Tag Archives: FHFA

News, Politics, Government

Why Hedge Funds Suing The Government Over Fannie And Freddie Have A Bad Case

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By Nathan Vardi, Forbes Staff

With the housing market collapsing in July 2008, President George W. Bush signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act into law, 260 pages aimed at bolstering mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and overhauling the regulations of these government-sponsored entities that were crashing. The law created the Federal Housing Finance Agency and gave it the authority to place Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship and regulate the GSEs. A few weeks after Bush signed the law, the FHFA placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship and the Treasury Department started to inject $188 billion into the GSEs in return for senior preferred stock. …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

A HARP Extension Strings Along Walter Investment Management

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By Sean Williams, The Motley Fool

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Although we don’t believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes — just in case they’re material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of Walter Investment Management , a residential mortgage services provider, jumped as much as 12% after the Federal Housing Finance Agency extended the HARP program for two additional years.

So what: The Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, primarily caters to homeowners who are current on their mortgages but have been unable to obtain refinancing at today’s historically low lending rates because the value of their home had depreciated too much. The program has successfully helped many underwater homeowners refinance their mortgage and has been one of the stabilizing factors in the housing sectors’ recovery. Walter Investment Management should be expected, with the extension of HARP through 2015, to see a steady stream of mortgage servicing activity as long as lending rates remain near historic lows.

Now what: Investors in Walter Investment Management have certainly been given the all-clear signal after today’s HARP extension. Adding to the optimism, earlier this week Walter Investment purchased the reverse mortgage servicing rights to Wells Fargo‘s home mortgage business. Adding servicing rights when rates are low and the FHFA is accommodative is the perfect strategy for Walter Investment Management, whose shares are looking particularly cheap on a forward earnings basis.

Craving more input? Start by adding Walter Investment Management to your free and personalized Watchlist so you can keep up on the latest news with the company. 

With so much of the financial industry getting bad press these days, it may be a greedy when others are fearful moment. Not surprisingly, some of Warren Buffett‘s biggest investments are in the space. In the Motley Fool‘s free report, “The Stocks Only the Smartest Investors Are Buying,” you can learn about a small, under-the-radar bank that’s too tiny for Buffett’s billions. Too bad, because it has better operating metrics than his favorites. Just click here to keep reading.

The article A HARP Extension Strings Along Walter Investment Management originally appeared on Fool.com.


Fool contributor Sean Williams has no material interest in any companies mentioned in this article. You can follow him on CAPS under the screen name TMFUltraLong, track every pick he makes under the screen name TrackUltraLong, and check him out on Twitter, where he goes by the handle @TMFUltraLong.

The Motley Fool owns shares of, and recommends, Wells Fargo. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/11/a-harp-extension-strings-along-walter-investment-m/

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Jobless Claims Fall; so Did the Markets

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By Matt Thalman, The Motley Fool

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As investors focus more of their attention on the issues in Europe, the markets slid lower, even on the heels of positive U.S. economic data. Lower-than-expected jobless claims, strong PMI numbers, and home prices and sales increasing, weren’t enough to keep the markets in the green. For more information on each indicator, check out my Fool colleague Dan Dzombak’s article, where he goes into each indicator with further detail.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 90 points, or 0.62%, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.83%, and the NASDAQ fell 0.97%. And only five of the Dow’s 30 components managed to close the day in the green.

A few Dow winners
Shares of Coca-Cola rose by 0.5% today, as the markets moved lower. On Tuesday, I noted that Coke was a classic defensive stock and, as investors become more concerned with the market‘s direction, they will start to shift into the soda king. While I believe that was part of the rise today, the other part is likely due to the announcement that Coke will be cutting its work U.S. workforce by 750 employees. The move comes after Coke decided to change the number of distribution regions from seven to three. This move should allow the company to lower costs and become even more efficient.

More positive economic data on the housing market, which was released this morning, likely caused shares of Home Depot to rise 0.1% today. First, the FHFA home price index showed that, on a seasonally adjusted basis, home prices rose by 0.6% in January, while the previous reading was an increase of 0.5%.

The other data point came from the National Association of Realtors, which reported homes sales in February rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.98 million, up from 4.94 million in January.  

