Factory Orders Up 1.8%, Stocks Rally How ‘bout this market? Yesterday rates moved higher, and prices lower, after Factory Orders increased 1.8% in February, following a downwardly revised 3.5% drop in January, and six consecutive monthly decreases. So why wouldn’t rates come down? US stock markets continued their rally, and in fact most overseas stock [...]

The former Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, is writing a book about his role in the Bush administration during the economic crisis. Oddly, the book starts on Chapter 11. End of Month Lender Strain It is the last day of the month. Not only are Ops departments everywhere scrambling to fund loans while they keep an [...]

The big news of the day, besides more bank earnings, is that a coach of a Texas high school got fired after beating another team in basketball 100-0. The coach would not apologize, since his girls played with honor and integrity (his words) in beating Dallas Academy, which has 8 girls on the team and [...]

Here’s your financial vocabulary lesson for today: “Liquidity” – When you look at your investments and wet your pants. More Firms Close Mortgage Broker Channel First Federal of California is the latest lender to close their wholesale channel to brokers. I imagine the following announcement prompted yet another round of rumors and calls to the [...]

Refinancers Must Pay Taxes Early In California, the first half of regular secured property tax bills are due November 1st, and delinquent after December 10th; the second half are due February 1st, and delinquent after April 10th each year. Property taxes are interesting beasts, and although there are comparisons done by state, it is standard [...]

After failing and being seized by the FDIC earlier this year, Indymac is now on the block to be bought within 90 days. The FDIC has taken on the role of investment bank as the bank failures mount. After the Indymac failure depleted the FDIC fund, FDIC head Sheila Bair took on a new approach, [...]

Lots of people forwarded me this week’s NY Times story tracing the careers of Herbert and Marion Sandler, a husband and wife banking team that founded World Savings in 1963, introduced Option ARMs in 1981 then sold their firm to Wachovia in 2006 and made about $2.6 billion. Option ARMs are mortgages with many payment [...]

Twenty-two banks have failed so far in 2008. After Indymac failed in July, which was the largest of the year at that time, the FDIC saw that their reserves for taking over failing banks were going to disappear in a hurry. So they started acting as investment bank of sorts by brokering deals where they’d [...]

Downey Financial, a Newport CA based savings and loan, was seized by the FDIC Friday and sold to US Bank in a deal the FDIC brokered. As of October 22, Downey’s loans no longer collecting interest were 15.7 percent of bank assets. Most of these bad loans were from their portfolio of about $7 billion [...]

Bank Stocks Getting Crushed, Oil Down $4 Let’s hope that potential home buyers aren’t keeping their down payment monies in the stock market! This morning stock futures are down their limit. At some point it seems that money managers enjoy pushing a certain market one way or the other, and this time it is stocks [...]