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Alright SP...thanks for your updates too...
I know talk is cheap, but I just wanted to say that you've become a real asset on this board. Thanks for your continuous updates with the court documents. I know I'm not just speaking for myself...I have seen others on this board whom have shown the same appreciation. Thanks again!
They can't...they can only be put them either in conservatorship or receivership...they're a government entity now...they so happen to choose conservatorship and that's where they'll stay for now...so you can scrap that article and kiss it good-bye...
You're barking up the wrong tree...write him a letter...
To the Hussein Administration...ignorance is not an excuse...
...there was no monopoly in the mortgage securitization until the government effectively decided to nationalize them...by recapitalizing, ending conservatorship, and sending them back into the private hands without stripping away their corporate duties...it will create competition which will then drive the interest rates to be more effectively competitive than stripping away their duties by transferring them to Ginnie Mae and then selling what's left back to the private market...You think what we have now is monopoly? Wait until the only game in town is Ginnie Mae...Why do you think they created Freddie Mac when they already had a mortgage securitizer called Fannie Mae? Because they wanted to split the jobs that Fannie Mae did? Because they wanted to spend tax dollars? Or is it because it was to drive Fannie Mae away from monopolizing the market and driving interest rates up by being the only game in town?...Look at what's happening in the mortgage market now because of this government monopoly...I assure you that as soon as the government decides to recapitalize the GSE's and sending them back on their way to the private hands without stripping away their corporate duties will create substantial amount of job growth as well as rehabilitize and sending a strong message to the Americans that the economy has stabilized. Thus gaining confidence in the American people to go out their and attain great paying jobs, buying new homes, and reinforcing the pattern of the mortgage cycle...it's been 7 years...7 years since the crash...isn't already past that time the economy should have recovered... What in the world is this Hussein Administration doing?! This is the longest drawn out recession we've ever had under ANY president in the U.S.!
Ginnie doesn't have shares...
That's what they want you to think...it does just the opposite and more...they're actually stripping away what the GSE's currently do and giving them to Ginnie Mae...so basicly another take from Peter to pay Paul...
Interesting how they word it...key word is "Original", but are they "Current"?
Original cosponsors of The Partnership to Strengthen Homeownership Act are: Rep. Denny Heck (WA-10), Rep. Gregory Meeks (NY-5), Rep. Patrick Murphy (FL-18), Rep. Jared Polis (CO-2), Rep. Mike Quigley (IL-5), Congressman David Scott (GA-13), Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-9), and Rep. Peter Welch (VT – At Large).
A Short Seller Manipulation Technique Used by OTC Market Makers
In the stock market, price is the best advertising.
A stock that is going up tends to create the belief that it will continue to go up, and thus demand is created.
Price gets attention. We see the change in price and the price chart as a guides for action.
Short squeezes – buying panics – are created by rapid upward price movement and so feed on themselves.
Now, if I told you that I, as a market maker, could drop the stock price in the face of consistent buying and so go short and create panic selling, you might find this to be new and rather electrifying information would you not? That’s why you are reading.
Here is the simple and little known trick of market makers.
We start with the inside bid ask of the stock, let’s give a hypothetical market, $0.20 bid offered at $0.26, with the last sale being at $0.26.
Now of course this is not a real stock and I am not going to give you real history. Any close similarity between this delusional and fictional narrative and exactly what happened to a certain stock – yesterday – is simply a matter of total coincidence despite your swinish suspicions to the contrary.
A buy order for 10,000 is entered and instead of being executed at 0.26, the market makers made the sale at 0.259, so that the buy order actually dropped the price compared with the last sale of 0.26 – so the stock shows 10,000 shares traded on a down move – making the buy look like a sale.
About 10 minutes passes, and another buy order, this time for 20,000 shares is entered and that is executed at 0.258 – another down tick on another buy order!
So now the stock is down on 30,000 shares of buying only – no selling.
Folks, that is not normal supply and demand, is it? You would expect that on buy orders the stock would go up or at least stay the same, would you not?
Silly you.
If the market maker now goes and hits the bid of his competition, even for a small amount of stock, let us say 1,000 shares, the last sale is showing is now 0.20 and the stock is down 23% on heavy buying of 30,000 shares, but it looks like the stock is being dumped in a panic.
What is the effect of this false appearance on the market?
First, they buyers apparently have an immediate loss of 23%. Second, anyone with a buy order may hold off on buying to see where the stock stabilizes. If the company is trying to get people to buy the stock, as it has a right to do, it is going to be much harder to whip up enthusiasm as the stock looks like it is crashing.
