TheStreet Search RSS Feed:

Housing Momentum Good to 2017: CoreLogic Case-Shiller

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:53:27 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Forget all the talk of a housing bubble. The recovery has plenty of momentum behind it, according to CoreLogic.

Home prices rose 7.3% in 2012, the most in seven years, according to the CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index. Prices are set to rise further in 2013 and beyond. Economists expect the index to rise at an annual rate of 3.9% between the fourth quarter of 2012 and the fourth quarter of 2017.

The rate of appreciation will be clearly slower than 2012. Home prices are projected to rise only 2.5% in 2013. This is decidedly lower than some forecasts that call for a 7% to 8% rise in 2013. ...

Student Debt Continues to Rocket: NY Fed

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:58:49 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Student debt continues to climb, even as other forms of consumer debt decline, according to the latest quarterly report on household debt published by the New York Federal Reserve.

Student loans grew by $20 billion during the first quarter to a total of $986 billion as of March 31, 2013. This has been the only category of household debt to grow during the great recession and is now the biggest form of household debt next to mortgages.

The delinquency rate on student loans -- the proportion of student loans that are more than 90 days behind on their payment -- declined to 11.2% in the first quarter from 11.7% in the fourth quarter. But this figure understates the number of problem student loans as nearly half the loans are currently in grace periods or deferment or forbearance. ...

No Housing Bubble Here: Trulia

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:50:09 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- National home prices are still undervalued relative to their fundamental value, Trulia economist Jed Kolko noted in a blog post Tuesday, soothing concerns the market is heading into bubble territory.

While price gains in some markets are starting to rival those bubble years, this is still more reflective of a "rebound" from the bottom, according to Kolko.

"Bubbles are notoriously difficult to predict and hard to confirm until after they've burst: it's impossible to be sure whether price gains are justified by fundamentals until, if and when, a bubble bursts," Kolko wrote. "San Francisco home prices, for instance, are the highest in the country; is that "irrational exuberance" by speculative homebuyers, or are those prices justified by strong job growth, high incomes, great weather, and constraints on the local housing supply?" ...

Home Prices Surge in Cities With Strong Job Growth: Trulia

Tue, 07 May 2013 11:11:03 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Job growth, not just investor demand, is boosting home prices, according to Trulia's Chief Economist Jed Kolko.

According to Trulia's Price Monitor, asking home prices, a leading indicator of sales price, rose 8.3% year-over-year in April. The index adjusts for seasonality and for the mix of homes sold.

Prices were up 4.3% quarter-over-quarter and 1.3% month-over-month on a seasonally adjusted basis. ...

Underwater Mortgages Drop to 9 Million as Home Prices Rise: Report

Mon, 06 May 2013 07:30:00 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Rising home prices are helping pull more distressed borrowers from out of the water, according to the March Mortgage Monitor Report from Lender Processing Services(LPS).

The number of underwater borrowers -- those who owed more than their homes were worth -- fell 41% from a year earlier. In total, 9 million borrowers or 18% of active mortgages were underwater at the end of March.

In states such as Florida and Nevada, the share of underwater mortgages is 33% and 39% respectively, well above the national average. Still, even these states saw improvements in borrowers' equity in their mortgages. ...

April Jobs Report Live Stream Recap

Fri, 03 May 2013 08:02:37 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that April nonfarm payrolls rose 165,000 and the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.5%.

Here is a recap of TheStreet's live-streaming coverage of the event with S&P Capital IQ's Sam Stovall.

March nonfarm payrolls from the prior report added just 88,000 jobs -- a drop of 180,000 from February -- as the average work week rose slightly to 34.6 hours. Average hourly earnings for all employees in March came in at $23.82, up 1 cent from the previous month. ...

Bank Layoffs Continue to Mount

Thu, 02 May 2013 11:37:12 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Layoffs in the financial industry are accelerating, according to the latest report from outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas.

Wall Street shed 34,856 jobs in the first four months of 2013, nearly three times the 12,860 layoffs in the first four months of 2012.

The financial sector is leading the downsizing effort in Corporate America, accounting for 19% of the job cuts announced so far in 2013. Retail, healthcare and aerospace/defense sectors are also firing more workers amid slowing consumer spending and government budget cutbacks. ...

Click to view a price quote on BAC.

Click to research the Banking industry.

Fate of Fed Stimulus Turns Hazy

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:27:21 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The Federal Reserve is prepared to increase or reduce monetary stimulus as needed, the central bank said on Wednesday.

In other words: Central bankers may not know what to expect moving forward.

A raft of soft U.S. economic data since the Fed's March policy-making meeting shifted in the Tuesday and Wednesday meeting the tone of central bankers who had been open to scaling back purchases of mortgage-backed securities and longer-term Treasuries. ...

Foreclosure Inventory Down 23% in March: CoreLogic

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:04:19 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The number of homes in foreclosure dropped 23% year-over-year in March, according to the latest report from CoreLogic.

