Free Republic

I feel this month has thrown enough events at the market to force it to start taking the real fundamentals into consideration. Of course, battling this ideal is the US Federal Reserve and their QE 2.1 policy. This should be a time to reflect upon exactly where we stand thus, I will review my thoughts and observations over the last 30 to 45 days and then summarize a truly unbiased and independently calculated view of the downright nasty side effects of the US shadow inventory of distressed housing. All paying subscribers can download the full shadow inventory report here: Foreclosures...

Zillow's Stan Humphries said: The length and depth of the current housing recession is rivaling the Great Depression’s real estate downturn, and, with encouraging signs fading, will easily eclipse it in the coming months.During the Great Depression, home prices fell 25.9 percent in five years. The U.S. housing market is now down around 25 percent from its peak in 2006. As housing price expert Robert Shiller pointed out in September 2008: Home price declines are already approaching those in the Great Depression, when they plunged 30% during the 1930s [i.e. over a 10-year period]. With prices already down almost 20%,...

N.Y. Fed President Urges Quick Action on 'Asset Bubbles' Wednesday, 07 Apr 2010 01:08 PM While asset price bubbles are difficult to identify, they occur "fairly frequently" and uncertainty should not dissuade policymakers from taking action to address them, New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley said on Wednesday. Determining whether a run-up in asset prices is in fact a bubble "is not easy because asset bubbles are hard to recognize in real time and each asset bubble is different," Dudley said in prepared remarks to the Economic Club of New York. "However, these challenges cannot be an excuse...

China Central Bank Sees Dollar Strength, Global Inflation Friday, 02 Apr 2010 11:40 AM China's central bank said on Friday that it expected the dollar to strengthen this year, but it raised the specter of worldwide asset bubbles and inflation. In a lengthy report on the global financial markets, the People's Bank of China also warned that huge, hidden bad bank loans in the West could pose a threat to the global economy. While the dollar is likely to rebound this year if the Federal Reserve raises interest rates earlier than other major economies and sovereign-debt problems in the euro...

Yellen says policymakers need to pop bubbles By Laura Mandaro, MarketWatch Last update: 8:01 p.m. EDT April 16, 2009 Comments: 99 SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- San Francisco Federal Reserve President Janet Yellen said late Tuesday that central banks need to deal with bubbles in asset prices before they get too big, although monetary policy may not be the best tool for the job. Letting them go unchecked "can lead to grave consequences," she said in prepared remarks for a conference held in honor of economist Hyman Minsky in New York. "Episodes of exuberance, like the ones that led to our...