by Calculated Risk on 5/03/2009 08:26:00 PM

From the WSJ: Banks Get Tougher on Credit Line Conditions

Banks are shortening the terms on lines of credit ... They are charging significantly higher fees for the lines of credit, known as revolvers. And instead of promising an interest rate determined mainly by the company's credit rating, banks will now charge more if the cost of insuring the company's debt against default is higher.
...
About 72% of the revolving credit facilities obtained by investment-grade companies in the first quarter of 2009 had 364-day maturities, or tenors, and no companies received five-year lines ... In the same period a year ago, 30% of the facilities were for 364 days and 41% had five-year maturities.

There are two key changes: the duration has been shortened, and the interest rate is based on the price of default insurance (as opposed to credit rating). Another snub of the ratings agencies!

Also on lending standards, the Fed's April Senior Loan Officer Survey on bank lending practices will probably be released this week.

by Calculated Risk on 5/03/2009 03:53:00 PM

It has been some time, so here is a look at few credit indicators:

First, the British Bankers' Association reported Friday that the three-month dollar Libor rates were fixed at 1.007%. The LIBOR was at 1.30% a few weeks ago, and peaked at 4.81875% on Oct 10, 2008. The dollar LIBOR might break below 1.0% this week.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

There has been improvement in the A2P2 spread. This has declined to 0.56. This is far below the record (for this cycle) of 5.86 after Thanksgiving, but still above the normal spread.

This is the spread between high and low quality 30 day nonfinancial commercial paper.

Meanwhile the TED spread has decreased further over the last week, and is now at 86.39. This is the difference between the interbank rate for three month loans and the three month Treasury. The peak was 463 on Oct 10th and a normal spread is around 50 bps.

The third graph shows the spread between 30 year Moody's Aaa and Baa rated bonds and the 30 year treasury.

The spread has decreased sharply over the last couple of weeks. The spreads are still very high, especially for lower rated paper.

The Moody's data is from the St. Louis Fed:

Moody's tries to include bonds with remaining maturities as close as possible to 30 years. Moody's drops bonds if the remaining life falls below 20 years, if the bond is susceptible to redemption, or if the rating changes.

This graph shows the at the Merrill Lynch Corporate Master Index OAS (Option adjusted spread) for the last 2 years.

This is a broad index of investment grade corporate debt:

The Merrill Lynch US Corporate Index tracks the performance of US dollar denominated investment grade corporate debt publicly issued in the US domestic market.

Back in early March, Warren Buffett mentioned that credit conditions were tightening again - and this was probably one of the indexes he was looking at. Since March, the index has declined.

All of these indicators are still too high, but there has been progress.

by Calculated Risk on 5/03/2009 11:49:00 AM

Here are a few stories on cities fighting foreclosure related blight ...

From the San Francisco Chronicle: Vacant foreclosed homes spawn blight, crime

Next door to Jeffrey Cash's tidy East Oakland bungalow sits a boarded-up foreclosed house that has been vacant for months, attracting locals who shoot dice in the driveway, smoke crack on the porch and dump debris in the yard, he said.
...
His situation is emblematic of a larger problem. The droves of vacant foreclosures nationwide and locally, many of them clustered in low-income areas, act as magnets for crime and create neighborhood blight, according to residents and civic leaders.
...
Many [cities] turn to anti-blight ordinances to try to force the banks that own the foreclosures to take care of them - mow the lawns, board up windows and doors - or face stiff fines if they don't. A California bill enacted in September (SB1137) allows municipalities to charge lenders $1,000 a day for failing to maintain foreclosed properties; some cities already have similar anti-blight provisions in place.

From the Boston Herald: City liens on lenders

City inspectors have slapped thousands of dollars in liens on 43 vacant or foreclosed properties blighting Hub neighborhoods to halt the national housing crisis from spreading more urban decay.

Among those being targeted are big banks, including Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo, who have ignored their responsibility to maintain the seized homes. ...

