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LongSqueeze...
167K shares at .82 at 2 minutes after the bell. I hope shorts are as annoyed as us longs have been...
Close at .82
It's been smoke and mirrors for a while,IMO. I dont think either stock(FNM/FRE) has this many shares available to trade, BWTFDIK?
Just because you decided the room stinks doesn't mean you have to fart...
Yeah he is a short, bald, fat guy with a big stinky cigar. He is wearing a dirty wife-beater tanktop, and his stubby arms and back are very hairy. Dirty boxers and flip flops on his feet...
Personally, I dont think what happens here has any effect on the stock. I see the argument that folks may sell or buy based on what anonymous posters say. If that is the case, then shame on them for allowing anybody here to play a part in their decisions. We each decide for ourselves. We should take our own credit as well as our own blame. JMO.
Almost 80M traded...
Trade FRE, Buy FNM...
dont be skerred
Green...
Fixed rates fall below 6% [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
12/02 12:12 PM
Dec. 2--For the third time this year, fixed interest rates have fallen below 6 percent, boosting business for lenders at the start of the typically slow holiday period.
Rates for 30-year mortgages have been at or near 5.50 percent since Nov. 26, the result of last week's Federal Reserve decision to buy $600 billion in mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae (FNM:$0.852,0$0.012,01.43%) and Freddie Mac (FRE:$0.8125,$-0.0975,-10.71%) to help loosen credit and kick-start the housing market.
Fixed rates have fallen to 5.5 percent twice before this year -- in the third week of both January and September -- but nothing sustained the drop. Rates rebounded almost a percentage point quickly both times.
"I think this decline in mortgage rates will have more staying power," said Moody's Economy.com chief economist Mark Zandi. The Federal Reserve is now explicitly committed to making sure that mortgage spreads stay low by buying Fannie and Freddie debt and the mortgage securities they guarantee."
Zandi expects rates to continue to drop this week, predicting that the fixed rate should soon be near 5 percent.
Economists and lenders have long believed that 30-year fixed home loans should be 5 percent or lower, but that higher rates are designed to increase yields to attract investors in mortgage-backed securities.
Although it is too early to tell, the initial reaction to lower rates by prospective home buyers has been encouraging.
Edie Staufer, a Long & Foster Real Estate agent in Blue Bell, said the rate drop probably led a reticent buyer into purchasing a house the day before Thanksgiving, and that a townhouse she listed the same day had seven showings and three offers.
Many people have been waiting for the rates to drop.
"We had a nice surge of refinances on Tuesday and Wednesday," said Jim Goldstein, branch manager of Gateway Funding in Horsham. "We typically track rates for past clients and notify them when a rate drop makes refinancing beneficial. Several applied right away."
Goldstein expects refinancing activity to continue, but "rates will need to stay low for a while for a significant impact on the purchase market."
Peter Buchsbaum, manager of Arlington Capital Mortgage in Jenkintown, agrees.
"What I find interesting is that the buyers seem to be waiting for the prices to fall more," he said. "At best, the low rates will benefit some. Serious borrowers have historically waited for them to go lower."
Home prices continue to drop, but not much in the eight-county Philadelphia region or the Middle Atlantic.
Freddie Mac's (FRE:$0.8125,$-0.0975,-10.71%) third-quarter Conventional Home Price Index, released yesterday, showed a 7.3 percent year over year decline nationally, but only 2.2 percent lower in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, after rising 33.4 percent over five years.
With unemployment rising, "there will likely be further weakening in housing demand, which could push the market bottom in home sales and housing starts out at least until middle to late next year," resulting in further declines, said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac's (FRE:$0.8125,$-0.0975,-10.71%) chief economist.
The number of mortgage insurance policies written in October fell 76 percent from the same month in 2007, the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America reported yesterday. The trade group blamed tighter underwriting standards and the housing downturn.
Contact real estate Alan J. Heavens at 215-854-2472 or aheavens@phillynews.com.
To see more of The Philadelphia Inquirer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to <a href=http://www.philly.com</a>" target="_blank">http://www.philly.com>http://www.philly.com</a>.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
NY Fed To Meet With Dealers Tues To Discuss GSE Debt Purchase
12/02 12:38 PM
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The New York Federal Reserve will meet with primary dealers Tuesday afternoon to discuss certain details surrounding its agency debt purchase plan, a New York Fed spokesman said.
