a good file,' " said Nancy Erken, a WaMu loan consultant in Seattle. She recalled helping credit-challenged borrowers collect canceled checks, explanatory letters and other documentation that they could afford their loans.

"I'd take the files over to the processing center in Bellevue and they'd tell me 'Nancy, why do you have all this stuff in here? We're just going to take this stuff and throw it out,' " she said.

In time, WaMu even began allowing low- or no-documentation option ARMs, piling risk on risk. The loose standards spread through the company like a flu virus.

And on risk management:

In an internal newsletter dated Oct. 31, 2005, and obtained by The Seattle Times, risk managers were told they needed to "shift (their) ways of thinking" away from acting as a "regulatory burden" on the company's lending operations and toward being a "customer service" that supported WaMu's five-year growth plan.

Risk managers were to rely less on examining borrowers' documentation individually and more on automated processes, Melissa Martinez, WaMu's chief compliance and risk oversight officer, wrote in the memo.
...
"The whole tone it set was that 'Maybe the next file I review I should pull back, hold off on downgrading (a loan), not take a sharp pencil to what production was doing,' " [Dale George, a former senior credit-risk officer in Irvine, Calif.] said.

"They weren't going to have risk management get in the way of what they wanted to do, which was basically lend the customers more money."

Ouch. There is much more in the article - on Option ARMs, switching to originate-to-sell and more ... WaMu was definitely "doomed".

by Calculated Risk on 10/24/2009 11:55:00 PM

From Will Hutton at the Observer: Mervyn King is right – the time has come to break up the megabanks (ht Jonathan)

Will Hutton reviews the competing proposals to reform the banking system and suggests a combination of the two ...

The first proposal, championed by BofE Governor Mervyn King and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker is to break up the banks and separate the commercial parts from the "casino banking":

If the status quo is untenable and unfair because it leaves us with banks so big they have to be bailed out in a crisis, and if the proposed increases in bank capital advanced by the government are unlikely to act as a restraint, then there is only one course of action left: we have to break up the megabanks. The speculative, risky parts of banks must be separated from the commercial parts which lend to business, consumers and home buyers.

This, after all, is what the Americans did after the 1929-33 crash. Under the famous Glass-Steagall Act, commercial banks were forbidden to offer any form of collateral, underwriting or loan that financed stocks and shares. The same could be done today. The banking the economy needs – so-called narrow banking – could be closely regulated and casino banking could be left to its separate, freewheeling devices.

The second proposal, championed by Lord Turner in the U.K., and I believe favored by the Obama Administration in the U.S., is to have capital requirements based on the riskiness of the business:

The way forward, [Lord Turner] repeated, is more capital, especially more capital for the casino parts of any bank's business. On top, banks should make "living wills", setting out how they would wind themselves up without any cost to the taxpayer.

Either way - I think the time has for action.

by Calculated Risk on 10/24/2009 08:23:00 PM

From the Mercury News: Silicon Valley office vacancies near 20 percent

Nearly one-fifth of Silicon Valley office space stood empty last quarter, while landlords lowered rents to try to retain tenants and attract new ones, according to a [report from commercial real estate firm Grubb & Ellis] released Friday.
...
The rising vacancy rate is "re-emphasizing that this is the slowest commercial real estate market the valley has seen since the dot-com bust in 2001," the report stated.

Empty space for research and development, the one- to three-story buildings where so many smaller tech companies reside, is also beginning to pile up, said Dick Scott, Grubb & Ellis' managing director in Silicon Valley. ...

"There was a temporary period of time where we all were naively optimistic that R&D would hold up. But it's taking a hit now," he said.
...
Said the Grubb & Ellis report: "Expect asking rents to decrease as companies put unoccupied space onto the market."

Some of the increase in the vacancy rate was because of new office space coming online, but it sounds like Grubb & Ellis expects a significant amount of sublease space to come on the market too. That is usually a bad sign for rents - and also suggests companies don't expect much growth.

by Calculated Risk on 10/24/2009 02:41:00 PM

This has been coming for some time ...