Sellers, if they panic, will now come in and sell. In fact, the stock could be so demoralized that, hypothetically speaking, it could close at 0.14, down 46%, but again, this is only fictional, right?
Now if we were to check OTCShorteport.com to see what the volume of trading vs short selling looked like, we might find that half of the volume was short selling, theoretically speaking, of course. Presumably this would be by the market makers going short at 0.259 and 0.258 and elsewhere to push the price down. We would also find that half of the selling might be from long sellers who went into a panic, perhaps maybe.
Now again, all this is a merely fictional example, and I would never accuse my fellow market makers of doing anything this destructive just to make a fast buck. But it is the type of thing that I now get paid the big bucks to discover and combat.
Why? Consider what this means to the company. If the company had a $100 million market capitalization, reducing the price by 46% is a $46 million loss for the shareholders on a day when there was really nothing but buying in the stock.
If the company is selling stock to raise money, say $10 million, it means that it has to now pay stock with a value of $14.6 million to get the same money – a loss of $4.6 million.
And if the shorts are short ten million shares, they made 0.26 minus 0.14 or 0.12 per share or only $1,200,000 while the shareholders had a $46 million paper loss.
Now if you want to learn more tricks today, get yourself over to my website here and sign in and I will send you a pdf copy of my book, “How the Shorts Raid Your Stock, Destroy Your Company, and What to Do About It” so you don’t have to pay to buy it off Amazon. I wrote this years ago to advise companies how to fight off predatory short sellers (of which I was one) only to find that the shorts reverse engineered the techniques and had a field day bringing down public companies. That’s life in the jungle of Wall Street – the lions eat the gazelles who are too slow.
http://otcshortreport.com/blog/john-lux/a-short-seller-manipulation-technique-used-by-otc-market-makers/
For a minute there I thought it was an article already published...lol...no link gave it away...j/k
Bunch of idiots...HARP is suppose close enrollment end of 2015 now they're remodifying a modified loan? What in the world is this Administration up to? Might as well give the homes to borrowers for free...one thing leads to another...if they couldn't afford it in the first place how in the hell do they think they can afford it now...this time the crash will be ALL on the taxpayers...thank President Hussein everyone!
Fannie, Freddie to Alter Some Loan Modifications
Mortgage giants say move in anticipation of rising interest rates that could affect some borrowers
By JOE LIGHT
March 17, 2015 6:34 p.m. ET
Mortgage-finance companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae on Tuesday said they are changing the way they modify some loans in anticipation of an influx of borrowers struggling to make payments on loans with rising interest rates.
The affected borrowers previously received loan modifications through the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, an Obama administration initiative rolled out in 2009 that allowed some homeowners to reduce payments through interest rate and principal reductions and extensions of loan terms.
Since those modifications typically lowered borrowers’ interest rates for five years before the rates tick back up, some observers have worried that rate resets could send some borrowers back into default.
Freddie Mac in a regulatory filing Tuesday said servicers by July 1 will need to evaluate borrowers for a new mortgage modification if they are more than two months behind on mortgage payments. If borrowers are current but in danger of falling behind after a HAMP reset, servicers must also consider the borrowers for a new modification, as long as the borrowers have less than $25,000 in cash reserves.
A Fannie Mae spokesman said the company would announce similar changes in coming days.
In a statement, a spokesman for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie, said the agency “worked with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to ensure that borrowers who may be facing hardship as a result of an interest rate reset on their HAMP loan modification have options that allow them to remain in their homes. In most cases, keeping borrowers in their homes is the most beneficial outcome for all involved, including taxpayers, and we will continue to monitor these loans and make adjustments as necessary.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/fannie-freddie-to-alter-some-loan-modifications-1426631687
...spread the word Navy, spread the word...that's the spirit on the GSE's mission...
FHFA Squares Off With Firms at Trial
Agency says Nomura Holdings sold Fannie and Freddie mortgage securities rife with errors and misrepresentations
Lawyers for the Federal Housing Finance Agency say Nomura Holdings sold Fannie and Freddie mortgage securities that were rife with errors. PHOTO: REUTERS
By JOE LIGHT
March 16, 2015 5:00 p.m. ET
Lawyers for the U.S. government said Nomura Holdings Inc. executives knowingly sold mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities that were rife with errors and misrepresentations, kicking off opening arguments in a $1.1 billion civil lawsuit in New York.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie, is bringing the suit against Tokyo-based Nomura and co-defendant Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC.
