by Calculated Risk on 4/22/2009 01:23:00 AM

By popular request, an open thread and a few sources for futures and the foreign markets.

Bloomberg Futures.

CBOT mini-sized Dow

CME Globex Flash Quotes

Futures from barchart.com

And the Asian markets.

And a graph of the Asian markets.

And a little music ...

Best to all.

by Calculated Risk on 4/21/2009 10:09:00 PM

From David Leonhardt at the NY Times: For Housing Crisis, the End Probably Isn’t Near

Note: See article for graphic on house prices to median income by city.

... I decided to go to an auction at a hotel ballroom in Washington — and to study the results of several others elsewhere — with an eye to figuring out whether prices may now be close to bottoming out.
...
The winning bid on the first home auctioned off, a two-bedroom townhouse in Virginia Beach, was $115,000. Just last July, it sold for $182,000, according to property records. A four-bedroom brick house with a two-car garage in Upper Marlboro, Md., went for $375,000. Last year, it sold for $563,000.

Leonhardt provides other auction examples, and concludes prices are still falling sharply:

[T]he great real estate crash is not over, either. So if you are part of the 30 percent of American households who rent and you’re trying to decide when to buy, relax.

The market is still coming your way.

As I've noted before, most housing busts have two bottoms; the first bottom will be for residential investment (RI), and the second will be for existing home prices. The second bottom will come later, possibly much later. We haven't even seen the bottom for RI yet!

Given the huge excess supply, especially of distressed properties, I think Leonhardt is correct that prices will continue to fall.

by Calculated Risk on 4/21/2009 06:45:00 PM

Conference call notes (ht Brian):

Economic deterioration continued at a rapid pace during the first quarter driving increasing delinquency and charge off rates across most of our lending businesses. U.S. card charge off rate increased to 8.4% for the first quarter, above the 8.1% charge off rate expectation we articulated a quarter ago. Expected seasonal increases in bankruptcies and declining loan balances resulted in higher charge off rates compared to the fourth quarter of 2008. The increase in charge off rates beyond our expectations resulted from several factors related to the pace of economic deterioration in the quarter. Bankruptcies were higher than expected, increasing charge-offs directly without impacting delinquency rates. Recoveries on already charged off debt were lower than expected. We also observed an acceleration of later stage delinquency balances slowing to charge off in the quarter. For context recall that when we articulated our expectations last January the unemployment rate was 7.2% and we assumed it would increase to about 8.7% by the ends of 2009. The unemployment rate has already deteriorated to 8.5% and is expected to move beyond 8.7% well before year end. Even though our U.S. card charge off rate was higher than the expectation we had last quarter delinquencies and charge-offs were a bit better than we would have expected given the actual economic worsening we've seen in the quarter. ...

Credit Loss outlook

We expect further increases in U.S. card charge off rate through 2009 as the economy continues to weaken. It is likely that will our U.S. card charge off rate will increase at a faster pace than the broader economy as a result of the denominator effect and our implementation of OCC minimum payment requirements ... We expect monthly U.S. card charge off rates to cross 10% in the next couple of months.

Economic Outlook

I'll update our economic outlook. Unemployment and home prices have been and continue to be the economic variables with the greatest impact on our credit results. We now expect unemployment rate to increase to around 9.6% by the ends of 2009. Our prior assumption for home prices was for the Case Shiller 20 city index to fall by around 37% peak to trough. We now expect a modestly worse peak to trough decline of around 39%. ...

The expected 'greater than 10% charge-off rate' is probably worse than the expected credit card loss rates for the "more adverse" scenario. I'll be curious if the Federal Reserve white paper, to be released on Friday, will mention the expected loss rates by category.

by Calculated Risk on 4/21/2009 05:16:00 PM

Here is a letter from the FHFA to Chairman Dodd that was released today (ht James, Tim, Brian)

Update: here is the news release from FHFA: FHFA Expands Reporting on Homeowner Assistance

The tables show that the number of prime 60 days+ delinquent rose to 743,686 in January, from 497,131 in December. This is an increase from 1.93% in December to 2.89% in January.

The number of non-prime 60 day+ delinquent loans increased too; from 428,705 in December to 485,365 in January. But the foreclosure problem is now mostly a prime problem!

Or as Tanta used to say: "We're all subprime now!"

by Calculated Risk on 4/21/2009 04:13:00 PM

Pier loans: Bridge loans that couldn't be sold.

From the WSJ: Bankers Rebuff U.S. on Chrysler Debt

Chrysler owes ... lenders, which include banks such as Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., about $6.9 billion. But President Barack Obama and his auto team had demanded that the banks cut that to $1 billion, while gaining no equity stake in a restructured Chrysler.

In their five-page counteroffer, the lenders said they are prepared to cut Chrysler's first-lien debt by $2.4 billion, or down to about $4.5 billion, in exchange for a minority equity stake, likely to be 35% to 40% ...

The lenders have told Treasury ... they could recover at least 65% of their loans to the company if it is liquidated in bankruptcy.

Chrysler is probably worth more dead than alive - at least to these debt holders. That complicates the negotiations.

Nine days to go ...