Bloomberg - "Countrywide's Underwriters Sued for Fraud by New York Agencies" (1-26-08)

"Three New York agencies sued Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and 23 more underwriters for allegedly helping Countrywide Financial Corp. to defraud investors. New York's city and state comptrollers and their pension funds added the securities firms, two accounting firms and Countrywide officers and directors as defendants in a federal securities-fraud lawsuit filed against the home lender in August."

The Mortgage Insider - "Why Raising Conforming Limits Is a Bad Idea" (1-26-08)

"With all due respect to Governor Arnold-ator, Congressional action to raise conforming loan limits is ill-conceived. First, in response to the notion that allowing the GSEs to securitize larger loan amounts will bring pricing stability to the market, don’t hold your breath. Given the pricing adjustments we’ve seen incorporated for conforming product over the last few months, don’t be surprised if the same translates into the Jumbo market. With Fannies announcement today that thei serious delinquency rate shot up 50% in November compared with a year ago, they’ve shown that they are no better equipped to manage risk than the rest of the market. Of course, having purchased nearly 40% of Countrywide’s subprime product in Q1 of 2006 might have something do with this increase. You think?"

Orange County Register - "Insider Q&A hears O.C. office market is ‘weak’" (1-26-08)

"The market is weak right now. There is excess supply thrown on the market by the contraction in the home-mortgage finance industry and the real estate industry. We survey real estate professionals in Orange County and they see this condition persisting through 2010."