Der USA Bären-Thread

U.S. foreclosure activity for May ebbed from April's record, but mortgages still failed at a staggering pace as President Barack Obama's rescue programs had not had time to fully take root, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

Foreclosure filings dipped 6 percent in the month but increased 18 percent from May 2008, marking the third highest month on record.

• Slideshow: States with Highest Foreclosure Rates

  "There were almost one million foreclosure filings in a three-month period, and that's simply unprecedented," Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac in Irvine, California, said in an interview.

  Temporary freezes on foreclosure activity ended in March. Failures of many seriously delinquent loans that were put on hold during those moratoria have been thrust back into the foreclosure cycle.

  One in every 398 households with loans got a foreclosure filing in May. Filings, which include notices of default and auctions, were reported on 321,480 properties last month.

  Stemming foreclosures is seen critical to bolstering home prices, consumer confidence and the recessionary U.S. economy.

  Bank repossessions, known as real-estate owned or REOs, rose in May and should spike in coming months because the moratoria ended, RealtyTrac said.

  Obama Plan Needs Time

  The administration's plans to ease loan modifications and refinancing were detailed in early March and haven't been implemented long enough to derail foreclosures.

   

  The hurdles are high. Unemployment reached a nearly 26-year peak in May and mortgage rates have leaped a percentage point from their spring lows to more than 5-1/2 percent.

  "One of the cures to this problem is enough buying activity to eat up the inventory of distressed properties," Sharga said. "If mortgage rates go up to where people decide to wait out the market again, that's just going to add to the inventory numbers and put more downward pricing pressure on all homes."

  RealtyTrac forecasts about 4 million foreclosure filings will be made this year on about 3.1 million households with loans. Last year, there was a record 3.1 million filings on about 2.4 million households.

  In a more typical year, Sharga said there would be around 800,000 filings on 550,000 households.

   

  "When you have a glut of inventory and downward pricing pressure that does tend to push properties into foreclosure," said Sharga.

  States where sales and prices soared most in the five-year housing boom earlier this decade remained the hardest hit.

  Nevada stayed at the top of the foreclosure rate rankings by state, with one in every 64 housing units getting a foreclosure filing. California, Florida and Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, Colorado, Idaho and Ohio were the other states with the highest foreclosure rates.

  Ten states, led by California, accounted for almost 77 percent of total number of foreclosure actions in May.

  "We need to give the administration's programs a little bit of time to gain traction," Sharga said. "If unemployment continues to worsen, all bets are off on foreclosure rates."

The European Central Bank fears another banking crisis in 2010 if the recession drags on, said ECB financial stability expert Dejan Krusec on Wednesday, cited on the website of the Daily Telegraph.

If there is a quick 'V-shaped' recovery the banks would be strong enough to weather the downturn, he said.

• Special Report: Eastern Europe on the Edge

  "If this is 'U-shaped', the banks will have problems. There are 25 banks we monitor that are strategically important," Krusec was quoted as saying to a Fitch Ratings conference on Eastern Europe.

  "The problem is not 2009. Euro-area banks are well enough capitalized to cover losses. The problem is 2010. We are concerned about the length (of the recession)," said Krusec.

  The newspaper added that the ECB forecast of a 4.6 percent contraction this year with no recovery until mid-2010 precluded any chance of a V-shaped rebound.

  Growth Ahead?

  The global economy could start growing again between the end of this year and the middle of 2010, helped by government stimuli, European Central Bank governing council member Christian Noyer also said on Thursday.

   

  "Certain indicators point to a deceleration of the slowdown in the second quarter, giving us cautious optimism," Noyer told an audience of businessmen in Hong Kong. Various government stimuli would progressively feed into the economy, he said.

  "The (global) economy should start to turn into positive territory somewhere between the end of this year and the middle of next year." However, Noyer warned that rising unemployment could still affect consumption and hit growth prospects, though disinflation could boost purchasing power.

  The ECB has cut its interest rate to 1.0 percent in the wake of the global economic downturn and financial crisis and analysts expect rates to stay at that level throughout 2010 as the euro zone emerges slowly from recession.

  Noyer's visit to Hong Kong is part of a broader trip to China, which recently called for the U.S. dollar eventually to be replaced as the world's main reserve currency by the IMF's Special Drawing Right, a basket of currencies that includes the euro, the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen.

  Noyer, however, said that SDRs could not replace real currencies and a reserve currency could not be decided by political will.

  "I don't believe you can impose a currency as a reference currency by political will or administrative decisions. Market forces decide," he said.

  "SDRs are a very useful instrument as a basket of currencies. It is an asset. But it's difficult to imagine you can use a basket in the same way as a real currency. It can't replace the currencies that comprise that basket."

  China is seeking a more international role for its yuan currency, which is not fully convertible.

  Noyer said the world would naturally become more multipolar but currencies that are freely traded and fully convertible would continue to be the main currencies.

   

  China would play a greater role in the IMF and other institutions and it was understandable that China and other major emerging economies were seeking to ensure they would be involved in setting new global financial standards, he said.

  All countries needed to abide by the rules, including the United States, which might have helped stem some of the reasons for the global financial crisis if it had adopted the Basel II accord, he said.

  The agreement increases balance sheet assets and forces banks to allocate more capital to support loan portfolios.

