posted by Bill Coppedge

Totally cool interactive map at USA Today  - IS Your State In A Recession?  -  USA Today

————
Freddie Mac announced that its Conventional Mortgage Home Price Index Classic Series registered a 0.5 percent drop in U.S. home values during the fourth quarter of 2007 on an annualized basis, up from a revised third quarter 2007 annualized rate of -1.5 percent and the first consecutive quarters of decline since 1982. -  Originator Times

————
Paper: Credit fundamentals, ratings and value-at-risk: CDOs versus corporate exposures - thanks Ira Artman -  BIS.org

————
WSJ Opinion piece: Some Mortgages Should Fail - TERRY COUTO  - Newbold Advisors - WSJ 

————

Picture du Jour: Yield curve points the way for stocks - Posted by Prieur du Plessis - Investment Postcards from Cape Town 
————
What a surprise! - Realtors Want Permanent Increase to National Conforming Loan Limit - housingwire 

————
TEMPORARY CONFORMING LOAN LIMITS RELEASED FOR HIGH COST AREAS -  There are two data sources reflecting the new maximum limits. The first, on OFHEO’s Web site, available at ww.ofheo.gov/media/hpi/AREA_LIST.pdf, reports only those counties and Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) that are affected by the new loan limits. Data for all areas are available on the HUD Web site
————
There’s no such thing as a standard deviation - Nick Murray - thanks Ira Artman - Financial Advisor

————

Slump to spawn bank mergers? -  Lesley Mitchell -  The national economic downturn probably will prompt a spate of banking mergers, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Wednesday. … - Salt Lake Tribune 

————
Citi To Scale Back Mortgage Operations To Free Up Capital - .. The bank said Thursday it plans to reduce its $200 billion portfolio of mortgage loans by about 20% over the next year and afterwards will focus its underwriting on loans that can be sold on to other investors. … Citigroup will aim to sell or convert into securities 90% of the mortgage loans it makes in the future, up from 65% now. … Money CNN 

————
Could Wachovia’s deals in 2007 have been any more wrong-headed? Gary Townsend doesn’t think so. That $2.56 annual dividend isn’t likely to last. - BankStocks.com 

————
Regulators Push the Banks - Seek Outside Capital, Market Officials Urge, And WaMu Is Doing So -    WSJ

————
1.  U.S. January Pending Home Sales Show Demand Stabilizing - …. the report only shows that demand conditions have stabilized for the moment, but there is no way of knowing whether that stability will last.   … - CEP News 
2.  Pending Home Sales Down 19.6% - The hallucinogenic spin-meisters over at the National Association of Realtors are once again, misstating what their own data indicates …  -  The Big Picture

————

A Year-End Financial Checkup of Households -  Asha G. Bangalore - The Fed published Flow of Funds data for the fourth quarter of 2007 today. A preliminary reading of data indicates no improvement in the already well known fact that households in the U.S. have a shaky financial status. … Will households continue to spend?   … -   Northern Trust 

————
Yellen: Fed faces unpleasant mix on prices, growth - Reuters 

————
Mark-To- Market Backlash?? - Matt Stichnoth -  BankStocks.com blog

1) In his latest letter to shareholders, Marty Whitman says the notion that prices determined via marks to market always deserve 100% weighting is “arrant nonsense.”
2) Holman Jenkins writes in yesterday’s WSJ ($) that “‘[M]ark to market,’ an accounting and regulatory innovation of the early 1990s, has proved another one of Washington’s fabulous failures
3) Christopher Whalen, co founder of Institutional Risk Analytics, argues in the FT today that, “Given that most securities and loans do not have liquid, actively traded markets, it seems fair to ask: why did the US adopt the fair value accounting standard in the first instance?