Oh, look, over there - it's a 80,000 pound gorilla in the room! Seriously, over there! You don't see him? How could you not? He's a 30 foot tall, 80,000 pound gorilla!
And you're (Mr. US taxpayer) the one who'll bail them out. Get the printing press ready.
Fannie and Freddie at risk, Treasury says
The massive portfolios of government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could become insolvent in a period of "significant interest-rate movement," U.S. Assistant Treasury Secretary Emil Henry said Monday.
"Unless the portfolios are hedged properly, in a period of significant interest-rate movement, there is a risk to the GSEs that their assets and liabilities will ... become broadly mismatched, which can lead to insolvency," Henry said in a speech prepared for delivery to the Housing Policy Council of the Financial Services Roundtable.
Henry likened the potential for GSE problems to the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s.
If GSE hedging models failed to anticipate an interest-rate shock, "the results would be without precedent," he said.
Commercial banks and other creditors would experience direct losses as GSE debt obligations lost value, or there was a real or perceived inability of a GSE to meet its debt or mortgage-backed security obligations.
14 comments:
I don't understand the obsession with interest rates.
If interest rates are the only problem then that can be dealt with OK.
There are good mathematical models and structures for interest rate movements. It is modelable, if not predictable. And the Bernanke put can work here, as the Fed need merely manpiulate rates to where Fan and Fred's quants quietly tell them is in the 'safe zone'.
The cockroach in the chianti is *defaults*.
*Unexpected* *credit* *risk*---and there the instruments (credit swaps) can evaporate in liquidity when the buyers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsuckers realize that No Virginia, the Consumer's Equity Doesn't Exist Any More.
So where can we keep our savings that people always insist on having? If that's a no go and cash under your bed will be worthless with inflation after the mess no... Tell me where to put the dough.
some of PIMCO's globally diversified and inflation-oriented funds.
seattle,utah,austin, maui prices keep going up. theses are the areas i'm familiar with. no gloom and doom.
These areas keep on going up? Guess what, by your word. Appreciation slowed in Utah signifigently in June and will continue to depreciation sets in in 07. Many other markets, depreciation will begin THIS YEAR.
Yes, no doom, but gloom.
austin and utah, who saw no appreciation while the US bubble roared, saw an echo boom. But alas, they'll bust too as the last investors pull out and nobody to sell to.
Keith
You are always harping on FRE and FNM but you have to admit they are not the biggest risks. With the conforming loan limits and the max 80% LTV they are not players in the most overheated markets.
The banks issuing the negative am loans or the second mortgages to people already over their heads in debt are going to be the first ones needing a bailout.
anon - the banks making those high risk loans are NOT at risk as they don't hold the loans - they just get paid a commission to make the loan then send it over to be commoditized
it's the mortgage backed security holders that will lose bad. Follow the money there - that's the hedge funds.
FNM and FRE will get hurt though too because they keep to much on their books.
And how many of those people who have 80% loans also have the remaining 20+% in a second or third that has adjustable rates? If those people go under their 80% loan is not gonna get paid. With RE slowing and taking the economy slower as a result maybe there will be a significant number of those 80% loans back on the already flooded market. Maybe those houses that secure the 80% loan are now valued less than the 80%, which was appraised at bubble prices. To me that seems to be the risk.
The yellow dawg seems to be saying things are possibly getting bad. $655 today for 1 oz coins. Wish I had more. These were $605 the week before last.
FRE/FNM risk is not interest rates. It's CREDIT risk. People stop paying their mortgages that's credit not interest rate.
The whole "FNM/FRE hold too much interest rate risk" is a scam. The admin. just wants more money for the banking industry, who would hold the notes if FRE/FNM didn't.
FRE/FNM own about 1.5 trillion in MBS (interest rate risk)...they insure something (that's credit risk) like 3.0 trillion. They have about 50-75 billion in capital backing the whole thing. Most of that is for the INTEREST RATE risk. only 15 billion is for credit risk.
If you don't want FRE/FNM to go under, you want them holding as much capital as possible. If they just hold credit risk, they need almost no capital.
utah no price gains? Kieth your a big bser. I bought a house in draper utah last year for 320,000. and can sell it for 450000 to 500000. bought a condo in draper utah also 2 years ago for 105000 today there selling for the 200000. seattle is still hot and banibridge island off seattle is going through the roof. Austin is going up. If you don't own now you will not own for years to come. prices may drop but not like the stock market drops. And if prices drop the higher interest rate will make the cost still higher. tell the truth people are making alot of money and living better than ever.
Keith---regarding the mortgage backed securities.
Some of the subprime lenders have an obligation to BUY BACK defaulted loans, depending on the terms of the agreement.
That's right---the MBS holders do NOT always take all the default risk!
This is the "sssh be vewy vewy qwiet" giant cockroach in the Cristal, hidden deep within the SEC filings (or not discussed much at all). Fanny and Freddie are practically as conservative and stuffy as Berkshire Hathway by comparison.
And yes, the banks often do hold on to some of the loans themselves or sell it to a mortgage REIT subsidiary of theirs. Naturally they always claim to their stockholders they are keeping only the best loans, and no doubt to their MBS buyers they claim they are selling only the best loans.
By the way I agree that lots of the (mostly Republican) sniping against Fan and Fred is not really principled but laundered envy by their banking industry contributors who just want more market share and are upset that Fan and Fred don't play ball and price fix the mortgages like their own club does. On the other side, Fan and Fred's execs buy off their own politicians to keep their gravy train going with no investigation into their opaque finances---from which is is very very easy to skim a few (hundred) million here and there in perks and bonuses.
Greedy scum versus Greedy scum.
The correct way would be to have a very transparent, low cost Fan & Fred with high capital ratios, i.e. loan less per unit capital than the industry average, and ethical management. I.e. the "Vanguard" of mortgage and bond insurance (what Fan & Fred really is).
Nobody benefits from this except the average taxpayer; so it has no chance.
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