Mortgage Bankers Association - "Fannie, Freddie To Buy Loans Only Under New Standards" (3-3-08)

"Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo and the nation’s two largest purchasers of home loans, Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE), have entered into cooperation agreements requiring them to only buy loans from banks that meet new standards designed to ensure independent and reliable appraisals."

Bloomberg - "Most U.S. Stocks Gain, Led by Commodity Producers; Banks Drop" (3-3-08)

"The S&P 500 swung between gains and losses at least 37 times as a smaller-than-forecast drop in manufacturing offset a decline in construction spending. The S&P 500 added 0.71 point, or 0.1 percent, to 1,331.34. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 7.49, or 0.1 percent, to 12,258.9. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 12.88, or 0.6 percent, to 2,258.6. On the New York Stock Exchange, 949 stocks rose and 930 fell."

Big Builder Online - "US Manufacturing Contracted in February" (3-3-08)

"U.S. manufacturing activity declined in February to its weakest level in nearly five years, an industry group survey showed Monday, heralding more instability in the job market and frailty in the overall economy. After reporting modest growth for January, the Institute for Supply Management said its February manufacturing index registered at 48.3 - its weakest reading since April 2003, but above Wall Street's even poorer expectations."

Minyanville - "Losses Threaten Countrywide Deal" (3-3-08)

"In Countrywide's 10K, filed last Friday, the company detailed the abysmal performance of option adjustable-rate mortgages, or Option ARMs. Option ARMs allow borrowers to choose between monthly payment options, the lowest of which result in principal being added to the balance of the loan, known as negative amortization (see number five). Option ARMs more than 90 days delinquent increased to 5.4%, up 900% from a year ago. In Countrywide's $28 billion Option ARM portfolio, 71% of borrowers are only making the minimum payment and 80% of the loans did not require borrowers to verify their income."

Bloomberg - "Auction Supply 'Tsunami' Portends Municipal Losses" (3-3-08)

"U.S. states and local governments may extend the worst slump in municipal bonds on record as they replace as much as $166 billion of auction-rate securities. California, Boston's biggest hospital and Duke Energy Corp. are converting bonds to other types of tax-exempt debt after auction failures drove rates as high as 20 percent. The potential supply equals almost 40 percent of the municipal securities sold last year, overwhelming a market that tumbled 4.9 percent last month, according to indexes maintained by Merrill Lynch & Co., which began compiling market data in 1989."

Yahoo - "Credit crunch worries economists" (3-3-08)

"The cascading fallout from the subprime loan crisis, barely a cloud on the horizon a year ago, is now viewed by experts as the economy's gravest threat. In a survey being released Monday, 34 percent of the members of the National Association for Business Economics ranked the financial market turmoil from those loan defaults as the No. 1 threat to the economy over the next two years."

Bloomberg - "MBIA, Ambac Filings Show Subprime Losses Continued" (3-3-08)

"MBIA Inc. and Ambac Financial Group Inc., the bond insurers hobbled by $10 billion of writedowns on subprime debt last year, said losses continued into 2008. Ambac marked down the value of derivative contracts linked to subprime mortgages by $650 million in January, according to a regulatory filing on Feb. 29. Armonk, New York-based MBIA said it couldn't estimate January's losses."

CNN - "HSBC profits hit by subprime fallout" (3-3-08)

"HSBC Holdings PLC says profit rose 21 percent in 2007 despite taking a beating in North America. The company reports a profit of $19.1 billion compared with $15.8 billion in 2006. Pretax profits in North America fell 98 percent to $91 million compared to 4.67 billion in 2006."

Bloomberg - "Plosser Signals Rate-Cut Reversal Needed When Markets Stabilize" (3-3-08)

"Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said the benchmark interest rate is now below the level recommended by 'many' monetary-policy theories and should be raised when financial markets stabilize. 'We are now, perhaps, in a period of extraordinary circumstances and have deviated from the benchmarks suggested by simple rules,' Plosser said in prepared remarks to a conference in Arlington, Virginia. 'Such deviations should be temporary and limited and promptly reversed when conditions return to normal.'"

MSNBC - "The argument against home ownership" (3-3-08)

"Americans may disagree about nearly everything, but few contest the idea that owning your home is a good thing. Paeans to homeownership are a commonplace for American politicians, and, since the nineteen-thirties, public policy has been designed to make home buying cheaper and easier. Homeownership, the argument goes, has tremendous social benefits, stabilizing neighborhoods and making people more willing to invest in their communities. And it has economic benefits, too, serving as a forced-savings program that allows people to leverage their incomes and build wealth. Homeownership 'provides financial security for families,' Mel Martinez, the former H.U.D. Secretary, has said, and it 'generates economic strength that fuels the entire nation.'"

Real Estate Journal - "Borrowers AbandonMortgages as Prices Drop" (3-3-08)

"As home prices plummet, growing numbers of borrowers are winding up owing more on their homes than the homes are worth, raising concerns that a new group of homeowners -- those who can afford to pay their mortgages but have decided not to -- are starting to walk away from their homes."