  "Once we adopt a rule, it has to be adopted globally," he said. "If Basel II had been adopted by the United States prior to the crisis, it probably would have helped mitigate some of the reasons why the crisis has arisen."

  However, he said the United States' failure to adopt Basel II was due to its lengthy and difficult legal process not the will of the administration.

MONATSBERICHT DER ZENTRALBANK

EZB erwartet Dauer-Rezession bis Mitte 2010

Düstere Konjunkturaussichten: Die EZB rechnet erst in rund zwölf Monaten wieder mit Wachstum im Euro-Raum. Eine lange Stagnation könnte verheerende Folgen haben - sogar eine neue Bankenkrise ist nicht ausgeschlossen.

Frankfurt am Main - Immer mehr Konjunkturdaten deuten darauf hin, dass die Talsohle des Abschwungs erreicht ist - doch der Aufschwung lässt offenbar noch auf sich warten: Laut einer Prognose der Europäischen Zentralbank (EZB) ist die Rezession im Euro-Raum lang und tief.

Nach einer Phase der Stabilisierung im weiteren Jahresverlauf seien positive Wachstumsraten im Quartalsvergleich erst zur Mitte des kommenden Jahres zu erwarten, heißt es im Monatsbericht der EZB für Juni, der an diesem Donnerstag in Frankfurt veröffentlicht wurde. Diese Prognose schließe auch nachlaufende Effekte mit ein, speziell die erwartete Eintrübung des Arbeitsmarkts. Damit bekräftigte die EZB jüngste Aussagen ihres Präsidenten Jean-Claude Trichet.

...........................

www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,629852,00.html

Es fällt auf, dass die Russen und Chinesen neuerdings mit dreisten Forderungen und Proklamationen kommen (Ablösungen des Dollars als Weltleitwährung, Androhung von US-Staatsanleihenverkäufen usw..) die noch vor wenigen Jahren, als USA klar die wirtschaftliche "Nr. 1" war, undenkbar gewesen wären.

Auch die Atomraketen-Provokationen Nordkoreas zielen in diese Richtung.

Bleibt spannend, ob andere "Schurkenstaaten" wie Iran und Venezuela demnächst nachziehen. Momentan schwelgen die noch im teuren Öl.

So gesehen kann sich Obama einen Truppenabzug aus dem Irak politisch kaum erlauben. Dummerweise kann er sich ein fortdauernde Militärpräsenz im Irak finanziell kaum erlauben.

Erlaubt wird zunehmend nur, was andere gestatten. Das gilt auch für die Neuverschuldung. Die US-Staatsanleihen-Auktionen sind eine Art weltweite Volksabstimmung über die Fortdauer der US-Oberhoheit. Die Amis stehen dabei auf der schwächeren Seite, da sie vom Goodwill der Ausländer abhängen. An diesem Goodwill "sägen" die Russen und Chinesen gerade - zu ihrem eigenen Vorteil.

"Erlaubt wird zunehmend nur, was andere gestatten. Das gilt auch für die Neuverschuldung. Die US-Staatsanleihen-Auktionen sind eine Art weltweite Volksabstimmung über die Fortdauer der US-Oberhoheit. Die Amis stehen dabei auf der schwächeren Seite, da sie vom Goodwill der Ausländer abhängen. An diesem Goodwill "sägen" die Russen und Chinesen gerade - zu ihrem eigenen Vorteil."

Ich halte das nicht für ganz falsch. In der veröffentlichten Meinung ist das aber mittlerweile ein derartiger Selbstläufer geworden, dass ich zum Nachdenken mal einen leichten Kontrapunkt setzen möchte:

US-Treasuries werden nur zu einem erstaunlich kleinen Prozentsatz von Ausländern incl. Zentralbanken gehalten. Ich habe den Prozentsatz gerade nicht präsent, aber ich glaube er liegt zwischen 10 und 20%. Das ist nicht wenig, aber viel weniger als die meisten zu implizieren scheinen. Das meiste wird von Amis selbst gehalten, insbesondere Pensionsfonds.

Insofern könnte man sogar argumentieren, dass die Abhängigkeit zum Beispiel der Chinesen von einer gedeihlichen T-Bond-Entwicklung grösser ist als die der USA. Meinem Eindruck nach verhalten sich die Chinesen deshalb seit einiger Zeit auch sehr konstruktiv. Anders die Russen, aber wenn ich mal polemisieren darf: die Russen sind zwar Schachspieler, aber unabhängig davon total irrational ;-)

weil in USA die Ölpreisanstiege immer positiv gemeldet werden - parallel zu den steigenden Aktienkurse.  

Spin-These: Die Erholung des Aktienmarktes zeigt, dass es mit der Wirtschaft vorangeht (Lüge 1), was auch die höhere Ölnachfrage (= Lüge 2) bedingt.

Wahrheit: Die Amis werden in der Hauptreisezeit von ihren Ölkonzernen abkassiert. Als "Entlohnung" erhalten sie temporär steigende Aktien in ihren Renten-Portfolios (401k). Am Ende der Reisesaison, wenn das Abkassieren gelaufen ist, fällt der Ölpreis wieder - und die Rentenaussichten (via Aktien) ebenfalls.

Tanken für die Rente! Die hohen Benzinpreise kommen Euch am Ende zugute. Leider nicht mehr zu Lebzeiten.