This week has been an extremely volatile one in the world of real estate and the economy. We’ve seen Gold at $1,000 an ounce, a collapsing dollar, oil skyrocketing, an much more. Of everything that has happened, probably the most shocking is what came out of the Fed this week . . .

According to the The Daily Telegraph, “The US Federal Reserve has taken the boldest action since the 1930s, accepting $200bn of housing debt as collateral to prevent an implosion of the mortgage finance industry and head off a full-blown economic crisis.” Tim Bond, a strategist at Barclays Capital remarked, “The market was starting to question the solvency of bodies that stand at the top of the credit pile. These agencies together wrap or insure $6 trillion of mortgages. They cannot be allowed to fail because it would cause a financial disaster. The fact that this sector has blown up has caught everybody’s attention in Washington”

At Least President Bush is Confident in the Economy!

It seems like everybody but the President, who continued to dodge questions about the economy until a press conference today where he expressed his “confidence” in the US economy. I’m glad that he is confident, but he’s doing little to stem the collapse of the dollar and the looming current recession.

To make matters worse, suffering investment bank Bear Stearns today was given a bailout by J.P. Morgan Chase and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. From the Wall Street Journal:

The intervention by J.P. Morgan and the New York Fed shows Bear “didn’t have enough money to turn the lights on this morning,” said Carl Lantz, strategist at Credit Suisse. “And in a big picture sense, this isn’t that comforting.”

This news turned a somewhat positive market (inflation report wasn’t as bad as expected) upside down once again, and at the time of publishing this post, the Dow is down 300 points and Bear Stearns is off 40%.

Talk about an economy we should be Confident in!

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Tags: bear stearns, dollar, Economy, Euro, fed, federal reserve, George Bush, monetary policy, president bush

If someone were to have said, say a year ago, that there would be a crisis in the subprime mortgage market that would lead to world-wide economic chaos, that person would no doubt have been laughed at.

Sadly, though, that is exactly what has happened and the evidence just this week is overwhelming.

But, before the depressing news, how about a little uplifting news? You know you want it!

The Fed To The Rescue: Too Little Too Late?

The Federal Reserve has come up with a “rescue” plan that, as the Associated Press put it, “would pour as much as $200 billion into banks and investment houses and allow them to put up risky home-loan packages as collateral.”

Why does this matter?

Because the mortgage crisis induced credit collapse has made banks and other lending institutions not want to lend money to one another. And, in the end, that means they don’t want to lend money to you.

Under this plan, financial institutions can borrow from the Fed, and, in effect, exchange their questionable mortgage-backed securities for a sure thing: U.S. Treasury securities.

In theory, this should trickle down and make banks and others more likely to extend credit to all of us…and that includes new mortgages, which could help take some of those now empty foreclosed houses off the market.

Is this enough?

Says Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, “This will not turn the economy around or fix all the problems in the markets but it should reduce the liquidity issue, at least for now,” according to the A.P.

Hold On. Here Comes The Promised Depressing News

Told you we’d get to this. If you are the weak knee type, you may want to stop reading right here and make yourself a cup of coffee…even though world coffee prices have jumped more than 20 percent in the past year.

But, if you are strong, read on and keep a tissue nearby. Better yet, keep a box of tissues nearby . . . although paper prices, too, have risen.

$6.1 billion dollars is how much Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost in the fourth quarter and they think they will suffer billions of dollars more in loses as we crawl through 2008.

The price of gas has gone up as of this writing to a new national record–$3.2272 a gallon, on average. And, in places such as Southern California, it costs even more. We’ve already seen some service stations charging $4 a gallon for regular gasoline.

In large measure, gas prices are now rising–they did lag a bit–because the price of light sweet crude oil keeps setting new records just about every day. It was trading at $109.72 at one point today (Tuesday) in the New York Mercantile Exchange.

120? Did I Hear 120? 120, Going Once, Going Twice, Sold To The Suckers Around the world.

That’s right, there are now serious projections that oil could rise to $120 a barrel.
And, ready for this? Maybe even higher??

Because U.S. dollars are so much cheaper now against many currencies, partly because of what began as a subprime mortgage crisis, and partly because of the ever expanding economies of China and India, the U.S. trade deficit in January rocketed to $58.2 billion from $57.9 billion the month before–this according to a Commerce Department report issued today.

Talking about China, and I was, our trade deficit with that country also got a lot bigger and is now $20.3 billion as of January. It was $18.8 billion in December 2007.

Even Google?

Yes, even Google, which pretty much owns the entire planet by now, is talking about possible layoffs soon! I mean, Google? You’d think they’d be able to Google for a solution to their problem, right?

I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking, yeah, this is pretty depressing stuff, but, boy, what about that stock market Tuesday which had its biggest one day rally in some six years, the Dow Jones industrials up 416.66 points!

Come on. We’re all adults here, right? Nice that the market went up so much on one day, but does anyone really think this will start a trend, what with all the bad and uncertain economic news out there? Shame on you if your answer is yes. Hate to introduce some more doom and gloom to this otherwise upbeat last few paragraphs, but you know the market is going to plunge again and probably lose whatever it gained in trading today. Of course you know it!

Like I said, if someone would have said a year ago that a subprime mortgage crisis would ignite all of this—-well, come to think of it, if someone had, that someone should have been made Secretary of the Treasury or even President. But, that’s a whole other story.

