Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | Percent | |
| S&P Futures | 1344.3 | -4.8 | -0.36% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2486.5 | -5.1 | -0.20% |
| Oil (WTI) | 101.08 | 0.2 | 0.17% |
| LIBOR | 0.4976 | -0.005 | -0.99% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 79.279 | 0.144 | 0.18% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 1.94% | -0.03% |
Markets are a touch weaker after a disappointing retail sales number. Advance retail sales for January were up .4% vs. expectations of .8%. S&P futures sold off slightly on the number while bonds and mortgage backed securities rallied. For those who follow charts, the S&P is right up against resistance at the 1350 level. If we break through, the next stop is 1600 or so.
European markets are flat in spite of Moody’s downgrades of Spain, Portugal, and Italy yesterday. The ratings agencies have been behind the curve for the whole crisis. European finance ministers are set to meet in Brussels tomorrow to approve a second Greek bailout.
Andrew Ross Sorkin has a good article on the Volcker Rule and the Costs of Good Intentions. At issue is where one draws the line between bona fide market making and proprietary trading. Bona Fide market making serves a purpose in that it keeps trading costs down and adds liquidity to the market. (FWIW, Paul Volcker doesn’t necessarily think this is a good thing). The crux of the issue is whether investment banks will be allowed to maintain an inventory of product. If they aren’t permitted to maintain any inventory of any size, then all trades will be agency trades. In other words, if the bank can’t find the other side of your trade, you’re out of luck.
The CFPB has laid out a broad outline of some of the changes it expects to make for mortgage servicers. The initial steps will involve changes to billing statements – new rules to make it clearer when resets will occur, better contact information, and a statement from HUD. An example of the new template is here. The rules will also address forced-place insurance, where servicers can put a homeowner in a new, more expensive insurance plan if they fall behind in their payments.
Does anyone find it ironic that the rule which sets new tax rates on dividends is named after a guy who’s company doesn’t pay them?
Filed under: Big Banks, Economic data, Morning Report, TBTF | Tagged: Buffett Tax |
All Things in Moderation 
mark and nova:
One last beating of that horse carcass. Yesterday from the Daily Best, through Fred Hiatt voicebox Jennifer Rubin:
“Obama’s advisers most concerned about the economy, for instance, have been at odds with allies in Congress most focused on preventing Iran from going nuclear. (It would take much less than an oil crisis to restoke panic about Greece and other feeble European economies.) Israel’s national interests are not always in line with Washington’s. And a messy war—or perceived weakness on Iran—could tip the election for the Republicans in November. . . .”
Ok, I promise I’m moving on.
LikeLike
Brent–
I’ve been meaning for a couple of weeks to thank you for the Morning Report. John/banned advised me a few months ago to spend 10 minutes/day getting financial reports in order to learn the language and be able to decipher what I was hearing. As soon as you started posting, I started learning more than I ever did at the other sites–thanks for making it so easy! 🙂
LikeLike
yes, brent thanks from me as well for the selflessness involved.
LikeLike
An extraordinary report. I will try to read the links tonight. Thanks.
LikeLike
So yesterday I received a nice check from my mortgage company with a relatively worthless explanation why they owed me the money. I don’t have the letter with me but they essentially said they messed up on my HUD1 statement and owe me money. I’m guessing they figured this out now because of tax season, but should I just take the money and be happy or try to figure out if there were mistakes elsewhere? Is this sort of thing common?
LikeLike
Ashot, the Title Company prepared the HUD form. They got their input from the lender. Talk to your closing officer and ask her/him if anything on the HUD looks “out-of-line”. If the closing officer you had was inexperienced, asked to talk to someone senior.
Your realtor knows nothing, more than likely.
LikeLike
Mark and John,
Thanks for the advice. I though my closing officer was an utter idiot and this just confirms it. I’m going to contact the lender and have someone more senior go over it with me.
LikeLike
Ash
This is a your new home purchase, correct?
LikeLike
John- Well, we closed last January, but yes it’s my new home purchase.
LikeLike
Thanks for the kind words, guys.
LikeLike
ash:
I looked for info on frequency etc. but came up dry. I would suggest that perhaps you could ask the real estate agent involved to look it over with you and see if there might be other errors.
LikeLike
Brent, as I understand it, there is a huge difference between sand oil and shale oil.
The tar sands produce gook, heavy dirty crude, that must be heated to transport in a pipeline. But fracturing shale, as in ND, right now, produces light sweet crude.
The Bakken is opening wide, no doubt. And the Permian Basin [Midland-Odessa] is producing about 45% of America’s crude – it’s booming. And other oil fields in TX are reopening. Luling, 45 mi. from Austin, reeks of petroleum and the pump jacks are pumpin’ again. Also, in the middle of that huge wind farm of 2000+ generators outside Sweetwater, the pumpjacks are seesawing again.
I think you are right – that petro independence is visible on the horizon.
Now for that infamous pipeline: There are more than 50K of pipelines in America and I think more than 10K under the Ogalalla Aquifer. The Trans-Canada company has made most of its TX deals with landowners, but maybe a hundred or so are fighting them and forcing eminent domain proceedings. We have always treated pipeline companies as having eminent domain rights in TX – this should not surprise you. However, the TX Supremes stunned everyone, so that after the reaction to Kelo led to restrictive eminent domain laws, a landowner beat a pipeline company on the theory of no governmental public purpose. So a bunch of landowners are also making that defensive claim against Trans-Canada, a “foreign” company. I predict the suits will settle in time for the pipeline to be laid after the election, and I bet that some of gamble on postponing the authorization of the pipeline was based on the timing of various court proceedings like the ones in TX.
