Yesterday was a special day. In the late afternoon I visited Costco, which some people feel simultaneously represents everything that is both bad and good about the retail channel. The change in time over the weekend had made it so the setting sun shone through the front entrance, illuminating the Samsung 46 inch plasma, the [...]

My boss told me that I should take an “anger management” class in 2010. I told her that I was already angry enough with management.

US Bank Expansion, CIT Bankruptcy What do Bank USA, National Association of Phoenix; California National Bank of Los Angeles; San Diego National Bank; Pacific National Bank of San Francisco; Park National Bank of Chicago; Community Bank of Lemont, Illinois; North Houston Bank; Madisonville State Bank of Madisonville, Texas; and Citizens National Bank, of Teague, Texas [...]

Is there ever a day that mattresses are not “on sale”? Securities are always for sale. I love this kind of talk: “Agency MBS reversed course this week as much of the coupon stack underperformed against duration hedges.” That is what I received from a buddy who works for a large investment bank. What the [...]

“A woman in Great Britain has died after being hit in the back of the head by a golf ball, on the first hole. Her husband was so distraught he only played the front nine.”

Cassius Clay preferred traveling in his own 1953 30-passenger bus. He said, “One good thing about a bus: If it breaks down, it doesn’t fall 30,000 feet”. Ali was also rumored to have the following conversation with a flight attendant on a trip where he couldn’t take a bus:

“Keep skunks and bankers at a distance” so the old saying goes. Mortgage bankers may have to ignore that saying, however, given some National Mortgage News data that shows that four companies (Wells Fargo, Bank of America Home Loan, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup) control almost 58% of the overall lending market. Wells was the largest [...]

Is it the last day of September already? Wasn’t it just Memorial Day? Things are getting a little tight here around the Chrisman household. Yesterday my son came to me and told me that “management” knew that I had taken a stapler from my home office. “From now on”, he continued, “If you plan on [...]

Out here in California, some in the business have been following the case of 28-yr old Garret Gililland III. Originally from the Sacramento area, he was just captured in Spain and brought back to California to face charges of a $100 million mortgage fraud ring. In yet another example of what seems to make the [...]

With no economic news of note, and the 2-yr auction having gone well, rates are not moving much. Although today’s release of the Fed meeting’s rate decision may change that, depending on the language, no one is looking for an increase in overnight rates. The $40 billion of 5-yr notes is auctioned off about an [...]