ollie plimsolls
-
Posts
248 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by ollie plimsolls
-
-
Couldn't see this posted anywhere.
The US has entered its first full-blown economic recession in 16 years, according to investment bank Merrill Lynch.
Merrill, itself one of Wall Street's biggest casualties of the sub-prime crisis, is the first major bank to declare that a recession in the world's biggest economy is now underway.
David Rosenberg, the bank's chief North American economist, argues that a weakening employment picture and declining retail sales signal the economy has tipped into its first month of recession.
Mr Rosenberg, who is well-respected on Wall Street, argues: "According to our analysis, this [recession] isn't even a forecast any more but is a present day reality."
-
...with a straight face on Marr's show this morning, Brown stated the US have 4% inflation, Europe 3% and the UK 2%.....Marr did not challenge him ..!.is he some kind of Nulabour lap dog.....?.........
I've neverfound him to be impartial? Check out Marr's wife on Wiki too.
-
Just come up on BBC ticker, no link yet.
US mortgage lender Freddie Mac warns of $10bn-$12bn in credit losses. More soon.
-
Phone confusion after Bush error
US homeowners searching for help with their mortgages struggled to get through on a telephone number that President Bush gave them on Thursday.
"I have a message for every homeowner worried about rising mortgage payments: the best you can do for your family is to call 1-800-995-HOPE," he said.
But those who went in search of hope got a busy signal - the president had given them the wrong number.
The number Bush gave was for the Freedom Christian Academy in Texas.
The school phone rang non-stop when Bush gave out the number.
"I've tried my best to give the correct number to these people when they called," the academy's Ms Karen Pulaski told the Dallas Morning News, having spoken to more than 50 people in an hour.
"But it got a little overwhelming because I couldn't do anything except answer these calls."
Ms Pulaski later disconnected the phone.
The correct number, White House aides later told reporters, was 1-888-995-HOPE.
Help at hand
For those that did get the right number, the help on offer could ease the pain of rising rates.
As part of the plan announced last week, rates will be frozen for hundreds of thousands of American homeowners for the next five years.
Banks' willingness to lend money to people with poor credit histories is behind the current credit crisis in the US.
The crisis has not only hit US homeowners but has also had a knock-on effect on the global financial sector.
However, some aid groups have attacked Mr Bush's plans, saying that not enough people will be helped by the voluntary agreement between banks and bondholders.
-
Oh dear.
The housing market is on the brink of a record slump, one of the country's leading experts warned.Morgan Stanley's chief UK economist David Miles warned that prices will drop 10 per cent next year.
That would be the biggest full-year decline since records began in 1969.
A drop on that scale could plunge thousands of people into negative equity and recall the worst days of the recession of the 1990s.
Mr Miles, who has advised Gordon Brown on mortgages, said the pain would not end there, as prices could continue to fall in 2009.
Such a slump would come as yet another blow to the Prime Minister, who has founded his claim to office on his record for economic stability and rising prosperity.
The predicted drop will be caused by a combination of five Bank of England interest rate rises and the turmoil in the banking system which is leading to sharp increases in the cost of borrowing.
Only last week Bank of England governor Mervyn King warned that strains in the finances of major banks will force them to reduce the supply of credit, hammering property values.
The U.S. has already seen widespread property declines and economists there fear a recession is likely.
The latest UK figures bear out a picture of slumping property demand.
Prices dropped at the quickest monthly pace in 12 years in November, Nationwide Building Society figures showed last week.
Mortgage approvals fell to the lowest level since February 2005.
Mr Miles said his prediction for 2008 was a "central best guess" based on positions taken by traders in the financial markets.
But he added: "I don't think house prices falling is in any sense a bad thing. There's a natural tendency for people to view it as bad for the economy, as unhealthy.
"But I don't think that's right. We have a problem of affordability of housing with people struggling to get into the market.
"It sounds like a big number, but if house prices fell 10 per cent in real terms that would take them back to where they were at the end of last year, or even the beginning of this year. It was impossible for house prices to continue to rise at the average rates we have seen."
Property prices have tripled since the early 1990s.
Other forecasters have warned of major declines, but not on the scale Mr Miles predicts.
Capital Economics expects a three per cent reduction next year, while Nationwide believes prices will be flat.
Acting Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable, a former economist, warned yesterday that a downturn in property prices could see many families fall into a negative equity trap, struggling to pay their mortgages and losing their homes.
He said: "The market is very, very, very vulnerable. There are ominous signs the bubble is now about to burst."
Mr Cable laid much of the blame on "irresponsible" lenders handing out "ludicrous" mortgages at up to six times income.
-
The sub-prime buy-to-let mortgage market has virtually collapsed after the summer’s credit crunch with lenders withdrawing almost 90 per cent of deals.
According to Moneyfacts, the price comparison website, more than half of buy-to-let deals for landlords with troubled credit histories have vanished in the past month, sparking fears that many may be forced to sell their investments.
There were 1,383 sub-prime buy-to-let deals available in July. There are now 149. Only four relatively unknown lenders remain in the market: Preferred Mortgages, edeus, Manchester Building Society and Pink, which is funded by The Mortgage Works, Nationwide’s sub-prime specialist arm.
