The Fed’s own holdings of MBS shrank once more, this week by a substantial $15.150 billion, and foreign central banks just reversed last week’s counter-trend selloff, offsetting that shrinkage with just $0.273 billion to spare. This week’s Reuters report1 was, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site.2 Here is Doom’s updated CSV version3 of the agencies and treasuries foreign central bank holdings data set. Treasuries were up quite lustily this week, but that line has been sputtering a bit lately. This week’s rebound in treasuries was $8.691 billion. Agencies sagged just a bit,…
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Looking at the trend lines isn’t enough any more to determine the future of the housing market. Too many factors have disrupted historical trends. Still, for the short term, some trends are easier to follow. When Inman News says they expect a 5%-10% price decline in 2011, they have some solid reasoning behind it. For most metro areas, home prices peaked some time in 2006 and except for a few minor bumps, it’s been all downhill ever since. 2010 has been no exception. So, if we tally up all the annual sales data since 2006, it’s been a four-year run…
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Here’s just a slight variation from our discussion on housing.  One of the serious side effects of a failing housing market is the desire of many to bailout everyone who’s suffered any losses.  Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, and this simple video shows well why we hate bailouts. [Thanks L!]