The discussion of the new program, which is expected to launch this week, will be solely technical in nature, the spokesman said, and address how dealers will interact with the program's trading platform. It will not detail the parameters of the program.
The Fed announced last week that it will buy up to $100 billion in debt issued directly by the Congressionally-chartered housing finance firms Fannie Mae (FNM:$0.86,00$0.02,002.38%) , Freddie Mac (FRE:$0.8349,$-0.0751,-8.25%) , Ginnie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Bank System through a series of competitive auctions. The program is intended to help improve mortgage market conditions and the economy by lowering home loan rates.
Purchases are expected to take place over several quarters. The Fed has said that further information regarding the operational details of this program will be provided after consultation with market participants.
-By Deborah Lynn Blumberg, Dow Jones Newswires, 201-938-2018, deborah.blumberg@dowjones.com
Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: http:// www.djnewsplus.com/al?rnd=fDjuAqlm0iAcgxiQvEfs%2Bg%3D%3D. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-02-081238ET
Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Detailed Quote for Fannie Mae (FNM)
$ 0.84 -0.32 (-27.59%) Volume: 178.04 m 4:02 PM EST Dec 1, 2008
After Hours: $ 0.86 0.02 (+2.38%) Volume: 906.5 k 7:59 PM EST Dec 1, 2008
2nd UPDATE: Bernanke: More Fed Rate Cuts 'Certainly Feasible'
12/01 03:34 PM
(Updates with additional Bernanke remarks; adds background)
By Brian Blackstone
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday suggested that officials will hold nothing back in their support of financial markets and the economy, calling further interest rate cuts from already low levels "certainly feasible."
In prepared remarks to an economic conference in Texas, Bernanke also said the Fed's powers don't end with the federal funds rate and signaled the Fed could even make large-scale outright purchases of agency and government securities to stimulate the economy.
While officials will at some point need to bring short-term interest rates and liquidity back to more sustainable levels, "that is an issue for the future," Bernanke said in the text of his remarks to the conference in Austin, Texas.
"For now, the goal of policy must be to support financial markets and the economy," he said.
Among the Fed's options, Bernanke said, are direct purchases of Treasurys and securities issued by government-sponsored enterprises "in substantial quantities" to affect yields, "thus helping to spur aggregate demand."
He cited the Fed's announcement last week that it will buy up to $600 billion in GSE debt and GSE-backed mortgage securities and called it "encouraging" that the announcement of that measure has brought mortgage rates down.
The Fed can also channel liquidity to certain segments of the financial markets, Bernanke said, citing the Fed's recent measures to support the commercial paper market.
Bernanke said the U.S. economy "remains under considerable stress" and that after contracting 0.5% at an annual rate in the third quarter, "economic activity appears to have downshifted" after September.
Reflecting that assessment, the Institute for Supply Management's November manufacturing index, released Monday, fell to its lowest level since 1982. Meanwhile, construction spending posted a steeper-than-expected drop in October, according to government figures. The November employment report, due for release Friday, is expected to show a plunge in nonfarm payrolls in excess of 300,000 with a further increase in the unemployment rate.
Indeed, Bernanke said weekly jobless claims figures "suggest that labor market conditions worsened further in November." And with labor and credit conditions worsening, consumer spending is "on a pace to post another sharp decline in the fourth quarter," he said.
The National Bureau of Economic Research, an academic group that determines when recessions occur based on a series of indicators, on Monday officially declared that the U.S. is in fact in a recession that began last December. The recession is already longer than the previous two in 1990-1991 and 2001 and could approach the 16-month recession of 1981-1982. The 1929-1933 recession lasted 43 months, according to NBER.
Bernanke cautioned against making comparisons to the Great Depression, explaining that the economy is much different now and the policy response much more aggressive. "Let's put that out of our minds," said Bernanke, an expert on the Great Depression as an academic.
To prevent a deeper and prolonged recession, Fed officials are expected to lower interest rates at their Dec. 15-16 policy meeting, a view supported by Bernanke's remarks Monday.