The exodus means that investors who need to remortgage may no longer be offered attractive rates and will be forced to pay the standard variable rate, pushing up their monthly outgoings by hundreds of pounds when rental yields are relatively flat.
Melanie Bien, director of Savills Private Finance, the mortgage broker, said: “Novice landlords might sell up when the going gets tough and if the cost of mortgages rise. Without a similar increase in rents they might not be able to make it pay.
“If they are relatively new to it, they may have large mortgages on their properties and the payments may just be too much.”
-
'According to Moneyfacts, the average interest rate on a £5,000 loan over 3 years taken out in August was 9.11%.'
that's higher than I'd have thought.thre must be more people out there with a bad credit history.
You should have read the article it's even worse.
The next line is:
According to Moneyfacts, the average interest rate on a £5,000 loan over 3 years taken out in August was 9.11%.The average figure for the same loan today is 9.76%. That represents a increase of 0.65 percentage points, despite the Bank of England keeping interest rates on hold during the period.
-
Few houses up for sale in Rodney Street in Hartlepool at £30,000 each if anybody fancies slumming it:
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-162...=1&tr_t=buy
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-162...=1&tr_t=buy
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-162...=1&tr_t=buy
Some of these were compulsory purchased for about £20k a few years ago, when they were going to
knock it down. They decided not to in the end.
Just round the corner from where the Lad urinated on the dying woman (you might have seen it in the national news a few weeks ago).
While we are on the subject of Famous Hartlepudlians;
Does anyone remember the young 10 year old lad who rampaged down the streets in his balaclava on the 9 o'clock news when the BBC came to Hartlepool to video about his joyriding escapades about 15 years ago?
I do, Gareth Brogden. Died aged 18, choked on a heroin filled condom in police custody.
Not sadly missed.
-
BBC is reporting that NR could still owe £6b by 2010.
Northern Rock has won an injunction preventing the further publication of a sales document that was sent to potential bidders for the ailing bank.The memo outlined sales options and showed Northern Rock could still owe £6bn to the Bank of England by 2010.
The document was posted on the Financial Times' Alphaville website and reported on by other newspapers.
Northern Rock had complained that the memo's publication could jeopardise complex talks to save the bank.
Rough outline
The High Court granted a limited injunction preventing further reporting of the memo, but rejected wider curbs.
"The company believes that further speculative reporting based on the illustrative information in the memorandum may jeopardise the complex discussions and negotiations taking place," Northern Rock said.
The bank set a deadline of Friday for all interested parties to submit their proposals for taking over Northern Rock.
BBC business editor Robert Peston said that there were three possible different destinations for the Rock:
* the sale of the whole company
* the sale of the basic physical infrastructure of the business, viz. the branches, information technology and call centre, which might or might not also include Northern Rock's £13.5bn of retail deposits and matching assets
* the sale of the infrastructure plus all those securitised mortgages, leaving behind a rump of assets and liabilities for orderly run-off
-
Major banks on both sides of the Atlantic are braced for more heavy losses this year because of their exposure to the deepening subprime and credit crisis.
In the UK banks including Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC are facing "major trading losses".
In the US, large major banks and brokerages will suffer additional writedowns of more than $10 billion in the fourth quarter as deteriorating credit trends continue to undercut the value of subprime mortgages and related securities
Analysts at Goldman Sachs predicted today that profits at Barclays Capital, the UK bank's debt focused investment bank, will tumble 40 per cent year-on-year to just £583 million in the second half.
-
The turmoil in world financial markets could lead to a severe economic downturn in the UK, the Bank of England's top economist warned yesterday.
In a City of London speech, Charlie Bean said events such as the run on Northern Rock had the potential to significantly damage the economy.
It is "possible to envisage a sequence of events that generate a greater or more prolonged contractionary impact," he said.
He conceded, however, that the impact of the so-called "credit crunch" could still be quite mild.
The crisis in the U.S. property market has prompted global banks to rein in lending, leading to fears of a sharp global slowdown.
Mr Bean said the UK economy is starting from a "strong position" but that could easily change.
No bankers foresaw the dramatic chain of events that led to the sharp stockmarket declines over the summer and Britain's first bank run for over a century, he said.
Banks have been attempting to conserve cash as a result, which could squeeze household finances and lead to a softening in the outlook for growth, Mr Bean warned.
If households have to save more and borrow less, this could see less spending in the shops and a slower economy.
-
House prices have fallen for the first time in two years.
The downturn comes after months of declining sales and increasing uncertainty among buyers.
The value of the most expensive homes is cooling most quickly, with larger falls hitting wealthy parts of London, Hampshire, Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire.
-
The Chancellor rebuked mortgage lenders yesterday for fuelling an 'unsustainable' boom in house prices.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Alistair Darling said banks and building societies must be more responsible with their lending.
Predicting a 'slowdown' in the property market, he urged them to be more cautious about how much they lend and take more account of whether the borrower is able to pay back the loan.
Does this make it official now?