The banks are two of 18 financial institutions, including Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., targeted by the FHFA in 2011 with lawsuits that so far have garnered about $18 billion in settlements.
The outcome of the trial, which is taking place in Manhattan federal court and is expected to last into April, will signal the wisdom or folly of the banks that settled rather than fight the government in court.
The cases center on mortgage-backed securities that Freddie and Fannie invested in during the housing boom. The investments were separate from Fannie’s and Freddie’s usual business of securitizing and guaranteeing repayment on mortgage loans.
Although investments in such securities bolstered the companies’ profits for a time, they lost billions of dollars in value during the real-estate crisis.
The companies were put into conservatorship by the government in 2008 and received almost $188 billion in bailout money.
The FHFA argues that the securities’ offering documents were inaccurate. In some cases, the FHFA said, the loans behind the securities were for homes with values at far less than purported. In others, the loans didn’t go to owner-occupants as had been claimed, the agency said.
In his opening statement on Monday, Philippe Selendy, a lawyer for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, which is representing the FHFA, said Nomura and RBS were “willing participants in creating the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression” in lying about the quality of the securities they sold.
David Tulchin, an attorney for Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, which is representing Nomura, said the company adequately disclosed in securities’ offering documents that there could be mistakes. He also attacked government attempts after the fact to value the loans and homes tied to them, calling the methods “litigation driven.”
Instead, Mr. Tulchin said, losses on the securities were due to the housing crisis and weren’t Nomura’s fault.
The Nomura case is notable for reaching trial at all. Only one other case, a separate one against RBS in Connecticut, hasn’t settled.
Some analysts have said Nomura and Edinburgh, Scotland-based RBS might be more willing to fight the government because they are less concerned about the risks of damaging their reputations in the U.S.
“The banks that settled decided that closing the chapter on the government’s crisis-era claims was worth the upfront expense of a settlement when considered in the context of both actual and reputational cost,” said Isaac Boltansky, an analyst with Compass Point Research & Trading LLC in Washington.
Settlements from the securities cases, and other crisis-related penalties, for the past couple of years have been a significant source of profits for Fannie and Freddie.
At the trial, Thomas Rice, a lawyer with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP representing RBS, said Fannie’s and Freddie’s expertise in the mortgage industry belied the notion that they weren’t aware of the risks and potential problems of the securities they invested in.
“These are the largest, most sophisticated players in the market,” Mr. Rice said.
Write to Joe Light at joe.light@wsj.com
http://www.wsj.com/articles/fhfa-squares-off-with-firms-at-trial-1426539652
Former FHFA Head DeMarco Wants to Shift Blame for Problems He Helped Create
March 16, 2015
Former Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Ed DeMarco is trying to shift blame for growing perils posed by Fannie and Freddie's state of limbo from his own actions while at the FHFA to someone – anyone – else.
In audio remarks obtained by American Banker, DeMarco indicated that Congress' failure to pass housing finance reform legislation continues to pose a threat to the country, and policies under the Obama administration risk repeating mistakes that led to the 2008 financial crisis. But has he forgotten that the Third Amendment Sweep, which DeMarco helped engineer, drains Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of all capital reserves and creates huge uncertainty about the future role of Fannie and Freddie? This is the bigger threat to taxpayers, shareholders and the housing marketplace.
In a recording from a private event last week and obtained by American Banker DeMarco said this:
"In the past year or so we've actually seen a renewed policy focus on questions regarding access to credit, which can risk repeating the approach that contributed to the financial crisis—that being the government's rather vigorous concern about expanding access to credit. That's not to blame the conservator, whoever it is, it is pointing out the consequence of having a lack of legislative action and having these two companies continuing to operate in conservatorship."
Like a rogue bureaucrat, DeMarco acted outside of his legal authority in helping to create the Third Amendment Sweep, which was in opposition to the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. Now he seems to be trying to ignore the consequences of these actions and make sure someone else gets blamed if taxpayers are again burdened with a downturn in the housing market.
Congress' intentions in HERA were clear: it created FHFA and named it conservator of the GSEs. Perhaps DeMarco didn't like what Congress intended so he interpreted the law his own way. This isn't the first time we've heard of DeMarco trying to justify his actions. Last fall at theBipartisan Policy Center's annual Housing Summit, we blogged this on DeMarco's appearance:
We quoted him saying, "During my tenure, I believe that FHFA had a responsibility not just to operate the conservatorships according to the law, but to be attentive to the direction the administration and lawmakers were going."
