Wednesday, March 28, 2007

US housing market stays on highway to hell – Large investment banks begin to pay the price

- Decoded news (March 27, 2007) -

US housing market stays on highway to hell – Large investment banks begin to pay the price
Contrary to what large banks and financial medias tried to make us believe last week, and in line with LEAP/E2020's anticipations, the US housing market keeps falling.

In February 2007, sales of newly constructed homes settled to the lowest level since June 2000 (848,000). And this is far from being the end of the downward spiral into which millions of US citizens and a growing number of financial players are being dragged.

Indeed, as described in GEAB N°13 (already anticipated in November 2006 in GEAB N°9: "LEAP/E2020 Alert - Banking and financial sectors at the center of the impact phase of the global systemic crisis, via 'hedge funds' and 'bad quality credit'"), the most important financial operators - for a large part heavily involved in housing and subprime mortgage loans - are beginning to be affected by the current giant financial rout.

Even the sector's “majors” now strive to save their balance sheets, selling « on the sly » their billions of dollar-worth mortgage loans purchased in the past few years. For instance, Morgan Stanley is discreetly getting rid of 2.48 billion USD worth of mortgages purchased from subprime lender New Century - close to bankruptcy… meanwhile Morgan Stanley, together with its colleagues, would like to make the market believe that the worst is behind for the housing sector”.

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