-
There was a similar scam in my area a few years ago. A group called Practical Property Portfolio (PPP) were selling the same kind of houses to the same kind of people with the guarantee of 15% returns based on HB tenants. The figures didn't stack up even in the early 2000s but for the last couple of years investors have been buying some of the same houses as BTL except now they are paying £50k - 60k for properties that couldn't make money at £10k - £15k. These properties have passed their peak and are now static/sliding so I expect some blood to be spilled before this finishes.
-
The crisis in the troubled US sub-prime mortgage market has sent Swiss investment banking giant UBS tumbling to its first quarterly loss in almost a decade and prompted sweeping changes to senior management and significant job losses.
In a trading update, the Swiss lender said it will record a loss of up to SFr800m (£340m) for the third quarter thanks to "substantial losses" on investments relating to sub-prime mortgage assets.
It said that about 1500 employees will be made redundant by the end of the year.
-
Bank of England to prop up Northern Rock
Here is the FT take on the story. A bail out as far as they are concerned.
The Bank of England will on Friday step in to bail out Northern Rock by providing emergency funding to the beleaguered mortgage lender which has fallen victim to the liquidity squeeze in the banking sector.In a highly unusual move, the Bank, working with the Financial Services Authority and the Treasury, will prop up Northern Rock by giving it short term credit which will allow to carry on operating.
It is the most dramatic development to date in the UK banking market since the financial sector was hit by a wave of market turmoil during the summer which has paralysed money markets.
-
Nothern Rock ask for Bank help
One of the UK's largest mortgage lenders, the Northern Rock, is applying to the Bank of England for emergency financial support, the BBC has learned.However this does not mean that the bank is in danger of going bust, the BBC Business Editor Robert Peston says.
There was no reason for people with Northern Rock savings accounts to panic, he added.
The bank has struggled to raise money to finance its lending ever since money markets seized up over the summer.
The decision for the Bank of England to become the "lender of last resort" comes after consultation with the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority.
However the disclosure is expected to rock financial markets, Mr Peston said.
-
Check it out tomorrow - unfortunately I missed which paper, but its FRONT PAGE NEWS!!!!
Also Alistair Darling: Banks Should Return to Old Lending Practices - FRONT PAGE NEWS
The Darling story is in the Times and the 'We Cant Control Mortgage Rates' is what is going to face Daily Mail readers over breakfast.
-
Just been looking at the UK Extended Swap Rates on this site and I noticed that the graphs have been recalibrated, where they used to go up to 7% they now goes up to 9%. Is there something they aren't telling us?
-
The cost of getting on to the housing ladder has risen to near record levels, thanks to soaring house prices and five increases in interest rates over the last year, a report said yesterday.
A deposit and stamp duty would have taken up 21 per cent of a first-time buyer's annual salary 11 years ago.
The figure now stands at 90 per cent, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
-
Surely the Fed wont be able to cut IR with these figures.
The US economy grew 4% in the second quarter of the year, a much stronger performance than first thought.Revised figures from the Commerce Department showed the economy fared much better than its initial forecast of 3.4% growth between April and June.
The rise, eclipsing the 0.6% growth seen between January and March, was due mainly to strong business investment.
But analysts believe the credit worries caused by the US housing slump will limit growth for the rest of 2007.
-
The number of home repossessions in the US soared in July, figures suggest, underlining the woes facing the sector.
There was a 93% jump in filings for repossessions on the same month a year ago, and a 9% rise on June's figure, property firm RealtyTrac said.
-
Consumer spending will "slow sharply" in the second half of this year as the effects of five interest rate hikes in the past year finally begin to be felt, according to a new report from Morgan Stanley.
The investment bank believes that the proliferation of fixed-rate mortgages has been limiting the impact of rising borrowing rates up until now.
Graham Secker, a strategist at Morgan Stanley, explained that British consumers are "yet to feel any significant impact from higher rates due to the increasing popularity of fixed-rate mortgages in the last couple of years"
advertisement
Seventy percent of mortgages are now fixed-rate compared to only 20pc five years ago, according to Morgan Stanley estimates.
But two million people are likely to come off fixed-rate mortgages in the second half of the year, leading to a tightening of purse strings as they have to re-mortgage their houses at much higher rates.
Mr Secker pointed out: "We first identified the two year re-mortgaging cycle in the summer of 2005 when consumers who had taken advantage of the very cheap two-year fixed rate deals in mid-2003 had to re-mortgage at interest rates that were as much as 30pc higher."
As consumers were forced to increase their mortgage payments, they cut back on discretionary spending and retail sales growth fell from 7.2pc in May 2004 to 0.9pc in May 2005.
The impact this year is likely to be greater than that seen in 2005, with sales growth slowing to near zero in the fourth quarter. As a result, Morgan Stanley is advising its clients to sell shares in consumer-oriented companies, which will bear the brunt of the slowdown.
-
Oh dear, this could end badly.
China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar salesBy Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 6:00pm BST 07/08/2007
The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.
Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.
Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.
It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.
Us Gdp Growth At 0.6 %
in House prices and the economy
Posted
BBC Link