The risks going forward for financial institutions and their capital base are large and growing. The blog CalculatedRisk has reported on yet another story that should give chills to bankers. This one is very significant: Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
A judge recently ruled against Cleveland-based regional National City in a case involving stated income loans. [...]

The bloggers over at Calculated Risk have reported on a story making the rounds in the Internet. This story involves S&P’s downgrade of Alt-A Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBSs). The crux of the matter is that S&P misjudged how much collateral in the underlying value of the homes there was to protect these [...]

UPDATE: The latest chart on U.S. consumer credit growth is here.
I have been focusing on debt as a primary contributor to the slump the U.S. is experiencing. We’ve seen skyrocketing Debt-to-GDP and Mortgage Debt. Now, I want to look at consumer credit. The Fed releases a monthly statement showing consumer [...]

MarketWatch is reporting today that Nationwide has said that UK home prices are down a record amount.
House prices fell for the seventh consecutive month, dropping 2.5% from April, and were 4.4% lower than they were in May 2007, Nationwide said. The string of seven monthly price declines is also the longest since 1992, during the [...]

I am wary of regional banks for good reason. KeyCorp came out with a disastrous earnings report yesterday and was promptly whacked by the market. The regionals have way to much exposure to commercial real estate (CRE) and construction loans. And in the next leg down of this downturn, that is where [...]

The US regional banks are certainly the next set of financial institutions in the US that are going to get hit by the credit crisis. While these banks did not have significant exposure to the CDOs and RMBSs and other types of derivative instruments that have caused the majority of writedowns to date, they do have large exposure to the housing and construction industry.

When Hilary Rodham Clinton is finally forced off the campaign trail after her last ditch attempts to become President of the United States, the question is what awaits her. Will it be Senate Majority leader, eventual New York Governor, Supreme Court Justice?
Well, according to a very sobering article from Time Magazine, what awaits her [...]

You’ve heard about the book by Scott McClellan, Bush’s former Press Secretary. Well, not only does he accuse the Bush administration of playing fast and loose with the truth, he damns the White House press corps for being too soft on him. The MSM in the U.S. is deplorable. Now, we have [...]

The S and P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index for the U.S. housing market came out yesterday and the news was not good. MarketWatch said:

Home prices in 20 major U.S. metropolitan areas have dropped a record 14.4% in the past year, Standard & Poor’s said Tuesday.

The 20-city Case-Shiller home price index fell 2.2% from [...]

Although I prefer the S&P/Case-Shiller House Price Index to look at U.S. house prices (see residential property posts), the OFHEO index has more data, going back to 1975 (instead of 1987 as the 10-city Case-Shiller does). Ultimately, they both tell the same story: accelerating declines in house prices in the US. From a [...]