Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Morning roundup: Lenders slower to foreclose on high-end homes

Here's a look at this morning's banking and finance headlines:

  • Banks are slower to foreclose on costlier homes, a Wall Street Journal analysis found, meaning high-end homeowners are able to remain in their houses - without making payments - far longer than others.
  • The New York Times calls for "important changes" to the Volcker Rule, which limits risky trading practices at banks. Among them: specificity and "clear, stiff penalties" for banks involved in proprietary trading.
  • Broadening our definition of money is key to understanding the financial meltdown, CNBC's John Carney writes. Mortgage-backed securities, for instance, were a form of financial system currency.
  • JPMorgan Chase & Co. has remained strong because of CEO Jamie Dimon's ability to steer clear of the housing bust - but now the bank, which surpassed Charlotte's Bank of America Corp. last year as the nation's largest lender by assets, appears to be lagging its rivals, Fortune reports.
  • U.S. stocks were flat this morning after a steep drop in American durable-goods orders, a sign of weakening confidence in the economic recovery, Bloomberg reports.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, we can't read that whole WSJ article without subscribing to the site.

Europeanexpat said...

I don't know if they "remain in their houses - without making payments - far longer than others"

My aunt has been living for three years in her FL home without making a single payment. Maybe they have a problem liquidating such houses without significant losses

Archiguy said...

The Volcker Rule and Dodd-Frank were both viciously attacked and weakened by the powerful financial lobby. I agree that they need to be strengthened. What would be simpler is to simply re-instate the Glass-Steagall Act which kept the country free from disastrous boom-bust cycles for over 60 years. It was repealed in 1997, leading directly to the financial crises and collapse of 1997. It just took 10 years of wild-west financial chicanery to bring it all down.

And they want any new regulation and oversight rolled right back so they can do it all over again. The frightening thing is that we, the people, might allow them to do just that. It appears that while the financial industry is represented quite well in Washington, nobody is speaking for the citizens who are regularly victimized by them.

Archiguy said...

I meant the collapse of 2007 in my above post. Typo.

The Observer needs to give an author editing ability after his message has posted on these blog pages, like the regular news articles do.

It's high time all these various comment sections were standardized anyway - what is taking the C.O. so long to implement a comprehensive system? IT's ridiculous how fragmented it still is. I'm a print subscriber for over 30 years, so I feel entitled to ask that question.