Fewer foreclosures are going all the way through to auction sales and bank repossessions, according to coalition.
Mortgage lenders helped save a record 225,000 at-risk mortgage borrowers from losing their homes during October, according to a report issued Tuesday by a coalition of lenders, mortgage servicers, investors and counselors assembled to fight the foreclosure plague. [Read more →]
Wall Street firm reveals major restructuring: spin-off of commercial real estate assets and plan to sell stake in investment management division.
Lehman Brothers suffered its worst quarterly loss since going public, reporting a loss of nearly $4 billion Wednesday, and announced a series of drastic steps aimed at reviving the beleaguered firm.
Among those changes were plans by the firm to spin-off part of its commercial real estate assets, sell a majority stake of its investment management division and slash its annual dividend. [Read more →]
The central bank is likely to keep its key interest rate at 2% at its September 16 meeting but expectations are growing for a rate cut before year’s end.
While the Federal Reserve is widely expected to once again hold a key interest rate at 2% when it meets on Tuesday, there is a growing sense that the Fed may have to cut rates by the end of the year.
If the Fed does so, it would mark a dramatic change in the central bank’s assessment of the economy. As recently as the Fed’s last meeting in August, Fed members indicated that their next move would be to hike rates at some undetermined point in the future in order to fight inflation. [Read more →]
The recent rally in U.S. Treasurys is a sign that the decline in oil prices is probably for real. Unfortunately, it’s also an indication of more economic weakness ahead.
Bond prices have rallied lately. And that’s both a good thing and bad thing.
The encouraging news is that the recent bump in bond prices and resulting dip in yields is probably a sign that the worst of the oil-fueled (pun intended) inflation fears are over.
The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury is now hovering near 3.8% – down from about 4.15% just a month ago.
What’s the bigger economic concern right now: the credit crunch or inflation?
Higher bond prices and lower yields are usually a sign that pricing pressures are waning since inflation eats into the value of fixed-income investments. [Read more →]
