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

To: ChanceIs who wrote (225942)	10/24/2009 11:35:08 AM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 306849

now the long slow grinding bear takes over There is a reason it is called a grinding bear, it usually grinds up bears. The first really great profit I ever made on a trade was back after the last banking crisis, going long some banks that weren't suppose to make it. Clearly the Fed has picked winners and Citi is on the list. Shorting sectors that have taken 50-90% haircuts already are usually crowded trades. The Japanese banking sector has been comatose for close to 15 years, how much would you have made shorting it after the initial plunge? I'm sure your source on the Citi card situation is correct but my experience contradicts his. Between me and my husband we have 4 Citi CCs and not one has an interest rate at 30%. The highest is on a card that I use as a convenience card, which means I never pay interest, so I don't care about the rate. It is 25.94% and anyone who pays that kind of interest on a CC needs to sit down and listen to my lecture on the proper use of credit.Clearly they want to catch a few convenience users with that punishing interest rate. The others are 15.24 - 13.75% and for those cards I routinely get offers of 0, 1.9 and 2.9% transfer rates (some with terms for over a year) with a 3% up front fee. I just got one yesterday (keeps my shredder busy). That up front transfer rate also bumps you up to 30% in the first month (always did) which is one of the reasons I tell people don't use a transfer unless they are going to use the entire term and put the card on auto-pay. The best deal is to wait for those zero fee transfers that inevitably fall through the slot. BTW I was referring to banks not GSEs. Clearly Freddie and Fannie equity holders are going to get wiped out (that would be all of us via the Federal government).