Implode-Explode Heavy Industries news feed

Canada Banning Foreign Home Buyers For Two Years

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 16:48:59 GMT

Canada Banning Foreign Home Buyers For Two Years In Attempt To Bring Down Skyrocketing Housing Values

U.S. stocks close lower on fears the Fed may raise interest rates four times this year

Thu, 03 May 2018 00:04:47 GMT

``"The Fed views the economy as having improved and inflation has returned to normal," he said. "That environment, in the Fed's opinion, no longer justifies overly accommodative monetary policy." ''

US Bank Exits Wholesale

Thu, 07 Dec 2017 23:03:14 GMT

``"U.S. Bank Home Mortgage will exit the Wholesale Mortgage Lending channelÂ as we strategically realign our growth plans and investments for the mortgage business. As part of this change, approved wholesale brokers will have until the close of business on December 11, 2017 to register loans for funding no later than March 12, 2018.Â This change does not impact our purchase of closed loans from Correspondent and Housing Finance Agency lenders or our Retail lending business.''

Canada's Biggest Mortgage Lender Crashes; Gets Rescue -- End of Line For Housing Bubble?

Thu, 27 Apr 2017 14:53:20 GMT

Today... the stock of Home Capital Group cratered by over 60%, its biggest drop on record, after the company disclosed that it struck an emergency liquidity arrangement for a C$2 billion ($1.5 billion) credit line to counter evaporating deposits at terms that will leave the alternative mortgage lender unable to meet financial targets, and worse, may leave it insolvent in very short notice.
As part of this inevitable outcome, one which presages the company's eventual disintegration and likely liquidation, Bloomberg reports that the non-binding rescue loan with an unnamed counterparty will be secured by a portfolio of mortgage loans originated by Home Trust, the Toronto-based firm said in a statement Wednesday. Home Capital shares dropped by 61% in Toronto to the lowest since 2003, dragging down other home lenders. Equitable Group Inc. fell 17 percent, Street Capital Group Inc. fell 13 percent, while First National Financial Corp. declined 7.6 percent. In short, the Canadian mortgage bubble has finally burst.

Ocwen Sued, Shut Down in Multiple States

Fri, 21 Apr 2017 01:27:53 GMT

There are bad days, and worse days, and there are days like Ocwen Financial Corporation (OFC) had on Thursday. The company was not only sued on multiple grounds by both the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the State of Florida, but saw its operations effectively shut down by the North Carolina Commissioner of Banks.
...
First, the North Carolina commissioner, Ray Grace, issued a cease and desist order against the company after a determination that it "has engaged in, or is engaging in, or is about to engage in, acts of practices constituting violations of state and federal law and applicable regulations."

... On February 28, 2015, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, and Washington conducted a multi-state examination of the company covering operations from January 1, 2013 to the examination date. That examination identified several violations of state and federal law including consumer escrow accounts that could not be reconciled and willful and ongoing unlicensed activity in certain states. The examination also found that the company's financial condition was deteriorating.

The order alleges the company subsequently failed to respond to requests for information on its apparent unlicensed activity and company executives were warned the violations were unacceptable and would not be tolerated. OFC partially addressed these violations after a lapse of two years, but the Commissioner's order states that unlicensed activity is believed to continue in some jurisdictions.
...
In December 2016 OFC and state regulators entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which required OFC to retain an independent auditing firm to perform a comprehensive audit and reconciliation of all escrow accounts with a report submitted to and approved by the MMC by January 13, 2017.Â On that date, the company informed the MMC that the $1.5 billion cost of that audit was beyond its financial capability and asked to sample 457 accounts out of the 2.5 million it had serviced over the initial audit period.Â The company has also failed to provide a suitable going-forward business plan to address its financial condition.

The Cease and Desist Order requires OFC to immediately cease acquiring new mortgage servicing rights and acquiring or originating new residential mortgages until it provides a sufficient analysis of its financial condition and provides state regulators with a reconcilement of its escrow accounts showing that consumer funds are appropriately collected, accounted for, and distributed.Â OFC has 20 days in which to request a hearing.