The target federal funds rate already sits at just 1%, matching lows last seen in 2003 and 2004. Further cuts would put the funds rate at levels not seen in a half-century.
Yet, even if the fed funds rate approaches zero - as a growing chorus of Wall Street economists expect - the Fed still has considerable sway over markets and the economy through its balance sheet.
"Although conventional interest rate policy is constrained by the fact that nominal interest rates cannot fall below zero, the second arrow in the Federal Reserve's quiver - the provision of liquidity - remains effective," Bernanke said.
That firepower was evidenced last week by the Fed's decision to provide a loan backstop for the government's bailout of Citigroup Inc. (C:$6.8685,$-1.4215,-17.15%) and purchase GSE and GSE-backed mortgage securities.
Bernanke pledged that the Fed and other financial market regulators "will carefully monitor the conditions of all key financial institutions and stand ready to act as needed to preserve their viability in this difficult financial environment."
While some people might get some "temporary satisfaction" from seeing a financial institution go down, Bernanke said that it's "not responsible in these circumstances" to let that happen.
However, he cautioned that government officials will have to at some point make dealing with the too-big-to-fail issue "a top priority." Too-big-to-fail " is not an acceptable situation," Bernanke said.
Bernanke was upbeat on the outlook for inflation, saying that with commodity prices down "dramatically," inflation "appears set to decline significantly over the next year toward levels consistent with price stability."
-By Brian Blackstone, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-828-3397; brian.blackstone@ dowjones.com
Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: http:// www.djnewsplus.com/al?rnd=cyyj%2Fj9l%2Faz7taM%2FBIG0ZQ%3D%3D. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-01-081534ET
Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch)-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Monday indicated that he might support a new approach to mortgage foreclosure mitigation, but he didn't go so far as to back a proposal introduced by Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chief Sheila Bair last month. Bair is seeking $24.4 billion of the federal government's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program to modify loans, claiming that the package could avert 1.5 million foreclosures. "We are continuing to examine potential foreclosure mitigation ideas that may be an appropriate and effective use of TARP resources," Paulson said. Paulson's comments indicate that he might be willing to support Bair.
Treasury leaves door open to mortgage modification
12/01 03:03 PM
Tsy's Paulson: Tsy Actively Mulling New Rescue Programs
12/01 03:01 PM
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Monday reiterated that his department is still aggressively examining new ways to stabilize financial markets, stem foreclosures, and boost the economy.
But the outgoing official also made clear that he plans to discuss any new initiatives with Congress and President-elect Barack Obama's team.
Paulson's comments come as fears of a severe, protracted global slowdown continue to mount.
"We are actively engaged in developing additional programs to strengthen our financial system so that lending flows into our economy," the secretary said, according to the text of a speech he plans to give at a business leader and policy expert forum in Washington. "When these programs are ready for implementation, we will discuss them with the Congress and the next Administration."
Paulson said Treasury also continues "to look at additional capital strategies." Still, Treasury will assess the impact of its first market rescue program in order to evaluate the size and focus of an additional program. Under the first program, Treasury committed $250 billion to purchasing stakes in various banks.
Meanwhile, Paulson said Treasury is still examining potential foreclosure mitigation ideas that could be funded through its $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
"And of course, as we consider potential new TARP programs, we must also maintain flexibility and firepower for this Administration and the next, to address new challenges as they arise," Paulson continued.
Earlier Monday, a key academic group that tracks economic cycles officially declared that the U.S. economy has been in recession mode since this time last year. "The committee identified December 2007 as the peak month, after determining that the subsequent decline in economic activity weas large enough to qualify as a recession," wrote the National Bureau of Economic Research in a report made public on Monday. The peak marks the beginning of a recession.
"This downturn promises to be the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930's," said MFR Inc. Chief U.S. economist Joshua Shapiro in a research note.
Meanwhile, gloomy economic data indicated further slumping in the U.S. manufacturing and construction sectors.
Paulson Tuesday will head to Beijing for the meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, or SED. The Bush administration launched the series of high-level talks with China in 2006 with Paulson's help. And now, the secretary is calling on the next administration to continue the discussions as a way to further improve U.S.-Chinese relations. His trip comes as China's yuan is declining, raising concerns that Chinese officials may now favor a weakening of the yen to bolster its economy and its exporters.