Tags: bailout, banks, China, dollar, Economy, Euro, gas, gold, google, government, housing, Interest Rates, oil, real estate, subprime

Mortgage Meltdown
Countrywide Rises Despite Loss

Countrywide Financial swung to a huge loss during its third-quarter, but investors were just glad that it wasn’t worse . . . Countrywide and other lenders are reeling as borrowers default on their loans at higher rates. The spiking defaults have forced Countrywide to lay off thousands of employees and line up billions of dollars in financing to stay afloat. ^Forbes

US Economy

Jim Rogers quits dollar after declaring US recession
Jim Rogers, the veteran investor who predicted the 1999 commodities rally, declared that the US economy was “in recession” as he said he would take flight from the dollar and switch his investments into currencies including the Chinese yuan. Mr Rogers, who ranks among the world’s best-known investment figures, said he was putting his faith in China’s politically-sensitive currency alongside the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc.

“The US economy is undoubtedly in recession,” he said. “Many parts of industry are actually in a state worse than recession. If it were not for [Federal Reserve Governor Ben] Bernanke putting huge amounts of money into the market, the stock market would probably be down much more than it is.” ^{Daily Telegraph}

Gold price strikes fresh 27-year peak
The price of gold rocketed Friday to the highest level since the start of 1980, as the precious metal won support from the weak dollar and record high crude oil prices, traders said.

Oil Briefly Spikes Above $92 a Barrel
Crude oil prices spiked above $92 in Asia Friday on growing tensions in the Middle East and renewed concern about oil supplies. The United States announced new sanctions against Iran Thursday, targeting the elite Revolutionary Guards, which Washington accused of backing Shiite militants in Iraq. A confrontation between the world’s largest oil consumer and its fourth largest oil producer could upend markets. ^MyWay

Dollar Sinks to New Low
The dollar fell to another new low against the euro Friday in midmorning trading on speculation that U.S. interest rates will be cut again.

After rising to a record $1.4375, the euro slipped back to $1.4369, higher than the $1.4319 it bought in late Thursday trading in New York. The euro last hit a record high against the dollar Monday, rising to $1.4348. The euro was lifted higher by a spate of sour economic reports from the United States, including a report that showed U.S. orders for durable goods dropped 1.7 percent in September, after an even bigger 5.3 percent plunge in August. That was the first back-to-back decline in more than a year and took economists by surprise. ^AP

Tags: Credit, dollar, Economy, gold, Jim Rogers, mortgage, oil

On Friday, Gold hit a 27 year high as investors around the world ran to safety from the plummeting US dollar. Hitting $752.80 an ounce, Gold is at levels we haven’t seen since January of 1980.

Additionally, the dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major currencies, fell 0.8 per cent to a record low of 77.66 on Friday. The index has fallen 5 per cent since mid-August. (Source: FT.com). All you have to do is look at this index to see that we’re on a free-fall.

I’ve begun to hear people from around the country asking about putting their money in foreign currencies, something I’ve never personally experienced. It seems as though those people who are aware of what is happening to the Dollar are really getting quite nervous.

To make matters worse, The dollar fell to a record low against the euro for the seventh consecutive session while the Canadian dollar hit a 31-year high as inflation data raised expectations that the Federal Reserve Bank would again lower interest rates. Longer term, the U.S. has been running large trade and budget deficits for years — factors that tend to undermine a country’s currency in the long term, unless they are offset by foreigners willingness to invest their money in the United States. (Source: Yahoo Finance)

Unfortunately, it seems as though there is a new global unwillingness to invest in the US, thanks to the growing fear of recession, and countries pegged to the dollar are wondering how to stop the bleeding in their own countries.

As the Dollar falls, people globally are looking for an alternative, and I think the Euro will reap the benefits of renewed confidence. The Euro will only grow in strength and stature as the Dollar falls.

Tags: Canada, currencies, currency, dollar, Euro, gold, platinum

I truly enjoyed watching the President lie through his teeth again in this morning’s press conference about how good the economy was doing. I’m not sure what economy he’s looking at, but it is certainly not ours. It seems like things just continue to decline here in the good ‘ole USA . . .

The Canadian Dollar Traded Higher than The US Dollar For the First Time Since 1976!

The Canadian dollar rose as high as $1.0008, before retreating to 99.87 U.S. cents at 4:16 p.m. in New York. It has soared 62 percent from a record low of 61.76 U.S. cents in 2002. The U.S. dollar fell as low as 99.93 Canadian cents today. The Canadian currency last closed above $1 on Nov. 25, 1976, when Pierre Trudeau was Canada’s prime minister. (Source: Bloomberg)

If the US government wanted American goods to be cheaper to the rest of the world, they have certainly done a good job of it. With most of the major world currencies climbing against the floundering Dollar, it is starting to look like we’re in for some serious trouble. Sadly, since we have no manufacturing base here (it’s all in China now), the decline in the Dollar is not really going to help anyone here (except for the tourist business). Keep your eyes open, because I expect to see the flood of foreign visitors to the US to continue (which isn’t a bad thing).

I guess I’ll need to bring a few more bucks with me if I decide to leave this place.

Tags: Canada, canadian dollar, dollar, Economy, George Bush, US Dollar, US economy