To that, we commented, "That's an interesting "belief." How does it square with what is stated within HERA about FHFA's role, though?
FHFA powers as conservator, as outlined by HERA: is to "take such action as may be—(i) necessary to put the regulated entity in a sound and solvent condition; and (ii) appropriate to carry on the business of the regulated entity and preserve and conserve the assets and property of the regulated entity." [12 USC § 4617(b)(2)(D).]
We know that DeMarco didn't comply with the law's mandate to "preserve and conserve the assets and property" of Fannie and Freddie but it still seems a little audacious for him to ignore the connection between the sweep and the current exposure of taxpayers. It would be useful for DeMarco to read IU Executive Director Tim Pagliara's op-ed that was recently published in a Capitol Hill newspaper. Pagliara wrote:
"Just last month, Fannie Mae's Chief Executive Officer Tim Mayopoulos sounded the alarm over the undercapitalization of Fannie, saying, 'The fact that we don't have a significant amount of capital increases the likelihood that Fannie will need additional capital from Treasury at some point.' Mayopoulos was also unsparing in his description of why the GSEs were undercapitalized, adding, 'The GSE capital depletion is a direct outcome of the repayment terms embedded in the Preferred Stock Purchase Agreements (PSPAs) between the GSEs and the U.S. Treasury. That agreement requires the GSEs to remit 100 percent of profits, which precludes building capital."
American Banker reached out to DeMarco for further comment on his remarks, but they got no response. Maybe DeMarco will expand on what he said during an appearance tomorrow (Tuesday, March 17) at Ferrum College in Roanoke, VA, where he is scheduled to speak on a panel addressing housing finance reform.
The forum, titled, "U.S. Housing Finance Reform: Can We Manage and Control Taxpayer Risk While Assuring Continued Innovation in the Market?," presents another great opportunity for Virginia-based Investors Unite members to get together and respectfully raise awareness about the dangers posed by the Treasury's continuation of the net worth sweep. It's time to let the GSE's recapitalize, and Dr. Clifford Rossi's well-reasoned plan is a good place to start.
The conference will be held at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm, and interested parties can register to attend on the forum's website. The event will also be webcast and you can follow developments at our discussion board.
About Investors Unite: Formed by Tennessee activist investor and CapWealth Advisors Chairman and CEO, Tim Pagliara, Investors Unite (www.investorsunite.org) is a coalition of private investors from all walks of life, committed to the preservation of shareholder rights for all invested in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The coalition works to educate shareholders and lawmakers on the importance of adopting GSE reform that fully respects the legal rights of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders and offers full restitution on investments.
P.O. Box 2591
Brentwood, TN 37024
Remaining PLS Cases
Southern District of New York Cases:
Nomura Holding America, Inc.
District of Connecticut Case:
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, PLC
http://www.fhfa.gov/Media/PublicAffairs/Pages/FHFAs-Update-on-Private-Label-Securities-Actions.aspx
Nomura First to Fight U.S. Toxic Debt Claims at Trial
by Bob Van Voris
12:00 AM PDT March 13, 2015
(Bloomberg) -- Nomura Holdings Inc. will defend claims by a U.S. regulator that it sold defective mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the 2008 financial crisis, becoming the first bank to take such a case to trial.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, suing on behalf of the two government-owned companies, claims Nomura sold them $2 billion of bonds backed by faulty mortgages. The agency seeks more than $1 billion in damages in the trial, which is set to start Monday in Manhattan federal court.
Nomura, the Tokyo-based investment bank, is choosing to fight claims that 16 other banks settled after the blow-up of toxic mortgage bonds led to the global credit crunch. FHFA has reached $17.9 billion in settlements from banks including Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs & Co. If Nomura prevails at trial, it may embolden other firms facing mortgage-related suits to defend themselves rather than settle.
“There’s going to be a very important signal sent, whether Nomura wins or loses,” said Robert Hockett, a professor at Cornell University Law School. If Nomura loses, the strategy of other banks to settle will be vindicated, said Hockett, who isn’t involved in the FHFA cases and has been an expert witness for investors in private suits.
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, which joins Nomura as a defendant, underwrote three of the seven securitizations at issue in the trial.
Misleading Documentation
RBS, based in Edinburgh, was sued by FHFA in federal court in Connecticut for selling $32 billion of its own mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That case is expected to go to trial in 2016.
