USA stecken längst in der Rezession
Wenn man wollte, hätte man es wissen bzw, glauben können; war aber nicht mainstream.
http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~nroubini/
Optionen
Man sollte IMHO wenigstens in der Lage zu sein zu wissen von was man schreibt.
´Immer tiefer in die Zezession´ !!!
Eine Rezession zeichnet sich durch einen Rückgang (also ein Minus) des BIP über mehr als 2 Quartale aus ... bis jetzt gab´s noch kein negatives Wachstum, oder?
Und das sollen dann Experten sein ?!? Panikmache !
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Stocks pull back after Fed commentsAFX| 06 Feb 2008 | 03:10 PM ET
NEW YORK (AP) - Stocks pulled back Wednesday as many investors, still uneasy about the economy, cashed in earlier gains after a Federal Reserve official suggested that rising inflation could prevent the central bank from making further interest rate cuts.
Although the weakening economy is a big concern, "we must not lose sight of the other part of the Fed's dual mandate -- which is price stability," Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said, according to Dow Jones Newswires. The economy has been slowing but costs remain high, leading some economists to believe that the United States is headed for troubling condition known as stagflation.
Plosser's comments were not surprising, particularly since he is known for being more apt to argue against a rate cut than other Fed members. Nonetheless, the speech appeared to sap some of Wall Street's relief Wednesday over better-than-expected fourth-quarter productivity and labor cost data and profit results from Walt Disney Co.
"It just shows you the market's really skittish and temperamental," said Jim Herrick, director of equity trading at Baird & Co. "I really believe the market is driven by emotion, that there's this want to test to lows again." After climbing until early afternoon Wednesday, stocks switched gears and began extending the losses they made Tuesday, when the Dow suffered its biggest percentage drop since Feb. 27, 2007. The trigger that day was the Institute for Supply Management's report of a surprising January contraction in the U.S.
service sector -- news that bolstered the argument that the nation is in recession.
"There's no smoking gun here; we get one bad number, one good number ....
We're probably going to chop around here until investors get a better feel on this recession-or-no-recession question," said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors.
The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 3.82, at 0.03 percent, to 12,261.31, after rising more than 100 points in earlier trading. On Tuesday, the blue-chip index fell 370 points, or 2.93 percent.
Broader stock indicators also gave up gains. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 1.05, or 0.08 percent, to 1,335.59, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 8.16, or 0.35 percent, to 2,301.41.
Government bond prices remained lower, but pared their losses. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.60 percent from 3.56 percent late Tuesday.
Even without Plosser's comments, it's possible stocks would have given up their rebound anyway, given the uncertainty in the market about whether a recession is here, how long it might last, how deep it might be and how it may affect corporate profits.
"You'll find pockets of differentiation in the economy, but the overarching theme is that things are slowing down," said John O'Donoghue, co-head of equities at Cowen & Co.
Corporate profits from the fourth quarter have been all over the map, but generally, they have been decent outside the financial and consumer discretionary sectors.
Walt Disney posted a 26 percent decline in profit late Tuesday, but the results beat expectations. The company -- one of the 30 companies that make up the Dow Jones industrials -- reported a 9 percent rise in revenue, thanks in part to the success of brands such as ESPN, "High School Musical" and "Hannah Montana." Disney shares rose $1.46, or 4.9 percent, to $31.53.
Time Warner Inc. on Wednesday posted a profit decline in its fourth quarter.
But excluding the effect of a year-ago gain from the sale of AOL's online access business in Europe, profit rose due to better results at the media conglomerate's cable TV and movie operations. Time Warner rose 43 cents, or 2.8 percent, to $15.82.
And late Tuesday, JDS Uniphase Corp., which makes communications test and fiber-optic network equipment, said its fiscal second-quarter earnings of fell slightly year-over-year but widely surpassed Wall Street estimates. JDS Uniphase shot up $2.60, or 26 percent, to $12.76.
Though politics are not a priority on Wall Street right now, they could soon come into play. Investors have been trying to determine who the presidential nominees will be, and while Republican John McCain and Democrat Hillary Clinton are leading the delegate counts after Tuesday's primaries, nothing is certain yet.
The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.
Light, sweet crude oil dropped $1.22 to $87.19 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 1.55, or 0.22 percent, to 700.03.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a slim margin on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.00 billion shares.
Overseas stocks were mixed. Japan's Nikkei stock average dropped 4.7 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 5.4 percent. In Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.13 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 1.22 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 0.83 percent.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Mortgages and Other Loans Becoming Harder to GetMORTGAGES, OTHER LOANS BECOME HARDER TO GETBy ReutersReuters| 15 Feb 2008 | 03:33 PM ET
Fallout from the credit crisis is spreading down Main Street, threatening to worsen the U.S.
economic downturn.