For three years, China - which sets the yuan's exchange rate on a daily basis - has allowed the currency to steadily gain ground against the dollar. But that appreciation has stalled recently.
Meanwhile, the ongoing credit crisis in the U.S. is continuing to require regulators' full attention despite several new creative programs and bailouts designed to revive financial markets.
Last week, Treasury, along with other federal regulators, announced a plan to rescue Citigroup Inc. (C:$7.07,00$-1.22,00-14.72%) . Regulators agreed to inject $20 billion into the giant banking firm and back up to $306 billion worth of the bank's assets.
Additionally, federal officials Tuesday unveiled an $800 billion plan to boost consumer credit and the market for mortgage-related securities. Under that plan, the Fed will extend up to $200 billion in non-recourse loans to holders of asset-backed securities backed by highly-rated consumer and small business loans. The goal is to have the program running by February. Treasury has agreed to extend $20 billion in funds through its Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, for the facility.
Also, the Fed said it would purchase up to $100 billion in GSE (government- sponsored enterprise) debt through a series of competitive auctions starting this week. The Fed also plans to purchase up to $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities backed by GSEs such as Fannie Mae (FNM:$0.907,0$-0.253,0-21.81%) and Freddie mac. Officials aim to have that program running in the next several weeks.
Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Monday indicated that officials stand ready to launch new liquidity programs to support the economy in addition to further slashing interests rates.
Bernanke said the central bank could directly purchase Treasury or agency securities on the open market and backstop liquidity to certain financial markets just like it's done in the commercial paper market.
Bernanke said the U.S. economy "remains under considerable stress" and that after contracting 0.5% at an annual rate in the third quarter, "economic activity appears to have downshifted" after September.
"Today we continue to work through a severe financial crisis," Paulson said in his afternoon speech. "While we are making progress, the journey ahead will continue to be a difficult one. But I have confidence that we are pursuing the right strategy to stabilize the financial system and support the flow of credit into our economy."
-By Maya Randall, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9255; maya.jackson-randall@ dowjones.com
(Brian Blackstone, Jeff Bater and David Roman of the Wall Street Journal contributed to this report.)
Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: http:// www.djnewsplus.com/al?rnd=cyyj%2Fj9l%2Faz7taM%2FBIG0ZQ%3D%3D. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-01-081501ET
Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Paulson has allocated $150 billion to buy stakes in 52 banks
12/01 03:03 PM
Everybody...loves my Fannie...she gets.......she gets.......high!!!!!!!
Did they move May up in the year? Is it after JAN now?
Well done Arnold, well done...
Folks flipped out cause they made it official that it started last DEC. That means we should be over half way done. Get in the game!!!
Sometimes I think Bernanke and Paulson are short the market...
HIGHLIGHTS-Bernanke on the outlook for Fed policy
12/01 01:49 PM
WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The following is an excerpt
focusing on the outlook for Federal Reserve policy from a
speech by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday:
Going forward, our nation's economic policy must vigorously
address the substantial risks to financial stability and
economic growth that we face. I will conclude my remarks by
discussing the policy options of the Federal Reserve, focusing
on the three aspects of policy that I laid out earlier:
interest rate policy, liquidity policy, and policies to
stabilize the financial system.
Regarding interest rate policy, although further reductions
from the current federal funds rate target of 1 percent are
certainly feasible, at this point the scope for using
conventional interest rate policies to support the economy is
obviously limited. Indeed, the actual federal funds rate has
been trading consistently below the Committee's 1 percent
target in recent weeks, reflecting the large quantity of
reserves that our lending activities have put into the system.
In principle, our ability to pay interest on excess reserves at
a rate equal to the funds rate target, as we have been doing,
should keep the actual rate near the target, because banks
should have no incentive to lend overnight funds at a rate
lower than what they can receive from the Federal Reserve. In
practice, however, several factors have served to depress the
market rate below the target. One such factor is the presence
in the market of large suppliers of funds, notably the
government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac, which are not eligible to receive interest on reserves and
are thus willing to lend overnight federal funds at rates below
the target. (1) We will continue to explore ways to keep the
effective federal funds rate closer to the target.