FHFA sued Nomura over securities issued from 2005 to 2007, claiming it misled the two finance companies about the quality of loans backing the bonds. Nomura marketed the securities with faulty appraisals, misrepresentations of home values and borrowers’ finances and misleading statements about underwriting criteria, the agency claims.
Nomura and RBS argue that the documents issued in connection with the bond sales adequately disclosed the risks and weren’t misleading.
Nomura and RBS also say that any alleged misstatements didn’t factor into Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s decision to buy the securities. The banks claim in court documents that some or all of the losses incurred by the companies were caused by the crash of the housing market.
Nomura said it properly reviewed the underwriting of the loans that were packaged into the securities. Nomura itself invested in the riskiest portion of the mortgage-backed securities it issued and lost money on them, the bank said.
Pretrial Rulings
Nomura, which sold fewer mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than many of the other banks, risks less by going to trial. As a Japanese bank, the threat of public-relations damage from a U.S. trial isn’t as grave, said Stacey Slaughter, a partner with the Minneapolis firm Robins Kaplan LLP.
“Perhaps Nomura believes its position is different from others like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, whose reputations in the U.S. are impacted by headlines and popular opinion,” Slaughter said in an e-mail.
U.S. District Judge Denise Cote, who will hear the case without a jury, has issued a series of pretrial rulings that have gone against the defendants.
She barred Nomura from presenting evidence, including limiting the bank’s ability to prove its claim that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac didn’t suffer damages from purchasing the mortgage-backed bonds. The judge also ruled Nomura didn’t have the right to have the case tried by a jury and that FHFA didn’t have to prove that the mortgage firms knew of Nomura’s alleged false statements.
More Careful
For Nomura and RBS to succeed, they will have to overcome Cote’s rulings as well as the widely held perception that banks packaged toxic debt and pushed it off on unsuspecting investors, said David Reiss, a professor at Brooklyn Law School.
Reiss said Nomura may believe it can show it was more careful than other banks in structuring mortgage-backed bonds and stands a good chance of winning.
As the trial approaches, a settlement becomes less likely, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Elliott Stein and Alison Williams said yesterday. Stein said a resolution this late in the proceedings may exceed his earlier estimate of $100 million to $300 million, particularly if Cote’s rulings continue to favor FHFA.
Because there is no jury, the government and banks are submitting written testimony from their witnesses, who will then be questioned in court by the other side. The trial is expected to take a month.
The case is Federal Housing Finance Agency v. Nomura Holding America Inc., 11-cv-06201, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, (Manhattan).
To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net Vincent Bielski
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-13/nomura-first-to-fight-u-s-toxic-debt-claims-at-trial?cmpid=yhoo
...boohoohoo...Fannie took a dump yesterday, but she's feeling all better today...
Schwab...sounds like an ear wax cleaner...lol
It's a comin' hold on...if it ain't crossin' it's a bouncin'...
Try using zargistrade next time...I heard it's better...
This is a major bullish pattern...watchout!
I can't wait until the government finger pointing starts in the jury trial...that's going to be interesting...
Sure looks like that's what they did...
Actually it's looks more like someone has backed up the trucked and loading...it's been holding the 2.60 line pretty damn good so far...when they're done I'd imagine this thing will actually start shooting up...are you still shorting?...ewww...
...tomorrow...definitely tomorrow...
Volume starting to pickup again...It's getting ready for another move...
Cheapskate bottom feeder!...
Did you add me back on the list?
Buy buy buy...push it push it...
Oh look Navy...you're about to get your confirmation...
You should hear some update by the end of this month then maybe if all goes well...an outcome end of April/early May...
Three abbreviations...UBS...I believe someone already answered this though...basicly the idea is that Ackman doesn't like to lose money and people are expecting him to do something to cause the pps to rise before the expiration at end of April...anyway...it's all a hope for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for now...will it come true? It could...if AIG wins...that's the only catalyst that I see anytime soon...so actually in reality it's not the UBS contract...it's more so the AIG case that may cause the pps to rise...Ackman must have known the approximate date for the AIG case for him to even contemplate a contract expiration date though...if that's true...then damn...he's good!
How can you be wrong if you're not sure?...you sound like our FNMA gapologist...
We're going GREEN today folks!!! Perfect buying opportunity...
...CNBC talking about shadow banking and GSE's...shadow banking selling mortgages to GSE's up by 40%...