LikeLike
Completely off topic, this review of my son-in-law’s book from “Historical Novel Review”:
I, JUDAS
James Reich, Soft Skull, 2011, $15.95/C$18.50, pb, 224pp, 9781593764210
As Taliban fundamentalists dynamited the Bamiyan Buddhas, with this book Reich blows up the Gospels. How can I, Judas possibly be described for the innocent? (And if you haven’t read it, you are innocent. Yeats’ “Second Coming” is so optimistic in comparison.) Romanian/New Orleans poet Andrei Codrescu wrote for I, Judas’s cover blurb: “This one’ll have you clenched in a fetal position for a century, relieved only by the occasional orgasms of its mellifluous prose. You have to be strong to read this book: it rains fireballs.”
It is the story of Judas, who pops up throughout the centuries like a bloody Forrest Gump, always being betrayed and betraying. He’s with JFK, Oswald, and Ruby in Dallas, where “jackals careened about the passenger door. Scarlet broth ran down her sunglasses. His back brace held him corseted to his cross, and the shot pealed again.” Judas tells us, “I slept rough in the red light district of Jerusalem and was often overwrought with nostalgia born of suffering. Scripture is nostalgia, and Judea was addicted to it.” The entire Holy Family is greasy and fallen in these pages: Jesus’s father was content to make crosses for the Romans because there was a chance that he might make the instrument of the death of his wife’s lover.
Don’t even think about turning to this book for a cozy evening’s read. Yet Reich writes beautifully – I sometimes felt as though I was being sucked into a gruesome enchantment. It gave me a new and personal understanding of that old-fashioned word blasphemous. It is not, however, historical fiction. I’d recommend it instead for readers with a soft spot for iconoclastic and brutal prose poetry.
Kristen Hannum
LikeLike
OT: DC is treated poorly in a lot of respects by the federal government. A lot of times you’ll have an abortion and/or gun rider on a appropriations bill and the local Dems and their congressional allies will go apoplectic. I’m curious as to the reaction re: POTUS’ budget, which zeros out funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which is a school voucher program. This happens every year and the Obama administration basically gives the finger to poor black kids. Rather they all rot in DC schools and throw some of them a lifeline.
LikeLike
“European finance ministers are set to meet in Brussels tomorrow to approve a second Greek bailout.”
Looks like this isn’t happening. What odds do our resident experts give that this is the big blow up?
“Eurozone meeting on Greece called off after Athens fails to meet demands in time
By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, February 14, 12:53 PM
BRUSSELS — The head of the Eurogroup, a gathering of eurozone finance ministers, says he has canceled a meeting on Greece’s bailout planned for Wednesday as Athens did not fulfill all the demands.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/markets/official-push-to-reduce-40-billion-sweetener-in-greek-bond-swap-likely-to-fail/2012/02/14/gIQANlosCR_story.html?hpid=z2
LikeLike
ash:
mark’s advice was better than mine, but you’ll have to make an appt. to see the actual closing attorney because he won’t want to talk to you for free. LOL even though you should demand it. These days your lender migth not be available because of all the new refi’s going on. good luck.
LikeLike
jnc:
This makes abundant sense to me:
“Does Germany Want Greece to Default?”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46382809
LikeLike
Large issues, that inevitably lead me back to the commodities market:
“Global suicide 2020: We can’t feed 10 billion”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/global-suicide-2020-we-cant-feed-10-billion-2012-02-14?link=MW_popular
LikeLike
john, when Yellowstone blows again the entire plains will be under ten feet of potash from Texas to Saskatchewan. That will solve the potassium problem and probably thin the worldwide population to fishing villages, after two years without crops in the northern hemisphere.
Seriously, I don’t buy the Malthusian implications for several reasons.
1] We will have the fertilizers and petrochemicals. And we are not running out of potash any time in our lifetimes.
2] The uncontrolled growth in population will be stymied by regional starvation, if not self regulated.
3] The northern hemisphere plus Australia-NZ are not in uncontrolled pop growth mode. Argentina/Brazil/Chile will figure it out, despite the RC Church.
LikeLike
Solyent Green + Logan’s Run = problem solved.
LikeLike
mark;
I am not specifically endorsing just showing it as interesting reading. Obviously Grantham is one of a long line of doom predictors.
LikeLike
The benefits of Super-PAC’s in terms of fostering a competitive race and transparency.
“Why Super PACs Are Good for Democracy
They’ve made the race for the White House a lot more fair.
By David Weigel
Posted Monday, Feb. 13, 2012, at 7:58 PM ET”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/02/super_pacs_are_making_the_presidential_election_more_competitive_transparent_and_fair_.html
LikeLike
The real “problem” if we want to think of it strictly in demographic terms is that people are not dying on a large enough scale at an early enough age, because of medical advances. If anything were to fuel “this time it’s different” speculation, I believe it would be that.
LikeLike
My over/under on peak world population is 12 billion in 2100.
LikeLike
@NoVa – It’ll never happen, but it seems quite workable to take the residential portions of DC and create Columbia County, Maryland. Maryland picks up an extra seat in the House and it seems reasonable to make some guarantees that there will be one seat represented exclusively by Columbians.
The District of Columbia then consists of the roughly the area from Independence Ave. north to Pennsylvania, encompassing the National Mall, the White House, and the Capitol. No need for a constitutional amendment granting the District statehood (which will never happen). In 50 years, no one will notice the difference. Residents of Arlington and (parts of) Alexandria don’t seem to mind that they live in what was once part of DC.
BB
LikeLike
Include the Supreme’s building in the improved DC.
LikeLike
And the Library of Congress, of course.
LikeLike
And Foggy Bottom?
LikeLike
on of the issues with DC retrocession into Maryland is the constitutional issues re: the 23rd amendment.
but the legislation that would do it details the boundaries by street
http://www.dcwatch.com/issues/voting02.htm
LikeLike