Bloomberg - "Thornburg Sells Securities to Revive Home Lending" (8-20-07)

"Thornburg Mortgage Inc., the jumbo- mortgage specialist that stopped taking loan applications last week because of a cash crunch, sold $20.5 billion of securities at a discount to pay down debt it couldn't refinance. The Santa Fe, New Mexico-based company will record a $930 million loss in the third quarter on the sale of the mortgage- backed bonds, resulting in a probable net loss for the year, President Larry Goldstone said in an interview. Thornburg's shares, which gyrated between $7.49 and $18.35 last week, dropped as much as 13 percent today."

Bloomberg - "Treasury Bill Yields Fall Most Since 1987 on Money Fund Demand" (8-20-07)

"Yields on U.S. Treasury bills fell the most in two decades on demand for the safest securities amid concern over a widening credit crunch. Bill yields have fallen five straight days as money market funds dumped asset-backed commercial paper in favor of the shortest-maturity government debt. Three-month yields dropped the most since the stock market crash of 1987 and more than in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the U.S, as funds shunned assets that may be linked to a weakening mortgage market."

Bloomberg - "Subprime Infects $300 Billion of Money Market Funds, Hikes Risk" (8-20-07)

"Money market funds were invented 37 years ago to offer investors better returns than bank savings accounts while providing a high degree of safety. Most of the $2.5 trillion sitting in these funds is invested in such assets as U.S. Treasury bills, certificates of deposit and short-term commercial debt."

Bloomberg - "Inflation Risks Vanish in Financial Market Haze" (8-20-07)

"It took a fair amount of kicking and screaming from financial markets last week to prod the Federal Reserve into action. But act it did, cutting the discount rate by 0.5 percentage point to 5.75 percent before the New York Stock Exchange opened Friday. The unexpected action had an immediate and positive impact on global stock markets, which reversed earlier losses. It took some of the bloom off the three-month Treasury bill, whose rate had tumbled more than 100 basis points in the span of a week. And it reinforced expectations that the Fed was close to cutting the overnight benchmark rate, now at 5.25 percent, perhaps even before the next meeting on Sept. 18."

Yahoo - "Countrywide Said to Begin Layoffs" (8-20-07)

"Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest mortgage lender, sought to reassure customers Monday that the liquidity problems dogging its mortgage operations were not affecting its banking unit. The assurance came amid a report that Countrywide has started laying off an undisclosed number of employees as it tries to ride out the credit crunch that has rocked the home loan industry."

Market Watch - "Fannie Mae to skip benchmark debt offering in August" (8-20-07)

"Mortgage-buyer Fannie Mae will skip a benchmark debt offering for the first time since May 2006, the company said Monday. "We utilized our option to pass," a spokeswoman said, without elaborating further. Fannie is permitted to pass twice a year on the offerings. On its web site, Action Economics said the move "suggests that demand [for] even high-rated mortgage paper is scant at the moment and impacting funding plans at the agency." Shares of Fannie Mae were recently off 1.1%, at $66.55."

Orange County Register - "O.C. real estate/finance jobs take biggest hits since '93" (8-20-07)

"O.C. real-estate and lending job counts are off 5,200 in the year ended in July, by this blog's math. That is the biggest year-over-year drop in these property-related businesses since June '93. And the state's count does not track the self-employed or the off-the-books workers, which have been hard hit, too. It's worth noting that one year ago, real estate/lending was adding workers at a 7,500-jobs-per-year pace."