From the WSJ: Banker: 'What'd I Do Wrong, Officer?' Cop: 'You've Got Algae in the Pool, Sir'

Officials at a Citigroup Inc. office in St. Louis placed a call to this desert town recently. The bank had caught word that Indio was coming after the lending giant with fines and threats of criminal charges. The offense: an algae-infested swimming pool at 79760 Eagle Bend Court.
...
[L]ast year, Indio passed a law that allowed it to charge banks with a criminal misdemeanor if they allowed a home to fall into disrepair.

"If I need to do it, I'll say, 'Mr. Bank President, if you don't come and take care of your property, we're going to come arrest you and take you to court in California,'" says Brad Ramos, Indio's long-serving police chief.
...
After the letters from Indio, Citigroup paid a $3,450 fine to Indio and sent a cleaning crew to fix the pool at Eagle Bend Court where Citigroup had managed the foreclosure process.

These fines will push the lenders to sell the properties quicker - or demolish them - or possibly not even foreclose on some properties.

by Calculated Risk on 5/03/2009 09:02:00 AM

This video might surprise some people ...

Jim takes us on a tour of a new home site in Carmel Valley, San Diego (Video on May 2nd). Jim said these homes are "selling like hotcakes".

Just a reminder, new home sales are counted by the Census Bureau when the contract is signed (even before the homes are built).

Note: Carmel Valley is in a newer area of San Diego (east of Del Mar).

by Calculated Risk on 5/02/2009 11:37:00 PM

A little Daily Show comedy ...

by Calculated Risk on 5/02/2009 07:59:00 PM

Professor Shiller writes in the New York Times: Depression Scares Are Hardly New

WHAT is the chance that the current downturn will morph into another Great Depression? That question has been preoccupying people for months.

The popular mood has a huge impact on the economy, so it’s worth noting what many people seem to forget: Depression scares come and go. And by one authoritative measure, the current outbreak of concern has been surprisingly mild.

The University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers have included in their regular measurements this specific question about fear of a prolonged depression:

“Looking ahead, which would you say is more likely — that in the country as a whole we’ll have continuous good times during the next five years or so, or that we will have periods of widespread unemployment or depression, or what?”

... A high score on the question means that the answers tilted toward continuous good times, with a low score tilting toward unemployment or depression. Since 1960, the average score has been 94.

If we define a depression scare as any time the score is below 65, there have been four such scares since 1951. They were in the periods from 1974 to 1975, during which 47 was the lowest score; from 1978 to 1982, with a low of 41; from 1990 to 1992, with a low of 54; and from 2008 to 2009, with a low (to date) of 59. Note that so far, at least, the worst reading in the current scare has not been as bad as those of the previous episodes.

In each case, the scare’s significance is further confirmed by electronically counting in news databases the number of articles containing the word pair “great depression.” There were huge peaks in the count during these periods.

Here is a graph comparing the decline in real GDP for the current recession with other recessions since 1947. Depression is marked on the graph as -10%.

Click on table for larger image in new window.

After the 6.1% SAAR decline in Q1 2009 GDP, the cumulative real decline is now 3.3% from the peak.

NOTE: GDP is reported on a real (inflation adjusted) Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) basis. Real GDP declined about 1.5% in Q1.

Even though the current recession is already one of the worst since 1947, it is only about 1/3 of the way to a depression (commonly defined as a 10% decline in real GDP).

Stated another way, to reach a depression, the economy would have to decline at about the same annual rate as the last two quarters for the next four quarters.

Just to put this in perspective, during the Great Depression, real GDP declined 26.5% from the peak to the trough.

I believe the odds of the current recession becoming a depression are very low (much less another Great Depression), but I think the current period has far greater risks than those earlier periods because of the severe financial crisis.

by Calculated Risk on 5/02/2009 01:59:00 PM

From MarketWatch: Buffett sees some housing market stabilization

"In the last few months you've seen a real pickup in activity although at much lower prices," Buffett said, citing data from Berkshire's real estate brokerage business, which is one of the largest in the U.S.
...
"We see something close to stability at these much-reduced prices in the medium to lower part of the market," Buffett said.

