The Great Credit Contraction of 2007
What is the inter-relationship between Housing, LBOs & Stock Buybacks? Last month, I noted 6 reasons why rising yields were a threat...
What’s in Your Money Market ?
Interesting chart from Mike Panzner of an "enhanced money market fund" that — allegedly — used subprime-related...
Brief Foreclosure History & Mortgage Delinquency Maps
A very short history of how we got here: All of the turmoil in the CDO, hedge fund, and subprime space has come about due to a very...
“Right now things are starting to come unglued”
That’s a quote from Charles Gradante of hedge-fund consultant Hennessee Group. The only question is how far this thing is going to...
Borrowing & Spending
We recently looked at how Retail was doing. Given the noise yesterday from Home Depot (HD) and Sears Holdings (SHLD), warning about poor...
Underwater ARMs ?
How bad is the Adustable Rate Mortage (ARM) situation? Stephanie Pomboy via Barron’s Alan Abelson has the straight dope: ...
10 Questions About CDOs
James Hamilton at Econbrowser asks the remarkably sanguine question: CDOs: what’s the big deal? He does a nice job looking at many...
CDO Hedge Funds = Enron ?
Last night’s discussion of the Bear Stearn’s Hedge Fund melt down was remarkably sanguine. I guess to those who look at the...
Read it here first: Borrowing FICO Scores
Back in April, we discussed the unusual lending-related practice of "borrowing" someone else’s credit-worthiness. (Go...
Pressure on Home Prices ?
One of the themes TBP has developed over the years was that of the Slow-Motion-Slow-Down: As rates ticked higher, home sales would slow,...