Stock Trading

Some more gory details of the mortgage mess. Looks like a distinct possibility that the mortgage securitization might not hold legal muster. This opens the door of home owners to be able to sell their homes before having to pay the mortgage holder! Explosive stuff. A must read article.

The problems with MERS began to come to light when “vice presidents” of the firm began to submit affidavits in foreclosures, saying the original note had been lost. In some cases those notes were signed by people who signed thousands of such affidavits, and have now admitted they did not actually review the files, as the affidavits said they had.Nor were those people really employees of MERS. It turns out that MERS allows financial institutions that are its members to name anyone a vice president or assistant secretary of MERS. It seems a little unlikely that someone who had never been hired or paid by a company could be a vice president.

via Some Sand in the Gears of Securitizing – CNBC.

Informative piece about Foreclosure Freezes at major banks across US. In short, the Banks are in some cases unable to provide proof that they own the mortgages. Due the multiple resales, and mortgage securitization, the paperwork transferring the ownership of mortgages did not make it through from the sellers of mortgage loans to the buyers. Ooch!!!

Also, don’t forget to see this article on the whole mortgage securitization process.

But during the height of the housing bubble, investment banks were churning out mortgage bonds in such a frenzy, sometimes the assignments never got executed and mortgage notes never got delivered. Keep in mind that this was during the years when lenders were giving out low-doc and no-doc mortgages. It was inevitable that the fast and loose and slightly documented culture would not stop at the mortgage originator but stretch all the way through the process. For more on this, see RortyBomb’s excellent discussion of the securitization process, complete with nifty and highly informative charts.

via A Primer On The Foreclosure Crisis – CNBC.

This is a scary thought. I hope saner minds prevail, and the world leaders do better than our political leaders who cannot think beyond whether they get to save their ‘seat’ in the Congress. It is time that politicians showed some statesmanship,, both, locally as well as world leaders.

World leaders must defuse currency tensions before they worsen to avoid repeating the mistakes of the Great Depression, the head of the World Bank said Thursday.The spirit of global economic cooperation, first forged in 2008 during the darkest days of the financial crisis, was weakening as the recession gives way to an uneven and shaky recovery, the head of the International Monetary Fund said separately.Fears of global currency and trade wars, which were key factors in the Great Depression, have jumped to the top of the agenda at IMF and World Bank meetings this weekend, and are also expected to be a primary topic of discussion when Group of Seven finance leaders gather Friday.

via Global Currency-Trade Battles Prompt Fears of New Depression – CNBC.