Puerto Rico Set To Get "Greece'd" - Brad Setser

Fri, 31 Mar 2017 19:55:42 GMT

3) While creditors have complained that Puerto Rico isn't doing enough, I worry that there is still too much consolidation too fast: Puerto Rico's output is projected to fall by another 10 percentage points over the next five years, which would make Puerto Rico's ten year economic contraction as deep as that experienced by Greece.
Sadly, this is a realistic outcome if you combine five to six percentage points of consolidation, a multiplier of 1.5 (especially as much of the consolidation is offsetting a fall in federal funding) and negative trend growth. There is a real risk that the coming contraction generates further outmigration, undermining the basis for any eventual recovery. Puerto Ricans are not required to stay on on-island. A shrinking population ultimately means a shrinking tax base.
...
Basically, Puerto Rico tried to avoid a draconian consolidation after its 2007 slump through running down pension assets (and for a while running up debt) and by taking advantage of Obama era policy changes--but now has run out of rope.

IMF Begins Distancing Itself From Neoliberalism

Tue, 31 May 2016 17:26:53 GMT

``The results, the IMF researchers concede, have been terrible. Neoliberalism hasn't delivered economic growth -- it has only made a few people a lot better off. It causes epic crashes that leave behind human wreckage and cost billions to clean up... From the 1980s the policymaking elite has waved away the notion that they were acting ideologically -- merely doing "what works". But you can only get away with that claim if what you're doing is actually working. Since the crash, central bankers, politicians and TV correspondents have tried to reassure the public that this wheeze or those billions would do the trick and put the economy right again. They have riffled through every page in the textbook and beyond -- bank bailouts, spending cuts, wage freezes, pumping billions into financial markets -- and still growth remains anaemic.'' -- It's not just bailouts and definitely not about "free markets"; the problem lies in centralize money and banking, crony capitalism, and decidedly-unfree chimera markets that prop themselves up using the machinery (and influence) of the state. But, mere details...

W.J. Bradley Mortgage Capital permanently closes down

Wed, 16 Mar 2016 13:56:08 GMT

``Orderly wind-down? Maybe not. According to the Rob Chrisman report on Mortgage News Daily, employees were told not to show up for work on Monday.''

Why doesn't America's "4.9%" unemployment rate feel great?

Sun, 07 Feb 2016 21:04:27 GMT

``During the worst of the Great Recession, 6.8 million people were long-term unemployed. So there's been improvement, but there are still roughly double the number of long-term unemployed than in normal times... [and] wage growth is only 2.5% a year. As Sharon Stark of D.A. Davidson notes, normally when unemployment is this low, wage growth should be humming along at about 4% a year.''

Global Earnings Downgrades Haven't Been This Bad in Seven Years

Sat, 16 Jan 2016 21:40:20 GMT

``Stocks are losing their last line of defense. Amid a selloff that erased more than two years of gainsÂ -- about $14 trillion -- from global stocks now on the brink of a bear market, at least earnings stood as a potential bright spot. Those hopes are fading: analyst profit downgrades outnumbered upgrades by the most since 2009 last week, according to monthly data from a Citigroup Inc. index that tracks such changes.''

IMF: keep interest rates low or risk another crash

Sun, 11 Oct 2015 14:37:37 GMT

``The International Monetary Fund concluded its annual meeting in Lima with a warning to central bankers that the world economy risks another crash unless they continue to support growth with low interest rates. ''

Greek currency crisis calls for controlled exit

Mon, 16 Mar 2015 14:00:45 GMT

``A preparation for Grexit is not about a Plan B in the top drawer. It means a pre-agreed sequence of actions ready to be implemented. A changeover of a currency regime within a short period of time constitutes an organisational and logistical challenge that goes beyond anything normal states ever do... the conclusion is inevitable: the best way to avoid a Grexident is to prepare for a Grexit.Â ''

U.S. housing starts fall 2.8% in October

Wed, 19 Nov 2014 17:23:44 GMT

``Construction started on new U.S. homes fell 2.8% in October, led down by volatile apartment building, according to government data released Wednesday. The annual rate of total housing starts declined to 1.01 million last month from 1.04 million in September, the U.S. Commerce Department reported. The October starts rate in buildings with at least five units dropped 15.5%. Meanwhile, construction starts for single-family homes rose 4.2% to hit the highest pace since November 2013. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected an overall October starts rate of 1.03 million, compared with an originally estimated pace of 1.02 million in September''

Russia May Go For Its Own Space Station, Walk From ISS

Tue, 18 Nov 2014 16:04:41 GMT

``The Russian space agency is reportedly considering construction of a high-altitude orbital station starting from 2017. This means that Moscow may walk away from the ISS after 2020, when its obligations under the current project are fulfilled.'' -- Seems much more in Russia's interest to have a station orbiting over its own territory and the arctic, actually...

BofA Reportedly Cutting Back 1000 Jobs in Mtg Fulfillment; Adding To Loss Mit

Fri, 10 Oct 2014 02:02:37 GMT

This just in from a reader:

BOA just shut down all fulfillment jobs (over 1000) in Jacksonville FL site and announced a majority of us will be converted to loss mit. As a DE underwriter, I am patiently waiting to see if they pay my salary to be a Hamp Underwriter. This shows the economy is sucking, Hamp was ended 2 years ago, and now it is panic mode at Bank of America.

The economy is still in the toilet, you say? We are shocked... SHOCKED...

Doug Noland: What We Know

Sat, 27 Sep 2014 13:56:47 GMT

``Heightened global market instability has began to be transmitted to U.S. securities markets... We can safely assume that the $10bn of uncovered fraud in the commodities financing area is the tip of the iceberg. I feel comfortable with my assumption that the financial world has never seen fraud and malfeasance to the extent that has manifested throughout China over the past decade, particularly during the post-crisis stimulus fiasco.''

Homeward Residential warns of 370 layoffs

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:08:59 GMT

``Homeward Residential Inc. filed a notice Tuesday under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act saying it could cut 370 jobs at its Jacksonville office between April and August. Coppell, Tex.-based Homeward is a mortgage banking firm that changed its name a year ago from American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc., and then was acquired in December by Ocwen Financial Corp.''

Edward Jones Mortgage closing in Minn., 214 employees affected

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:07:26 GMT

Edward Jones Mortgage notified the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development that 214 Minnesota workers could lose their jobs.
The St. Louis Park operation will close March 7, according to an employee who answered the phone Wednesday, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reports.
Edward Jones Mortgage, which stopped offering mortgages Jan. 11, is a subsidiary of San Francisco-based Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), according to SEC filings, and a joint venture with St. Louis-based investment firm Edward Jones.

The relentless punishment of the American saver. Fed policy has encouraged spendthrift attitude and yield seeking behavior from Americans.

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:26:33 GMT

How bad have things gotten? High yield bonds (i.e., junk bonds) were yielding something like 20+ percent in 2008. Today they are pulling in 5 percent or what a standard CD was yielding in the early 2000s. Are we really in such a stable market? We are in a period of exuberance and Greenspan can tell us how that went in the early part of the 2000s.

Wells Fargo Retracts Help For Dying Woman, Plans To Foreclose 6 Days Before X-mas

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 16:56:12 GMT

Back in July, Davis's struggle to keep her home after falling behind on her mortgage payments due to her medical bills became a national story. After the media scrutiny, it seemed Wells Fargo had relented on foreclosing on Davis, and the bank even wrote a letter to a local radio station indicating it was seeking "assistance" from nonprofit organizations for her but it appears Wells Fargo has had a change of heart: The bank now has set the foreclosure auction date for Davis's home for Dec. 19, less than a week before Christmas.