Bentham’s Panopticon crossed with Posturegate, Doom appreciates the many levels of irony in the Pickett’s Charge of Tech Bubble 2.0 happening as an oh-so polite but massive introverts’ riot peaking at 6:30 in the morning.  While Generation Y’s Fitzgerald will eventually feature this moment in a serious candidate for The Great American Novel, we can confidently count on Coupland to have a beta version up in plenty of time for this year’s Xmas ebook season.  That weren’t no Cemetery Ridge they done tooked But let’s not allow a side show to distract us from the main event.  It would seem…
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Wall Street, we have a problem: USA TODAY (5/18 ’12): “Facebook shares jump, then fade as trading opens” (Google News still showed “Facebook shares jump as trading opens on Nasdaq market” at 16:15 GMT) GOOGLE NEWS TOP TEAZER: By Matt Krantz, USA TODAY Shares of Facebook jumped 13% to $43 on a frenzied first day of trading Friday, as investors stormed Wall Street to grab shares of the world’s leading social networking company. REVISED LEAD PARA AT 16:07 GMT: Facebook jumped an initial 13% to $43 as the stock opened for trading for the first time Friday morning. But almost…
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In many ways we seem to have entered into one of the more dystopian Orson Scott Card novels, and quite a few commentators don’t think this kid’s for real … But on the other hand back in ’06 my 13-year-old niece held her own in a lecture hall in Cambridge MA with a couple of hundred MIT and Harvard types in attendance, so you never know

After a day of Whale Watching it’s simply awesome how the powers that be always seem to circle the wagons and keep the status quo together (how’s that for cliches? ).  Anyway, the Fed’s own holdings of MBS remained stalled, rising but by just $0.006 billion while foreign central bank holdings of US obligations swung to a $1B / day drain. This week’s Reuters report1 is, 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.   The treasuries…
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Perhaps this old Doom friend could have chosen a better graphic on the 20th anniversary of Westray BL/BW (5/9 ’12): “Housing Bottom? Fannie Mae Won’t Seek Tax Dollars” Evidence is mounting that U.S. home prices are finally hitting bottom, and now comes the best news yet: Fannie Mae says that for the first time since 2008, it won’t need money from the Treasury Department to balance its books. The last time we checked the Fed was holding just south of $848 billion of MBS. Brothers and sisters, this thing has a long way to go.

About a year ago, and much to the bemusement of the majority of our housing market readers, I spent much time speaking to the aftermath of 3/11.  By the summer this series was pretty much exhausted, as you can see from this feeble Aug ’11 effort. But if the story went underground the danger has continued, as perhaps best summarized in this short YouTube (which because of Mr. Matsumura’s pronounced accent requires close attention before you realize the dire implications): This narrative has been passed around the blogosphere at second and third hand and up as far as HuffyPo with…
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OK, how do you do it? With half a year to the election you’ve settled on Gov Coke vs Pres Pepsi and after a refreshing six months of full contact TASTES GREAT!! battling LESS FILLING!! you’re guaranteed of a result that changes, well, nothing.  Heck even if the recent mischief with delegates turns out to be the first faint sign of democracy waking from its coma you’ve got to remember that the real POTUS is still Doc Dudley and unless something totally unexpected happens (e.g. Four Sierra Papa falling over) West Egg shouldn’t even start hearing footsteps until about 2045….
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS swung to a $7.565 billion shrinkage, reversing over a third of last time’s big increase. Meanwhile the foreign central banks’ treasuries number floated up to a fresh all time high while the agencies number relaxed just back to a level we haven’t seen since the Shoot the Moon era of May 2007. This week’s Reuters report1 is, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site.2 Reuters is back to semi-automated neglect of their weekly weather report and this week there is a sca ttering o f randoml y…
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The numbers for this week have the feel of a monster truck rally with large smelly vehicles spinning their wheels furiously while mostly going in circles without any particular direction indicated. The Fed’s own holdings of MBS surged up $18.568 billion, bringing the holdings of America’s largest (and most “solvent”) unintentional housing GSE back up to late October 2010 levels. Treasuries swung to a new all time record, but that improves on last August by less than $12B while the accelerating drop in agencies has now purged all the gains for the year in that number.  Indeed the net US…
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For the past couple of years, “foreclosure squatters” have been able to stay in their homes without making a mortgage payment. In the first quarter of this year, the average time between the first missed payment and foreclosure was 370 days. Now that the banks have agreed to the $26 billion dollar settlement though, there are many who believe that “the golden age of foreclosure squatting” has come to an end.   My personal feeling is that it is likely that foreclosures will speed up for homes in more modest price ranges. Sales have been doing very well, so it…
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS was unchanged this week and rose, but by a mere $0.007 billion, the week before. Treasuries were flat, but gained a big hunk the previous week while agencies have been experiencing a modest sell-off. This week’s Reuters report1 is, 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. The treasuries number slipped $0.348 billion after a big $16.349 billion buy the week before. Agencies continued its losing streak, down $3.738 billion this…
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Adulteration kills trust, although sometimes the time lag can be significant. Doom can hardly wait for the end-of-world interregnum when, as Tim’s last act as SecTreas, he tries to kick that cement filled can forward one last time with another Xmas eve press release. The Fed’s own holdings of MBS shrank again, this time by a hearty $14.474 billion and foreign central banks were buying treasuries at a bit above $1 billion / day. All’s right with the world, it would seem. This week’s Reuters report1 is, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table…
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS shrank, but just by $2.625 billion and foreign central banks’ aggregate holdings of US obligations swung to a half-$B-a-day selloff after last week’s big buying splurge. This week’s Reuters report1 is, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site.2 This week we’ve got a byline, and from one of Reuters’ real reporters no less. Maybe he’ll actually read what he’s writing; at least he re-inserted the correct link to the NY Fed tables Here is Doom’s updated CSV version3 of the agencies and treasuries foreign central bank holdings…
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS surged up by $13.089 billion and foreign central banks’ aggregate holdings of US obligations surged up by … nearly the same amount? Difference is just $4 million, which is odd to say the least. Maybe Charlene from Obfuscation Services was off with the flu last week and a hint about the inner workings of the Fed’s black box was allowed to sneak out This week’s Reuters report1 is, 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…
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS were stagnant, rising a mere $0.001 billion while the foreign central banks’ holdings of US obligations were flat. With the rest of the financial world in turmoil this looks like the data series that reality forgot This week’s Reuters report1 is, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site.2 The orphan reference to the Fed tables is back in. Does Reuters actually read their own report? Here is Doom’s updated CSV version3 of the agencies and treasuries foreign central bank holdings data set. Treasuries swung to a small…
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