Although conventional interest rate policy is constrained by
the fact that nominal interest rates cannot fall below zero,
the second arrow in the Federal Reserve's quiver--the provision
of liquidity--remains effective. Indeed, there are several
means by which the Fed could influence financial conditions
through the use of its balance sheet, beyond expanding our
lending to financial institutions. First, the Fed could
purchase longer-term Treasury or agency securities on the open
market in substantial quantities. This approach might influence
the yields on these securities, thus helping to spur aggregate
demand. Indeed, last week the Fed announced plans to purchase
up to $100 billion in GSE debt and up to $500 billion in GSE
mortgage-backed securities over the next few quarters. It is
encouraging that the announcement of that action was met by a
fall in mortgage interest rates.
Second, the Federal Reserve can provide backstop liquidity not
only to financial institutions but also directly to certain
financial markets, as we have recently done for the commercial
paper market. Such programs are promising because they sidestep
banks and primary dealers to provide liquidity directly to
borrowers or investors in key credit markets. In this spirit,
the Federal Reserve and the Treasury jointly announced last
week a facility that will lend against asset-backed securities
collateralized by student loans, auto loans, credit card loans,
and loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration. The
Federal Reserve's credit risk exposure in this facility will be
minimized because the collateral will be subject to a "haircut"
and because the Treasury is providing $20 billion of EESA
capital as supplementary loss protection. Each of these
approaches has the potential to improve the functioning of
financial markets and to stimulate the economy.
Expanding the provision of liquidity leads also to further
expansion of the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve. To avoid
inflation in the long run and to allow short-term interest
rates ultimately to return to normal levels, the Fed's balance
sheet will eventually have to be brought back to a more
sustainable level. The FOMC will ensure that that is done in a
timely way. However, that is an issue for the future; for now,
the goal of policy must be to support financial markets and the
economy.
Finally, working together with the Treasury, the FDIC, and
other agencies, we must take all steps necessary to minimize
systemic risk. The capital injections into the banking system
under the EESA, the FDIC's guarantee program, and the provision
of liquidity by the Federal Reserve have already served to
greatly reduce the risk that a systemically important financial
institution will fail. We at the Federal Reserve and our
colleagues at other federal agencies will carefully monitor the
conditions of all key financial institutions and stand ready to
act as needed to preserve their viability in this difficult
financial environment.
I have not discussed the international response to the crisis
today, but policymakers abroad as well as those in the United
States have taken a series of extraordinary steps to address an
extraordinary situation. These steps include strong fiscal and
monetary actions as well as measures to stabilize key financial
institutions and markets and to strengthen the financial
infrastructure. I am not suggesting the way forward will be
easy. But I believe that the policy responses taken here and by
our international partners, together with the underlying
vitality and resilience of the American economy, will help to
restore confidence to our financial system and place our
economy back on the path to vigorous growth.
Footnotes
1. Banks have an incentive to borrow from the GSEs and then
redeposit the funds at the Federal Reserve; as a result, banks
earn a sure profit equal to the difference between the rate
they pay the GSEs and the rate they receive on excess reserves.
However, thus far, this type of arbitrage has not been
occurring on a sufficient scale, perhaps because banks have not
yet fully adjusted their reserve-management practices to take
advantage of this opportunity.
It's the thrill of the fight!
They can give me my money now or later. I prefer later, cause I am charging interest...
Ewwwww, we are down 25%, I am sooooo scarred....
This stock when down 17 straight days. This aint nothing. Bring it on SHORTY!
Yeah we should just all give up...j/k
Pumping and bashing are pointless with this stock. Way too big for us peons...
Its sarcasm dude
We have had a minor setback this past 10 minutes. We just gotta put or noses to the grindstone and try,try again!
Things are going great, it just that we are the only ones that know it...
We cant forget we are much smarter than the market, once they realized what a strong base we now have at these levels, then we sure could. I just hope all the dummies realize it sometime today. We just have to be patient. That goes for all of you. We are a bunch of Einstein's for being long FNM at these levels. GLTA(except shorts)
22 cents to go team... One cent at a time... Ready...break!!!
Its all smoke and mirrors. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...
Its not easy...being green...
We are going to get green...one...penny...at ...a...time...