Also from MarketWatch: Buffett: Consumer spending slump not over

The recent drop in consumer spending and the resulting pressure on retailing, manufacturing and services industries could last "quite a long time," Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett said Saturday.

"I think our retail businesses will not do well for some time" as U.S. consumers save more, Buffett told investors at the company's annual shareholders meeting. "I would not look for any quick rebound in retail, manufacturing and services businesses."

Click on graph for large image.

This graph shows the saving rate starting in 1959 (using a three month centered average for smoothing) through the March Personal Income report released yesterday. The saving rate was 4.1% in March.

This suggest households are saving substantially more than during the last few years (when the saving rate was close to zero). The saving rate will probably continue to rise (an aging population usually pushes the saving rate higher) and a rising saving rate will repair household balance sheets, but, as Buffett notes, this will also keep pressure on personal consumption.

by Calculated Risk on 5/02/2009 09:02:00 AM

From Jillayne Schlicke at Rain City Guide: Why are Banks Setting the Opening Auction Bid Below The Principal Balance?

I attended a foreclosure auction in Bellevue, WA last week to discover if the rumor was true that banks are opening their bids below the amount owed. I received confirmation from three professional investors that yes, the banks have been doing that, it’s no secret, and there seems to be no discernable pattern. It’s not one particular bank or lender, it’s not particular types of property or in any specific area. It appears to be random.

... Only a few of the trustee sales attracted bidders, and the rest were deeded back to the bank. Out of the 92 active sales, 25 had opening bids below the amount owed to the bank.

Jillayne offers some possible explanations why the banks are bidding below the amount they are owed. I've been hearing similar stories in California.

Also, here is the monthly post: April Economic Summary in Graphs.

by Calculated Risk on 5/01/2009 10:27:00 PM

The Stress Test results will be released Thursday May 7th after the markets close.

Three banks failed today: America West Bank, Layton, Utah, Citizens Community Bank, Ridgewood, New Jersey (corrected - listed the purchasing bank), and Silverton Bank, National Association, Atlanta, Georgia. Silverton is an important bank - it had $4.1 billion in assets, and it was a correspondent banks - a bank for banks. From the Atlanta Business Chronicle:

[Silverton Bank's failure] will ripple through the banking industry, which some industry experts said will have catastrophic consequences for banks across the Sun Belt as it impacts potentially hundreds of bank balance sheets.

Many small banks invested in Silverton, or Silverton sold them loan participation in mostly Construction & Development loans. The losses could lead to other bank failures.

Auto sales were very weak - just above the record low in February.

The Institute for Supply Management April 2009 Non-Manufacturing Report showed contraction in manufacturing, but contracting at a slow pace.

The National Multi Housing Council apartment survey showed conditions worsened (from landlords perspective) though the pace of deterioration is decelerating (a common theme: things are still getting worse, but at a slower pace).

And for those interested, here is a post comparing quarterly and monthly PCE data.

Jillayne Schlicke of RainCityGuide.com took this video at a foreclosure auction on April 24, 2009 in Bellevue, WA. The lady in yellow was just reading off addresses so Jillayne asked her what she was doing. It ends up these were postponements - properties that are probably in loan modification.

by Calculated Risk on 5/01/2009 08:13:00 PM

Ben, Tim, and Sheila.
Whom do they remind you of?
Moe, Curly, Larry.
by Soylent Green is People
From the FDIC: Cache Valley Bank, Logan, Utah, Assumes All of the Deposits of America West Bank, Layton, Utah

America West Bank, Layton, Utah, was closed today by the Utah Department of Financial Institutions, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Cache Valley Bank, Logan, Utah, to assume all of the deposits of America West.
...
As of December 31, 2008, America West Bank had total assets of approximately $299.4 million and total deposits of $284.1 million. ...

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund will be $119.4 million. Cache Valley Bank's acquisition of all of the deposits of America West Bank was the "least costly" resolution for the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund compared to alternatives.

America West Bank is the 32nd bank to fail in the nation this year and the second in Utah. The last FDIC-insured institution to fail in the state was MagnetBank, Salt Lake City, on January 30, 2009.