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May
31

Lee Adler, Aaron Krowne and Russ Winter discuss the latest events in the financial markets. This episode: housing, banking shenanigans, inflation and government finances. (Free preview available; cheap $10/mo subscription required to listen to the full podcast. No long term committment).

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May
31

“During the late 1980s, banks in Texas couldn’t open a new branch in another county without forming a new commercial bank. That meant there were lots more lenders in the state when the S&L crisis struck. So when a bank failed, “40 of its other banks failed on the same day,” Cassidy recalls.”

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May
31

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May
31

Rainmaker Systems, Inc. , a leading provider of sales and marketing solutions combining hosted application software and execution services, today announced that Steve Valenzuela, CFO, is scheduled to present to …

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May
31

“In a bold move, the Company announced that it is considering making an offer to the holders of its Series B and Series C preferred stock to exchange those shares for common stock of the company. Impac said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission after market close Wednesday that if the exchange is completed on favorable terms it may have the effect of increasing common stockholders’ equity.”

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May
31

Newly delinquent mortgage borrowers outnumbered people who caught up on their overdue payments by two to one last month, a sign that nationwide efforts to help homeowners avoid default may be failing. That is probably true. But what is also true, and probably more relevant to this phenomenon, is that nationwide efforts to increase the real incomes of Americans are failing. Actually, there are no such efforts, which is even more problematic. Last month’s 54 percent “cure ratio” among defaulted mortgages compares with 80 percent a year earlier and 87 percent in March. Comparisons with previous months may not be valid because one lender changed the way it calculated defaults and cures reported to the insurers. The lender switched to defining defaults as 60 days overdue rather than 90 days for its April data. Because loans are less likely to return to good standing after falling three months behind, the switch to a 60-day threshold probably boosted the number of cures disproportionately to the increase in defaults, Stelmach said. And sure enough, our worst nightmares of the financial structuring are coming true: Part of the problem is that so many of the loans were securitized, making it difficult to determine who has the legal authority to modify them, or even who owns them, Fishbein said. About 90 percent of subprime loans have been bundled into securities, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a Bethesda, Maryland-based industry newsletter. Borrowers with subprime mortgages, which were available to those with poor credit histories, are behind in their payments at more than five times the rate of prime mortgage borrowers, according to the Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association.

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May
31

“If you are wiser than I, just skip to the next post. If you still cradle to your wounded heart the battered but indomitable belief that even media outlets like Bloomberg can learn to spot the flaws in a reported statistic, and that there is a point to doing this, click the link below. ”

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May
31

Some Wall Street banks have made big profits from trading oil during its record rally, but prices near $130 a barrel are too expensive for many to follow through on plans to expand into the physical oil …

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May
31

Trucking company Con-way Inc. is on track for “solid” second-quarter earnings, a Stephens Inc.

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May
31

At least in the UK. Google is testing a new program called Merchant Search.“Compare providers at a glance and sort them by the criteria most important to you.”The example listed is clearly a mortgage rates query.I’ve always wondered why Google hasn’t ever decided to dominate the loan search arena. Add real estate search to the […]

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