While the Realtors and Home Builders and Mortgage Bankers all bask in the glow of the home buyer tax credit extension/expansion, we all need to turn our attention to the real drag on a housing recovery: Foreclosures.    Read More

S&P Futures dropped about 10 points as the October Unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent, the highest since April 1983. While this will be the headline in the papers, bear in mind that unemployment in the 1982 recession peaked at 10.8 percent at the end of 1982.    Read More

The close on Friday, a big earnings day, was less than stellar. Volume was poor, and two stocks were down for every one that advanced.    Read More

It's my favorite time of year again. The air is crispy, the leaves are crackly, and the mortgage bankers are crunching numbers once more at their annual convention here in San Diego.    Read More

Several months ago on the blog we discussed the predicament small independent lenders are in because they are no longer able to access the cash to make their loans. That is because warehouse lending has dried up considerably. That leaves the big banks to get most of the share of the mortgage market.   Read More

If you were one of the people who “gave up” and sold stocks in the gloom of last winter, you may be feeling a little foolish these days. But the real question is: What will you do during the next decline?    Read More

Someone get me the smelling salts, because I'm shocked, yes passing out over the latest headline from the FHA: "Officials Anticipate Annual Actuarial Study to Show Capital Reserve Ratio Dropping Below Congressionally-Mandated 2 Percent."    Read More

One third of all home buyers in the past several months have taken advantage of the $8000 home buyer tax credit. Since the start of the credit, the builder sentiment survey has gone from a record low in January to a steady gain three months running. But this month, one of the three components of the survey, the "sales expectations" part that gauges potential over the next six months, slipped.    Read More

They're really unanswerable questions, but they seem to be on everyone's minds this morning as we review the financial crisis that struck with such ferocity a year ago: Should the government have saved Lehman Brothers? What would have happened if it did?    Read More

One year ago, at the epicenter of the credit crisis, Lehman Brothers went dark, marking the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history.  The bankruptcy sparked a financial crisis that questioned the viability of the entire U.S. financial system driving many investors to short the financial sector at heightened levels.   Read More