Morning Report: Quicken IPO prices below expectations

Posted on August 6, 2020 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

 

Last Change
S&P futures 3315 -3.6
Oil (WTI) 42.53 -0.52
10 year government bond yield 0.52%
30 year fixed rate mortgage 2.85%

 

Stocks are lower this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are up.

 

Initial Jobless Claims fell to 1.1 million last week from 1.4 million the week before. Claims are going in the right direction, but claims over 1 million are still super high.

 

Congress is still negotiating a second relief package. Supposedly the two sides are “trillions of dollars off.” The sticking point is size and the target. Democrats want something along the lines of the initial $3.4 trillion plan, including $1 trillion for state and local governments (read deep blue states and cities). Republicans want something much smaller, and have little interest in bailing out places like Portland, Seattle, and New York City.

 

Goldman is out with a call this morning that a COVID vaccine could upend the bond markets and cause a rotation out of stocks. FWIW, I don’t see how the bond market can fall off without the Fed ending purchases and a resurgence of inflation. We are certainly seeing anecdotal evidence of inflation, but nothing yet that shows up in the numbers.

 

Quicken’s IPO Rocket Mortgage (RKT) priced yesterday at $18 per share. The company will sell 100 million shares at that price This was below the initial price talk of 150 MM shares at $20 – $22 a share. I am not sure when it will open for trading. After the IPO CEO Dan Gilbert will control 79% of the vote.

 

Zillow is back to Zillow Offers in 24 markets. This is where Zillow will buy your house, fix it up for sale and then sell it. The company recently teamed up with homebuilder D.R. Horton to buy the existing homes of people who buy a new one.

 

Mortgage credit increased in July according to the MBA. “Credit availability rose slightly in July – the first increase in eight months – as the supply of certain types of adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) and jumbo loans increased. The improvement was more of a leveling off from the precipitous drop earlier this spring. Credit availability is still over 30 percent lower than a year ago and near its lowest level since 2014,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “The July data signals that lenders saw conditions improve this summer, as forbearance requests flattened, and record-low mortgage rates spurred strong levels of purchase and refinance activity.”

Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |

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26 Responses

  1. markinaustin, on August 6, 2020 at 10:31 am said:

    Republicans want something much smaller, and have little interest in bailing out places like Portland, Seattle, and New York City.

    Owning the libs has taken on a new life, when it also means that to do so AZ, TX, and FL get no aid in the process.

    Better none than all?

    Assuming that landlords skew to the right a bit [this may not be true and it may not be true that tenants skew left, either, but it used to be true] a “moratorium” on evictions without accompanying aid that permits full rent payment in low rent areas and at least some rent to be paid even in high rent areas will quickly lead to unrest among a bunch of people who skew to the right a bit. So that won’t happen. There won’t be a nationwide rent moratorium without an aid package like the expired one.

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  2. jnc4p, on August 6, 2020 at 11:14 am said:

    So presumably the AG of Texas will be going after Planned Parenthood next.

    “New York attorney general seeks to dissolve NRA in suit accusing gun rights group of wide-ranging fraud and self-dealing”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nra-lapierre-ny-attorney-general/2020/08/06/8e389794-d794-11ea-930e-d88518c57dcc_story.html

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    • markinaustin, on August 6, 2020 at 12:08 pm said:

      I hope he does if there is evidence of massive self dealing.

      Otherwise it would be just BS, right?

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      • Brent Nyitray, on August 6, 2020 at 12:10 pm said:

        It is new york. I don’t think rules apply if the target is not politically approved.

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        • jnc4p, on August 6, 2020 at 12:42 pm said:

          “It is new york.”

          They were stupid to not have moved their registration to another state years ago.

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        • novahockey, on August 6, 2020 at 3:24 pm said:

          the headquarters is not even 5 miles from my house. I just assumed they were in VA.

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      • jnc4p, on August 6, 2020 at 12:42 pm said:

        It’s BS now. It’s not about fraud, it’s about destroying her political enemies. She declared the NRA a “terrorist organization” when she was campaigning before an investigation had even started.

        This is evident in the way that she is asking for the NRA as an organization to be disbanded as a remedy for fraud on the part of La Pierre and others.

        This is probably the one thing that can get me to vote for Trump. I don’t view this as a good faith prosecution at all.

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        • markinaustin, on August 6, 2020 at 1:05 pm said:

          Yes, I don’t get the “disbanding”. A legit response to a non-profit that has been raided is to put it into receivership for its finances, while the members elect a new and independent board.

          I had actually missed the disbanding until you just pointed it out, having heard a news story that listed all of the officer theft and tax evasion and high living.

