- Index
- Last
- Chg
- Chg(%)
- Weekly Chg(%)
- SSE
- 2,447.36
- -87.92
- -3.47%
- -4.13%
- SSE A
- 2,565.67
- -92.03
- -3.46%
- -4.12%
- SSE B
- 210.79
- -9.77
- -4.43%
- -6.59%
- SSE Comp
- 2,122.09
- -72.90
- -3.32%
- -3.55%
- SSE-SZSE 300
- 2,612.89
- -103.89
- -3.82%
- -4.51%
|
For American taxpayers, now on the hook for some $145 billion in housing losses connected to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, that amount could be just the tip of the iceberg.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the losses could balloon to $400 billion. And if housing prices fall further, the cost to the taxpayer could hit as much as $1 trillion.
Two things are clear: Taxpayers don’t want to foot the bill, and Fannie and Freddie, taken over by the government in 2008 to stanch the financial bloodletting, need a major overhaul.
“Some of us who don’t even own homes are paying to support others and their home ownership, and they ask ‘why?’ said Robert J. Shiller, a Yale University economics professor and co-creator of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.
The indices measure the US residential housing market by tracking changes in the value of residential real estate both nationally and in 20 metropolitan regions.
Shiller added that the mission of Fannie and Freddie should be severely cut back “so that they’re not helping middle-class homeowners, [but] they’re helping poor people get into the housing market.”
At the crux of the financial crisis, the government took over Fannie and Freddie to avert possible massive losses for banks, money-market funds and, perhaps, most importantly, foreign institutions that purchased billions of Fannie and Freddie debt because of its implied government guarantee.
The Chinese, for example, had invested heavily, and the US decided it didn’t want them to take a loss on their investment.
One possible scenario for the entities is to turn them into utilities, said Sean Dobson, CEO and chair of Amherst Securities.
“Freddie and Fannie could be used to standardize the mortgage product,” Dobson said, “to completely describe what the risks are and then act as a conduit for the capital markets to take the risk.”
Single-family home prices unexpectedly climbed in April from March, driven by a final sales push before tax credits expired, but signs of a sustained recovery have yet to emerge, Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller home price indexes showed on Tuesday.
"Inventory data and foreclosure activity have not shown any signs of improvement," David Blitzer, chairman of S&P's index committee, said in a statement. "Consistent and sustained boosts to economic growth from housing may have to wait to next year."
The S&P composite index of home prices in 20 metropolitan areas for April rose 0.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis after a downwardly revised 0.2 percent drop in March, compared with a 0.1 percent decline forecast in a Reuters survey. March prices were previously reported as unchanged.
On an unadjusted basis, prices gained 0.8 percent in April following March's 0.5 percent drop. A 0.2 percent rise was forecast in a Reuters poll.
The 20-city index rose 3.8 percent in April from a year earlier, topping the expected 3.4 percent increase.
Home sales have fallen precipitously in the the weeks since the April 30 end of tax credits of up to $8,000, which pushed sales forward as buyers raced to lock in the incentive.
Other reports have shown sales of new homes sank by a record 32.7 percent in May to the lowest level since record keeping began in the early 1960s, and existing home sales unexpectedly fell 2.2 percent in May.
Applications to buy homes hover at 13-year lows.
Still, affordability is high, with prices down around 30 percent on average from 2006 peaks and mortgage rates touching record lows near 4-3/4 percent.
Spanish banks have been lobbying the European Central Bank to act to ease the systemic fallout from the expiry of a 442 billion euros ($542 billion) funding program this week, accusing the central bank of “absurd” behavior in not renewing the scheme.
On Thursday, the clock runs out on the ECB financing program – the largest amount ever lent in a single liquidity operation by the central bank – under the terms of the one-year special liquidity facility launched last summer
One senior bank executive said: “Any central bank has to have the obligation to supply liquidity. But this is not the policy of the ECB. We are fighting them every day on this. It’s absurd.”
Another top director said: “The ECB’s policy is that they don’t want to provide maturity of more than three months. But they have to adapt.”
Banks across the euro zone, but in Spain in particular, have found it hard in recent weeks to secure liquid funding in the commercial markets, with inter-bank funding virtually non-existent.
The 442 billion euro ECB facility, which charges interest at a rate of 1 percent, is not set to be renewed, something that banks in Spain and elsewhere in Europe say ignores current commercial realities.
A special offer of six-day liquidity will tide banks over until the following week’s regular offer of seven-day funds. On Wednesday, the ECB will also be offering unlimited three month liquidity, and further offers of three-month liquidity will keep banks going until at least the end of the year.
“The system is just not working,” agrees Simon Samuels, banks analyst at Barclays Capital in London. “We’re approaching the third year of liquidity support and still the market cannot survive unaided.”
BarCap estimates that at least 150 billion euros of the ECB funding that is maturing will not be rolled over into shorter-term three-month schemes, forcing banks to shrink their own lending.
Spain’s banks have been among the hardest hit by the faltering confidence in the euro zone economies in recent months following problems with the country’s smaller savings banks, or cajas. The bigger commercial banks, led by Santander and BBVA, feel unfairly tarred.
The euro’s monetary guardian has also come under pressure from German banks to provide one-year loans. It stopped offering such loans late last year, when it began unwinding exceptional measures taken after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
It resisted reintroducing such offers even when its “exit strategy” was thrown into reverse last month by the escalating euro zone debt crisis.
ECB policymakers worry that providing cheap loans for such a long period distort markets and could restrict the room for maneuver in monetary policy.
Lending by euro zone banks to businesses and households is improving only modestly, in spite of the pickup in economic activity.
Loans to the private sector grew at an annual rate of 0.2 percent in May, up from 0.1 percent in April, according to ECB figures released on Monday. Lending to households was strongest, although the annual rate of decline in lending to corporations also slowed.
|
Wertung | Antworten | Thema | Verfasser | letzter Verfasser | letzter Beitrag | |
Daytrading 26.04.2024 | ARIVA.DE | 26.04.24 00:02 | ||||
28 | 3.676 | Banken & Finanzen in unserer Weltzone | lars_3 | youmake222 | 25.04.24 10:22 | |
Daytrading 25.04.2024 | ARIVA.DE | 25.04.24 00:02 | ||||
Daytrading 24.04.2024 | ARIVA.DE | 24.04.24 00:02 | ||||
Daytrading 23.04.2024 | ARIVA.DE | 23.04.24 00:02 |