Approximately 1.1 million homes were in some stage of the foreclosure process, down from 1.5 million in March 2012.

The number of homes lost to foreclosure totaled 55,000 in March, up 6% from a revised February estimate of 52,000, but down from the 62,000 reported in March 2012. ...

Click to view a price quote on XHB.

Click to research the Financial Services industry.

Buyers Driving Housing Recovery, Not Investors

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:49:17 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Investors may have kick-started the housing recovery, buyers are truly driving the market, research shows.

Recent reports point to strength in the non-distressed or conventional sales market, which is dominated by current homeowners and first-time home buyers.

According to the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance Survey released last week, investors accounted for just 21.8% of home sales in March. Investors accounted for only 13% of sales of non-distressed properties, the largest segment of the market. Current homeowners had a 50% market share and first-time homebuyers a 37% share of the non-distressed housing market. ...

Click to view a price quote on BX.

Click to research the Financial Services industry.

U.S. GDP Misses on Federal Spending Cuts

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:51:57 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The U.S. economy grew less than expected in the first-quarter due to cutbacks in federal spending, a government report showed on Friday.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis said that U.S. GDP increased 2.5% in the first quarter after rising 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Analysts, on average, were expecting 3% growth, according to a Thomson Reuters poll.

This, as real federal government consumption expenditures and gross investment decreased 8.4% in the first quarter, compared with a decrease of 14.8% in the fourth quarter. ...

Existing Home Sales Dip; Homebuilders Gain

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:15:34 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The unexpected fall in existing home sales in March sparked immediate worries of a slowdown in the housing market that has helped buoy the U.S.'s slow and steady economic recovery.

However, the National Association of Realtors reported Monday that inventory constraints compounded by "excessively tight" underwriting standards were the main culprits behind the declines in purchases. Inventories ticked up at the end of March to 4.7-months of supplies but remained 16.8% below a year ago when there were 6.2-months of supplies, helping to push up national median existing-home prices for all housing types by 11.8% to $184,300 in March -- the strongest increase since November 2005.

The inventory declines also occurred as "buyers buy things faster," Andrew Wilkinson, the New York City-based chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co. said in a phone interview. The median time on the market for all homes was 62 days in March, down from 74 days in February and was 32% below 91 days in March 2012. The inventory tightness may have also had to do with cheaper houses having already been bought, said Wilkinson. ...

Click to view a price quote on DHI.

Click to research the Materials & Construction industry.

Inflation Tame Signals Fed Likely to Stay With Stimulus

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:08:26 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Subdued inflation numbers on Tuesday indicated to investors that the Federal Reserve has the scope to keep its monetary easing program going.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported inflation within the Fed's comfort zone. On an annual basis, the core CPI excluding food and energy costs moderated slightly to 1.9% in March from 2% in February, and below the bank's 2% target.

"The central bank is able to concentrate on strengthening growth to a rate that puts sustained downward pressure on the unemployment rate," Paul Ferley, assistant chief economist at Royal Bank of Canada, said in a note. "This is expected to result in the central bank continuing asset purchases through the end of this year and maintaining fed funds within the current range of 0% to 0.25% likely into 2015." ...

Click to view a price quote on ^DJI.

Obama's Muni-Market Tinkering Could Ding Everyone

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 06:15:01 EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The municipal bond market was dealt a harsh blow. On Wednesday, President Obama released his fiscal 2014 budget proposal. It had about $800 billion in new taxes over the next 10 years, says TheStreet's Joe Deaux. The plan also includes measures to place a 28% cap on the amount of interest bond investors can deduct from their taxable incomes.

Everyone knows, the rich prefer municipal bonds. Typically at 5k a pop, munis protect equity, offer income and have had attractive tax benefits. However, the proposed cap would apply to all itemized deductions, including interest on tax-exempt bonds.

To be clear, Obama's proposed budget would decrease the deductible amount of income wealthy taxpayers receive from interest payments when they buy tax-exempt debt. This not only damages the market for tax-exempt bonds, it will ultimately result in higher taxes for everyone, once the wealthy dump muni bonds in search of other shelters....

Click to view a price quote on HYD.

Click to research the Financial Services industry.

Fed Minutes Hit Wall Street Lobbyist Inboxes Early (Update 3)

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 19:49:52 EDT

Corrected from 6:47 p.m. ET to clarify role of Carlyle's Corbett

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The Federal Reserve released to reporters the list of individuals who a central bank spokesperson said "inadvertently" received the March FOMC minutes on Tuesday shortly after 2 p.m. -- the Fed had scheduled to release the minutes on Wednesday at 2 p.m.

"The list used was a list of professional contacts that one individual had," a Fed spokesperson said in an email response to a question as to why this specific list of individuals received the minutes early. ...

Click to view a price quote on JPM.

Click to research the Banking industry.