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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (110078)	3/14/2008 5:02:16 PM
From: Perspective	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Pretty amazing somebody hasn't leaned on NBER yet to STFU. What'll we do if guys in his position start speaking the truth? <s> Got recognition wave coming? And I'm still so hedged that my net exposure is down to about 20%, from 50% most times, and a high of 80% earlier in the year. WTF am I doing... biz.yahoo.com Reuters U.S. faces severe recession: NBER's Feldstein Friday March 14, 10:55 am ET By Ros Krasny BOCA RATON, Florida (Reuters) - The United States is in a recession that could be "substantially more severe" than recent ones, National Bureau of Economic Research President Martin Feldstein said on Friday. ADVERTISEMENT "The situation is very bad, the situation is getting worse, and the risks are that it could get very bad," Feldstein said in a speech at the Futures Industry Association meeting in Boca Raton, Florida. "There's no doubt that this year and next year are going to be very difficult years." NBER is a private sector group that is considered the arbiter of U.S. business cycles. Feldstein is also a Harvard economics professor and former economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan. Answering questions from the audience, Feldstein said the downturn could be the worst in the United States since World War Two. Feldstein said the federal funds rate, the Federal Reserve's benchmark lending rate, is headed down to 2 percent from the current 3 percent. He added that lower rates from the Fed would not have the same impact in the current downturn, in terms of reviving economic activity. "There isn't much traction in monetary policy these days, I'm afraid, because of a lack of liquidity in the credit markets," he said. The Federal Open Market Committee meets on Tuesday to consider its next step on interest rates. Financial markets currently look for a rate cut of 75 basis points, to 2.25 percent, with a moderate chance rates will be slashed 100 basis points. The Fed's huge new credit facility, announced on Tuesday, "can help in a rather small way ... but the underlying risks will remain with the institutions that borrow from the Fed, and this does nothing to change their capital," Feldstein noted. Feldstein said the combination of monetary and fiscal stimulus and the falling dollar "will help to dampen the magnitude of the downturn but won't be enough to sustain an expansion." "The housing situation is getting worse by the day," he noted, as more and more houses drop below 100 percent loan-to-value ratios, encouraging homeowners to walk away from their properties. More broadly, in global credit markets, "there is a lack of confidence leading to a lack of liquidity ... without credit creation, we can't have economic growth," Feldstein said. Feldstein noted "powerful forces (that) will continue to drive inflation higher." And while inflation expectations are still relatively well contained, "you wonder how long that's going to last," he said. `BC

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (110078)	3/14/2008 5:13:17 PM
From: Perspective	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 306849

Is there a Commercial Real Estate Crash Index thread yet? Man, reading this Mish post makes me think I need to start leaning against the sector heavily - it's a month old, but still relevant: minyanville.com Rob Plaza, Senior Equity Analyst for retail stocks at Zacks Investment Research: ... For the next decade, retailers are not going to have to open a brand new store because there's going to be so many empty ones that need to be filled." Store Closings * Movie Gallery closing another 400 stores * Charming Shoppes (CHRS) closing 150 stores and cutting expansion plans by 50% * Starbucks (SBUX) closing 100 stores and slowing expansion plans by 34% * Ann Taylor (ANN) shuttering 117 stores and slowing store growth * Boston Market evaluating its real estate opportunities * Buffet Holdings sorting out its underperformers * Sprint Nextel (S) closing 125 stores and 4,000 distribution points * Cost Plus World Market closing 18 stores * Liz Claiborne (LIZ) closing 54 Sigrid Olsen stores * New York & Company (NWY) axing the Jasmine Sola brand and its 32 stores * Ethan Allen (ETH) closing 12 stores * PacSun (PSUN) closing all of its 173 demo stores * Talbots (TLB) exiting its kids and men's lines through closure of 78 stores * Rite Aid (RAD) exiting Nevada by closing 28 stores * Macy's (M) closing nine stores * Krispy Kreme (KKD) expecting many franchisees to close stores * Kirkland's Home (KIRK) likely closing 130 stores * CompUSA's remaining 103 stores being disposed of. * Rent-A-Center (RCII) closing 280 stores * Sofa Express closing 44 stores in bankruptcy * 84 Lumber closing 12 stores * Home Depot (HD) closings some call centers * Levitz Furniture disposing of 76 stores in bankruptcy * Pep Boys (PBY) closing 31 stores * Lifetime Brands (LCUT) closing 30 stores * Big A Drugs liquidating its 21 stores `BC