Thursday, March 5, 2009

Wow, what a week so far

This $#*t just keeps getting better and better. The market took another gigantic nose dive today on the news of GMs possible BK. That and all the other terrible reports continue to tank the market. I don't really see any good news in the future but most stocks are so low now that you have to wonder how much lower they can go. Of course, unfortunately the obvious answer is they can go to zero.

A few more tidbits of news were released today. The housing market continues to fly apart at the seams. Nearly 8% of all mortgages are in default. Add in the homes in foreclosure and the number jumps to nearly 12% (5.4 million homes). Now you know the percentage has to be much higher in California since the number given is a national one. Another report today estimates that 8.3 million households are underwater. I'd say California alone probably has that many.

In addition to that, Bankruptcy fillings have increased 30% in 2008. Not huge news. The huge news will be next years number. Especially if BK judges do start mortgage cram-downs.. That would spark a wave of BK fillings.

Can't wait till tomorrow, the Asian markets are still dropping and ALL the futures markets are down big time. But I don't care, I have a 8:52 tee time at Los Serranos!

4 comments:

Carl said...

North or South?

Lucky bastard.

golfer_X said...

We played the south, I played like crap! Ever since Dec, my golf swing has been on strike. I hope it comes back soon......

Tyrone said...

Golfer_X,
Time to revisit the 2008 predictions. It feels like a year has passed in a couple of months.

Time to Break Out the Crystal Ball
I think the entire global economy will contract but stay coupled and balanced within reasonable limits.

How balanced are we at this point? I'm tellin' ya', things are getting scary. Keep that powder dry.

golfer_X said...

So far I think the global markets are staying coupled. Some of them are taking a bigger hit than others but in general they are all heading the same direction (into the toilet). Exports around the world are drying up and for the countries that depend on those, this is going to be really nasty. Watch Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia etc, they are going to get pummeled.

It ain't scary yet. But it's easy to see this mess spinning out of control. The bafoons in Washington don't seem to have a clue how to fix it and to be honest this is so complicated I don't know if anyone does. It's like working on a soldier with 100 bullet wounds. Which hole do you plug first?