          Someone [Ollie North, perhaps] should lead a class action on behalf of the members for receivership pending prosecution. I think it would be cheaper and more effective in state court than in bankruptcy court. Joe?

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        • markinaustin, on August 6, 2020 at 1:11 pm said:

          Many years ago I was appointed receiver for a limited partnership that owned an office building. The investors in the office building – the LPs who were being snookered – were mainly lawyer friends of mine. I never did so much work for so little compensation nor did I ever field as many phone calls from one set of “clients” every morning and every afternoon. I tracked down about 35% of the stolen cash, and was castigated for not finding more. The GP had mainly spent his ill gotten gains on coke, so it was gonna be hard to retrieve.

          But somebody would do this for NRA and the AG could butt out of all but the officer theft and tax evasion.

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        • jnc4p, on August 6, 2020 at 1:13 pm said:

          “Yes, I don’t get the “disbanding””

          The goal isn’t to remedy the fraud on behalf of the NRA’s members (presumably the aggrieved parties, along with the government for misuse of the non-profit status to avoid taxes).

          It’s to destroy the NRA as a political organization with fraud as the pretext.

          Once you dispense with a good faith presumption, it’s clear.

          Of course the NRA was stupid for not self policing better and for also staying in hostile territory, but it’s not about good non-profit governance.

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        • markinaustin, on August 6, 2020 at 2:34 pm said:

          Understood. I am trying to suggest the best legal maneuver – one courts approve of – to counter any “disbanding” argument based on officer malfeasance. I got my NRA merit badge in Boy Scouts in 1957, an important footnote to history.

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        • markinaustin, on August 7, 2020 at 8:00 am said:

          I think they have a point but the remedy may be the wrong way to go. NY AG can legitimately argue that NRA worked outside its charter and violated its exemption, at least in NY. But her political motive would be irrelevant to whether or not there were clear violations.

          It is relevant to the remedy. Leaving legal control in the members, putting finances into receivership where the receiver collects as much as possible back from the thieving officers and employees, giving members a chance to right the ship with officers of their choosing is the remedy the members should seek. I suspect this countersuit is all LaPierre, and what is really needed to protect NRA is the analog to a derivative suit by the members.

          Caveat: the article does not tell what remedy is sought – I just think if it were a receivership or reorganization instigated by the members Federalist would have reported it as such.

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  3. Michigoose, on August 7, 2020 at 5:33 am said:

    @NoVA: If you’re still interested in giving feedback, I’ve finally got a link to my student’s BroadStreet covid-19 policy proposal. Here ’tis:

    https://staging.covid19dataproject.org/data-policy-project/

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  4. ScottC, on August 7, 2020 at 8:50 am said:

    Interesting look at George Floyd’s death.

    https://spectator.org/george-floyd-death-toxicology-report/

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  5. jnc4p, on August 7, 2020 at 1:21 pm said:

    Yep:

    Liked by 1 person

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  6. jnc4p, on August 7, 2020 at 1:37 pm said:

    Good read from NoVA:

    “College-Educated Professionals Are Capitalism’s Useful Idiots

    How I got co-opted into helping the rich prevail at the expense of everybody else

    Kurt Andersen
    Author of Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History”

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/i-was-useful-idiot-capitalism/615031/

    Disregard the title, it’s actually an interesting history especially the tidbits about labor relations at the Washington Post:

    “In 1975 the 200 pressmen wouldn’t come to terms and went on strike, and the other blue-collar unions at the Post went on strike in solidarity, as unions are supposed to do.

    Absolutely key to how it played out was the behavior of the Post’s journalists. Just as the recent exposure of the secret Pentagon report on Vietnam and Nixon’s crimes had been game-changing work by journalists with the essential support of management, the crushing of the strike and pressmen’s union, also a game changer, was the work of management with the essential support of journalists.

    Two-thirds of the Post’s unionized editorial employees didn’t stop working at all, and a majority voted again and again against striking in solidarity with the pressmen. “What I find ominous is that a number of Guild people don’t think they have common cause with craftsmen,” a Post journalist told a reporter at the time. “They feel professionally superior to guys with dirt under their fingernails.” At a guild meeting, a Post reporter referred to the striking pressmen as “slack-jawed cretins.” Four weeks into the five-month strike, a Times article reported that “if a Post Guild member is asked why he or she is not supporting the strike,” many “say they do not see themselves as ordinary working people. One said, ‘We go to the same parties as management. We know Kissinger, too.’” And while probably none of the pressmen knew the secretary of state, their average pay was the equivalent of $111,000, about as much as reporters, which is the excuse one of the paper’s reporters gave for crossing the picket line from day one. “If they got slave wages, I’d be out on the line myself,” said the 32-year-old Bob Woodward, co-author of the second-best-selling nonfiction book of the previous year.”

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