Saturday, October 31, 2009
U.S. Stocks Drop as S&P 500 Ends Streak of Seven Monthly Gains
U.S. stocks tumbled, ending a seven- month streak of gains for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, as declines in consumer confidence and spending and the threat of a CIT Group Inc. bankruptcy raised concern over the durability of the economic recovery. The dollar and Treasuries gained, while commodities retreated.
CIT, the commercial lender, plunged 24 percent as investor Carl Icahn agreed to support its prepackaged bankruptcy plan. Citigroup Inc. tumbled 5.1 percent on a report that banking analyst Mike Mayo predicted a $10 billion writedown for this quarter. American Express Co. and Walt Disney Co. slid as Commerce Department data showed a drop in purchases and the Reuters/University of Michigan sentiment index weakened. MetLife Inc. lost 7.6 percent after a third straight quarterly loss. (more)
Wilbur Ross Sees ‘Huge’ Commercial Real Estate Crash
Billionaire investor Wilbur L. Ross Jr., said today the U.S. is in the beginning of a “huge crash in commercial real estate.”
“All of the components of real estate value are going in the wrong direction simultaneously,” said Ross, one of nine money managers participating in a government program to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets. “Occupancy rates are going down. Rent rates are going down and the capitalization rate -- the return that investors are demanding to buy a property -- are going up.”
U.S. commercial property sales are forecast to fall to the lowest in almost two decades as the industry endures its worst slump since the savings and loan crisis of the early 1990s, according to property research firm Real Capital Analytics Inc. The Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices already have fallen almost 41 percent since October 2007, Moody’s Investors Service said Oct. 19. (more)
Facing A Total Breakdown Of Financial Markets – Bob Chapman
The Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions shut down the bank and turned it over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC in turn sold it to an Oak Creek-based bank. The FDIC entered into an agreement with the Oak Creek-based Tri City National Bank to assume all of the Bank of Elmwood deposits and assets.
As of Sept. 30, 2009, Bank of Elmwood had total assets of $327.4 million and total deposits of approximately $273.2 million. (more)
Soros: Double-Dip Global Recession Possible
The global economic recovery is liable to run out of steam and the risk of a double-dip recession remains real, billionaire investor George Soros said on Friday, a day after the U.S. economy returned to growth.
The world financial system needs to be reinvented to prevent a repeat of the crisis, Soros told a lecture in Budapest, calling for a new Bretton Woods conference to revise the IMF's methods of operation and consider new rules to control capital movements.
"I regret to tell you that the recovery is liable to run out of steam and may even be followed by a 'double dip,' although I am not sure whether it will occur in 2010 or 2011," Soros said. (more)
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