Banks and other lenders, from the nation's largest to those with only a few branches, say they are tightening lending standards -- and not just for home loans.
The tightening could worsen an already weakened outlook for jobs and the economy. Businesses may have trouble borrowing what they need to grow, and consumers may have to cut spending as mortgage costs and credit card fees increase.
An example of a lender that has grown more cautious is Astoria Financial Corp, a Westbury, New York savings and loan with $21.7 billion of assets.
It has cut the maximum size of some home loans, and stopped residential lending in 15 of 44 U.S. states. Large housing markets such as California, Florida, Michigan and Ohio deteriorated too far, it said.
"Home sales are dropping off very significantly," Chief Operating Officer Monte Redman said. "We need to be prudent."
According to the Federal Reserve's January survey of senior loan officers, nearly all respondents expected credit quality to weaken, or at best stay the same, in nearly every
major lending area.
One-third of U.S. banks tightened lending standards on commercial and industrial loans over the prior three months, and 80 percent tightened on commercial real estate loans. And
55 percent even made it harder to obtain prime mortgages.
Banks are pulling back in part because of rising customer defaults. Some have also lost billions of dollars on subprime mortgages and complex debt securities, reducing capital available for other lending.
The transformation of a liquidity boom of a year ago into a bust has banks reexamining their approach toward risk.
"There was more money lent than customers could pay," said Dick Evans, chief executive of Cullen/Frost Bankers Inc , a San Antonio bank with $13.5 billion of assets that quit residential real estate lending in 2000.
"The industry is adjusting to a more rational credit environment," he added, "which will equal slower growth."
The Fed survey shows how a credit crunch once centered on subprime mortgages has expanded to a wider array of borrowings. This could harm the economy, despite the prospect of further Fed rate cuts following two in January.
"Some banks don't know the extent of losses they might have," said Stuart Plesser, a Standard & Poor's equity analyst.
"Even for some banks that raise capital, they will want to be cautious with lending and growing their balance sheet, so they don't have to tap credit markets again."
Citigroup Inc, Merrill Lynch & Co and Morgan Stanley have collectively raised more than $41 billion to shore up capital in the last three months, including from sovereign wealth funds in Abu Dhabi, China, Kuwait and Singapore.
Bank of America Corp and Wachovia Corp together raised more than $16 billion from selling preferred stock. Others have also raised cash to boost capital depleted by acquisitions, dividends or credit losses, or a combination.
Kenneth Lewis, who runs Bank of America, last month said the industry faces "easily the toughest environment" by far in his 6-1/2 years running the largest U.S. retail bank.
More problems may be in store for the industry.
Analysts warn of tens of billions of dollars of additional write-downs, on top of more than $140 billion already incurred from mortgages, credit losses and complex debt.
Write-downs led UBS AG Thursday to post an $11.3 billion fourth-quarter loss. The Swiss bank said it still has $27.6 billion of subprime exposure, plus $26.6 billion of exposure to "Alt-A" mortgages, also below prime in quality.
Still lurking: Possible losses on $200 billion of loans to fund leveraged buyouts, but for which there are no buyers.
Several analysts said this could be the next shoe to drop.
"The precipitous drop in loan values (has) resulted in a sharp curtailment in lenders' ability and willingness to provide capital for future transactions," wrote Friedman Billings Ramsey & Co's Paul Miller. He estimates such write-downs might hit $20 billion.
"Credit got terribly easy," said Ronald Hermance, chief executive of Hudson City Bancorp Inc, a $44.4 billion asset, Paramus, New Jersey-based lender that has avoided big losses despite specializing in residential mortgage lending.
"The appetite for esoteric products was so wide and so deep," he added. "If institutions like Citigroup or Merrill Lynch write off billions of dollars, they may address problems on their end, but they haven't solved borrowers' problems."
Policymakers are concerned. "More expensive and less available credit seems likely to continue to be a source of restraint on economic growth," Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee Thursday.
Credit is getting harder to come by even at banks so far spared the worst of the credit crunch.
JPMorgan Chase & Co, the third-largest U.S. bank, has "massively tightened up" subprime mortgage and home equity lending, Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said Feb 7.
Healthier borrowers can also face drier spigots. American Express Co is focused on "the right credit criterias we should use even for the broad population," Chief Financial Officer Dan Henry said last month.
"The bottom line is profitability," said Curtis Arnold, founder of CardRatings.com in Little Rock, Arkansas. "If banks feel serious delinquencies are spiking, even raising rates on good customers is a way to hedge risk."
Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions.