Lot's of news this week, most of it bad.
Let's start with the latest fannie default numbers. The 90 day default rate is shooting through the roof. It went up 4% in one month from 3.87% in Dec to 4.03% in January. Fannie also reported a 15.2 BILLION dollar loss for the 4th quarter, 72 Billion for the year!
We had a couple of banks fail today (one in California). That brings the total to 22 so far this year. The problem bank list (from Calculated Risk) is up to 644 banks. Lately this list has been growing by about 40 banks per week.
I'm sure by now you've heard about the new foreclosure prevention plan being touted by the FDIC for banks they've seized. They are actually talking about principal write downs. I don't know about you but that just pisses me off. Talk about a moral hazard. How many people will stop paying the mortgage if they start giving write downs. I sure as hell would!