Hi Barry, John, and Thread, INTC 14.63
This is getting a tad painful, wouldn't you say?
Book value $5.3
Real estate bubble is breaking. Things do appear to be heading towards a double dip. There's an unfortunately high number of people that have over-leveraged themselves. I heard the banks were letting folks borrow more than 100% for their homes. (Banks used to be very picky about how they would loan money - I seem to recall my parents saying a person had to have at least 25% down, and even then banks were known to say no sometimes. Today, banks take anyone with a pulse.)
When the RE leg falls, I think there's going to be some trouble. Delinquency rates on RE were at a 30 year high in VA last month (they have only been recording these for 30 years, so it's the highest on record).
I wonder what the exposure is on mortgages in the US that could default and how future foreclosures will impact the overall economy, banks, insurance companies, etc. I noticed NYLIC has $7.5B on their books as mortgage loans. They also have $1.2B of unrealized debt. They would have made a loss if they realized this and didn't put on the handful of misc revenue. And they are the best of the bunch too, a top financially rated (by Weiss) firm. How does Fannie Mae and F-Mac absorb a lot of potential future foreclosures?
Where's Mary? Would love to hear her thoughts & vision on the future. The world economy is soft. The only strong economy at the moment seems to be China. ( It used to be that folks in Hong Kong would get the jobs, but now they need to move to mainland China. Lots of companies have moved to Shanghai where the labor is 30% less than HK. )
Regards,
Amy J |