From the NY Times Dealbook: Capmark, Big Commercial Lender, May File for Bankruptcy

The Capmark Financial Group, the big commercial real estate finance company cobbled together from pieces of GMAC, may file for bankruptcy as soon as this weekend ... The company is only the latest to fall victim to continued trouble in the commercial real estate market ... Capmark has about $10 billion in assets, with another $10 billion in a Utah bank the company owns that would not be subject to a bankruptcy filing.

Capmark bank in Utah is in trouble too, and is the fifth largest bank (in assets) on the unofficial problem bank list.

From a Capmark press release in September:

The FDIC has notified Capmark Bank that it intends to issue an administrative order, which will impose certain requirements and restrictions on Capmark Bank, including requiring submission of capital and liquidity plans, restrictions on affiliated party transactions and other activities.

by Calculated Risk on 10/24/2009 11:45:00 AM

From James Hagerty at the WSJ: Uncle Sam Adds 5% to Prices of Homes, Goldman Says

Uncle Sam’s interventions in the housing market have pushed home prices 5% higher on a national average than they would have been otherwise, Goldman Sachs estimates in a report released late Friday.
...
But these artificial props won’t last forever and may have created a false bottom in the market. “The risk of renewed home-price declines remains significant,” Goldman economist Alec Phillips writes in the report, “and our working assumption is a further 5% to 10% decline by mid-2010.”

In the research note, Phillips discussed how policies have reduced foreclosures, and stimulated demand with both the first-time home buyer tax credit and "abnormally low mortgage rates". Phillips wrote (no link):

"In 2010, we expect some of these supports to fade. Fed and Treasury purchases of mortgage-backed securities will taper off, and the pause in foreclosures created by federal mortgage modification programs may end.

The federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers appears likely to be extended for at least a few months, but probably no longer than through the first half of 2010."

Based on Goldman's estimates, the first-time home buyer tax credit probably cost around $80,000 per additional home sold. Ouch.

The report isn't all negative. Goldman believes "the brunt of the price decline is behind us" and the outlook is uncertain: "the cloudy policy outlook adds to our already considerable uncertainty of where house prices will ultimately bottom".

This is very close to my view, see: The Uncertain Housing Outlook

by Calculated Risk on 10/24/2009 08:29:00 AM

The FDIC closed seven more banks on Friday, and that brings the total FDIC bank failures to 106 in 2009. The following graph shows bank failures by week in 2009.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

Note: Week 1 on graph ends Jan 9th.

After a busy summer, the FDIC slowed down in late September and early October with only five bank failures in four weeks. Perhaps the pace is about to pick up again. With 10 weeks to go, it seems 130 or so bank failures is likely this year.

The 2nd graph covers the entire FDIC period (annually since 1934).

This is the most failures per year since 1992 (181 failures).

As far as failures per week - there were 28 weeks during the S&L crisis when regulators closed 10 or more banks, and the peak was April 20, 1989 with 60 bank closures (there were 7 separate weeks with more than 30 closures in the late '80s and early '90s).

For a graph that includes the 1920s and early '30s (before the FDIC was enacted) see the 3rd graph here.

Of course the number of banks isn't the only measure. Many banks today have more branches, and far more assets and deposits. Also the cumulative estimated losses for the DIF, since early 2007, is now about $45 billion.

And a message from Sheila Bair:

The FDIC era source data is here - including by assets (in most cases) - under Failures and Assistance Transactions

The pre-FDIC data is here.

by Calculated Risk on 10/23/2009 09:30:00 PM

Note: A late addition: R-G Premier Bank of Puerto Rico (SEC 8-K) to be added next week ($6.5 Billion in assets, Cert# 32185). The failures today will be removed next week.

This is an unofficial list of Problem Banks.

