[ex-Texan]

Get ready people. Or, you can chooses to be careless while you still can: Refinance your home, take out your equity; pay off all your credit cards and buy a new motorhome. After all is said and done, it's only money. [Learn more?] The housing boom is over.

[RightWhale]

The spigot might be turned off, but there is still plenty of gurgling at this end of the pipeline. Still get an offer a day of enough credit to put one into lifetime slavery.

[presidio9]

Get ready people... The housing boom is over.

Thanks for the tip. Do you always refer to UAE publications for your business news?

Incidently, conspiracy theories notwithstanding, the Japanese don't suddenly decide to "turn off the tap on ultra cheap credit." Their own credit markets offer a lower rate of return than ours, because they are suffering from deflation. That's why they buy our bonds. Which, in turn, drives the interest rate the US TReasury must offer lower. This is covered in the first week of any HS AP Economics course.

[IronManBike]

One by one, the eurozone, the Swedes, the Swiss and now even the Japanese, are turning off the tap of ultra-cheap credit that has flushed the global system for the past year, keeping the ageing asset boom alive.

([T]he Swedes)???????... HuH?

This author leaves out the major player, next to Uncle Sugar, his homeland!?

Maybe humans can indeed control the weather. Might be easier than trying to control this market, tho'...

[paulcissa]

Can I say it first? - We're all gonna die!

[narby]

Yeah, interest rates are really up. I had to pay 12.5% for a GI loan and I thought I was lucky because commercial mortgages were 14-15% or more.

[oh, sorry, that was Dallas in 1982 - it was sheer terror back then - people screeming in the streets]

[soloNYer]

I think the answer is to keep renting. That's the best way to build wealth over the long run. Owning property is a mistake, because the market never goes back up. In fact, some people who bought years ago are in bad straits, their $300,000 equity may go down to $280,000. They should never have bought a house. Idiots.

[antaresequity]

Great Post!...

Get ready with your nomex suit because the "EVER" Bulls will be here to spout thier typicl government statistics and debunk this and maybe you...

Cheers...

Gold to the moon if this unwinds...

[antaresequity]

[GovernmentShrinker]

This story is suddenly all over various media outlets (search Google news for "carry trade"), and I promise you some well-placed fund managers had their positions carefully set up to benefit from a day or two of market chatter about this.

For the record, Lyndon LaRouche agrees with you that this is about to cause the collapse of the global financial system.
http://www.larouchepub.com/pr_lar/2006/lar_pac/060226carry_trade.html

Real live FX traders, however, are treating it as just another normal trend shift.
http://www.dailyfx.com/story/dailyfx_financial_markets_headlines/dailyfx_financial_markets_headlines/6946_carry_trade_liquidation.html

[RegulatorCountry]

"The US Federal Reserve has since raised rates 14 times to 4.5pc in a belated effort to restore monetary discipline, with at least two more rises priced into the markets."

In other words, the 5.875% 30 year conventional mortgages with no points that are widely available will be unmoved by two more rate increases by Bernanke and the Fed, because they are anticipated and already priced in ... not exactly a doomsday scenario.

[redgolum]

Kind of noticed that there is a bit of concern among the money guys as of late. Whether it is because of something real or imagined, I don't know.

[.cnI redruM]

>>>>The housing boom is over


Damn I wish! Real Estate in No. Virginia has increased at an average rate of 7.8% a year since 1970. It has only had one 18 month period of time when the median price of housing went down. That was in the mid 1980's, when the S&L crisis hit the fan.

People who have been shrilling and shilling since 2000 that the housing boom would implode have probably also successfully predicted 46 out of the last three recessions.

[.cnI redruM]

>>>>>The cash machine that sustained a world boom is about to close, and it's going to get ugly, says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

And I assume this man is about 30K shares short on Toll Brothers this am and is getting very itchy about having to cover.

[VOA]

bump

[groanup]

The end of the carry trade doesn't mean the end of the world, especially since everyone sees it coming. The Bank of Japan is merely rattling sabres at the moment. The first thing they'll do, and may be doing now, is to turn off the cash spigot that it has been running for a couple of years. This is IN ADDITION to 10 years of zero interest rates.

Probably by the end of 2007 we'll see short rates in Japan at still less than 2%. Ham on rye. There is a possibility that we'll see much less demand for US debt, gold, mortgages or whatever else the carry trade has been buying up and leveraging. But we won't see panic selling.

[pabianice]

Much residential and commercial property is about to become available through foreclosures and bankruptcy. One man's problem is another's opportunity.

[pabianice]

On the other hand, when compared against the catostrophe of the Carter Years, this burp hardley registers.

[MikefromOhio]

DDDDOOOOOOMMMMMMEEEDDDDD!!!!!

[nopardons]

Including the RSA RAND as a "HIGH" yielding currency, is patently ridiculous; to say the least!

Such articles have been on FR for so many years now and completely refuted, that people should now just CCP old posts to this thread. :-)

[Squantos]

Ping ping ping......ka ping !