From the WaPo: Housing Agency’s Cash Reserves Will Drop Below Requirement The Federal Housing Administration has been hit so hard by the mortgage crisis that for the first time, the agency’s cash reserves will drop below the minimum level set by Congress, FHA officials said. The FHA guaranteed about a…

From Fitch: $134B of U.S. Option ARM RMBS To Recast by 2011 Of the $189 billion securitized Option ARM loans outstanding, 88% have yet to experience a recast event … Of these loans that have not yet recast, 94% have utilized the minimum monthly payment to allow their loans to…

From MarketWatch: U.S. consumer credit down record amount in July UU.S. consumers reduced their credit burden by a record amount in July, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday. Total seasonally adjusted consumer debt fell $21.55 billion, or at a 10.4% annual rate, in July to $2.47 trillion. This is the sixth…

Typically retail companies start hiring for the holiday season in October, and really increase hiring in November. Here is a graph that shows the historical net retail jobs added for October, November and December by year. Click on graph for larger image in new window. This really shows the collapse…

Here are a few graphs from the Freddie Mac June Investor Presentation . Click on graph for large image. The first graph shows the average LTV of the Freddie Portfolio (graph doesn’t start at zero). The second graph shows the current breakdown by LTV and credit score.
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