Changes and comments from surferdude808:

There is a net four institutions added to this week’s Unofficial Problem Bank List.

Overall, the institution count is 482 with aggregate assets of $321.9 billion, up from $316.6 billion last week. Additions include EuroBank, Hato Rey, PR ($2.7 billion); Cascade Bank, Everett, WA ($1.6 billion) (update: listed under "corrective action program"); Liberty Savings Bank, FSB, Wilmington, OH ($1.5 billion); Edgewater Bank, Saint Joseph, MI ($191 million); and Western Commercial Bank, Woodlands, CA ($122 million).

The sole deletion was San Joaquin Bank, Bakersfield, CA, which failed last Friday.

The only other change to the list is an FDIC issued Prompt Corrective Action order against Imperial Capital Bank, La Jolla, CA, which has been operating under a Cease & Desist Order since February 2009.

For next week’s list, we anticipate the FDIC will finally release its enforcement actions issued during September; thus, look for the list to grow by at least ten institutions.

The list is compiled from regulator press releases or from public news sources (see Enforcement Action Type link for source). The FDIC data is released monthly with a delay, and the Fed and OTC data is more timely. The OCC data is a little lagged. Credit: surferdude808.

See description below table for Class and Cert (and a link to FDIC ID system).

For a full screen version of the table click here.

The table is wide - use scroll bars to see all information!

NOTE: Columns are sortable - click on column header (Assets, State, Bank Name, Date, etc.)





Class: from FDIC

The FDIC assigns classification codes indicating an institution's charter type (commercial bank, savings bank, or savings association), its chartering agent (state or federal government), its Federal Reserve membership status (member or nonmember), and its primary federal regulator (state-chartered institutions are subject to both federal and state supervision). These codes are:

N National chartered commercial bank supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

SM State charter Fed member commercial bank supervised by the Federal Reserve

NM State charter Fed nonmember commercial bank supervised by the FDIC

SA State or federal charter savings association supervised by the Office of Thrift Supervision

SB State charter savings bank supervised by the FDIC

Cert: This is the certificate number assigned by the FDIC used to identify institutions and for the issuance of insurance certificates. Click on the number and the Institution Directory (ID) system "will provide the last demographic and financial data filed by the selected institution".

by Calculated Risk on 10/23/2009 08:14:00 PM

Seven is lucky
Not quite for 1st DuPage Bank
Cruel roll of the dice.
by Soylent Green is People
From the FDIC:

First Dupage Bank, Westmont, Illinois, was closed today by the Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation – Division of Banking, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. ...

As of July 31, 2009, First Dupage Bank had total assets of $279 million and total deposits of approximately $254 million. ...

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $59 million. .... First Dupage Bank is the 106th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the Nation this year, and the seventeenth in Illinois. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Corus Bank, Chicago, on September 11, 2009.

When the levee breaks ... seven down today ...

by Calculated Risk on 10/23/2009 07:11:00 PM

Failure "two by two"
A flood is on horizon
The Ark is near full.
by Soylent Green is People
From the FDIC:

Bank of Elmwood, Racine, Wisconsin, was closed today by the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. ...

As of September 30, 2009, Bank of Elmwood had total assets of $327.4 million and total deposits of approximately $273.2 million. ...

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $101.1 million. ... Bank of Elmwood is the 104th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the Nation this year, and the first in Wisconsin. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was The First National Bank of Blanchardville, Blanchardville, on May 9, 2003

From the FDIC:

Riverview Community Bank, Otsego, Minnesota, was closed today by the Minnesota Department of Commerce, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. ...

As of August 31, 2009, Riverview Community Bank had total assets of $108 million and total deposits of approximately $80 million. ...

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $20 million. ... Riverview Community Bank is the 105th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the Nation this year, and the fifth in Minnesota. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Jennings State Bank, Spring Grove, on October 2, 2009.

That makes six today ...