There were some big winners when the subprime market went into the tank, and many believe we should watch those winners for future indicators. These people are not singing the mortage blues, and in fact made plenty of money by correctly seeing the future. Here is what they see now:
We finally got some news from China regarding the spreading subprime issue. The sub-prime crisis hit China’s flagship lender yesterday as Bank of China wrote down $322m (£156m) for its holdings of US sub-prime mortgage securities.
In the U.K. a foreclosure is called a reposession. Market analysis shows U.K. mortgage issues mirroring trends in the United States, as home owners find it difficult to refinance. The Council of Mortgage Lenders said the global credit crunch was exacerbating trends that were already emerging in the housing market. It said it had already been expecting arrears and possessions to rise, but the situation would be worse than previously expected because of the tighter lending criteria many mortgage lenders are now imposing.
UBS cut its pre-tax profit forecast for HSBC Finance, an HSBC unit previously known as Household International, by 1.2 billion US dollars, saying the unit’s third quarter 2007 results are “set to look bad”.
Sales of existing homes plunged by a record amount in September while median home prices dropped by the largest amount in nearly a year, reflecting deepening problems in the troubled housing market.