The other three Dow winners of the day where Wal-Mart , which saw shares rise by 0.19% and UnitedHealth, which gained 0.33%. Investors also added 0.41% to Verizon’s stock price. All three companies will benefit from a stronger housing market and a lower unemployment rate. But of the three, Wal-Mart is likely the best positioned to benefit from a recovering jobs market.

More foolish insight

Coca-Cola’s wide moat has helped provide its shareholders with superior gains in the past, but the company faces some new threats to its continued market dominance. The Motley Fool recently compiled a premium research report containing everything you need to know about Coca-Cola. If you own or are considering owning shares in the company, you’ll want to click here now and get started!

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Dow May Rise on U.S. Data Despite Euro Slowdown

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By Roland Head, The Motley Fool

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LONDON — Stock index futures at 7 a.m. EDT indicate that the Dow Jones Industrial Average may open 0.07% higher this morning, while the S&P 500 may open 0.03% lower.

While the Cyprus bailout crisis continues to rumble on without a solution — the country’s banks will now be closed until Tuesday — the latest eurozone purchasing managers’ index data has overshadowed Cyprus this morning. The Markit eurozone composite flash PMI fell to 46.5 in March from 47.9 in February, suggesting that the eurozone recession is continuing to worsen. France is becoming a particular worry: Its service-sector PMI fell to 41.9, the lowest level since February 2009. Even Germany’s economy is struggling to stay positive: The German composite PMI, which includes manufacturing and services, fell to 51 from 53.3 in March.

European markets saw a broad sell-off this morning, with the FTSE 100 down by 0.8% as of 7:20 a.m. EDT. However, weak data from the eurozone was tempered by better news from China, where the HSBC China Manufacturing PMI rose to 51.7 in March, up from 50.4 the previous month.

In the U.S., the first major macro data will be the latest weekly jobless claims, due at 8:30 a.m. EDT. Initial jobless claims are expected to have risen to 340,000 last week, up slightly from the previous week’s surprise low of 332,000. Other data due today includes the Markit flash PMI for March at 9 a.m. EDT and a raft of housing-market data, including the FHFA home price index for January and February’s existing-home sales data, which are expected to show that sales of existing homes rose to 5.02 million in February, up from 4.92 million in January.

In company news, Lululemon Athletica, Ross Stores, and homebuilder KB Home are due to report quarterly earnings before the opening bell, while Nike is due to report its third-quarter earnings after markets close today. Meanwhile, Oracle shares are likely to be actively traded this morning after they plunged 7.7% in premarket trading. The company’s third-quarter earnings disappointed markets: Oracle’s sales fell from $9.1 billion in the second quarter to $9 billion in the third quarter, while adjusted earnings came in at $0.65 per share, missing analysts’ forecasts for $0.66 per share on sales of $9.37 billion.

Finally, let’s not forget that the Dow’s daily movements can add up to some serious long-term gains. Indeed, Warren Buffett recently wrote, “The Dow advanced from 66 to 11,497 in the 20th Century, a staggering 17,320% increase that materialized despite four costly wars, a Great Depression and many recessions.” If you, like Buffett, are convinced about the long-term power of the Dow, you should read “5 Stocks To Retire On.” Your long-term wealth could be transformed, even in this uncertain economy. Simply click here now to download this free, no-obligation report.

The article Dow May Rise on U.S. Data Despite Euro Slowdown originally appeared on Fool.com.


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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Articles of Interest

Freddie Mac Unaware Of Homeowner Complaints, Inspector General Concludes

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By The Huffington Post News Editors

NEW YORK — For more than five years, many homeowners who complained about mortgage industry foreclosure abuses have wondered whether anyone with a financial stake in keeping them in their home was paying attention. On Thursday, with the release of a new report from a federal watchdog, they got their answer: No.

The report, by the inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, says banks and other companies that manage more than 10 million home loans for Freddie Mac “largely failed” to alert the mortgage giant to the most serious category of homeowner complaints, despite a requirement they do so. These “escalated complaints” often include the most serious allegations of misconduct, including improper fees, misapplied mortgage payments and a frustrating cycle of lost paperwork and unreturned calls. In some instances, the mismanagement has led to a wrongful foreclosure.

“The results are shocking on a number of different levels,” said Steve Linick, the FHFA inspector general, in an interview with The Huffington Post. “It is surprising that servicers were not reporting in such large numbers, that Freddie was not on top of this, and that [the FHFA] did not catch it in its exam.”

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post