All of New Century's lenders have or plan to halt financing

time for a new logo :-)

http://immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/

"gute besserung" from germany

Don't know if this has been posted

Sorry forgot the link KRY news

http://www.mineweb.net/gold_silver/676227.htm

Russian miner eyes bid for Crystallex - http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/printedition/story.html?id=cff3cba6-125e-4644-8d32-3d8c002020a2

Raw materials under pressure again? Or just a strong economic cycle still going on?

In my sector (special vehicles) float glass supplies are difficult.
The demand is strong, from the building industry, too, and because of low prices in the past, few producers invested in capacity of production.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/news/display.var.1234670.0.glass_price_threat_to_builders.php

Another supplier of ours of fiberglass resin (an international company) has problems with deliervies, because in the last 6 months they already sold as much as they budgeted for 12 months, and now they can't find easily raw materials on the market.

I can't understand if it is always so at the end of an economic cycle, or if maybe this cycle still has some (or a lot) more steam.
Anyway, many products made in Germany and Italy with our sub-supplies go to US, too.
So, I also wonder if so much of Western Europe still depends on the 'sound' buyers from US.
Are they going to sneeze early?
Well, still long on gold and short on equities.

I agree with Lelik. The market may turn around after an early dip this morning, but I think it goes down this week. The news on KRY is encouraging, but I closed my position last Friday. I'm sticking with 5% XAU and 95% cash for now.

While NEW sputters to a halt (actually trading is halted this morning, wonder if it will ever open:), M&A activity this morning continues as if nothing has changed in the world around us. Financials may report good results this week, but the outlooks they give will be key...

Financial stocks are mostly red this morning, except for CitiGroup and those reporting this week are down more than 1%.

UBS finally says to reduce NEW after stock is halted.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20070312-704070.html?mod=wsjcrmain

I'm just wondering what happens to the NEW I shorted in my fool.com CAPS account.

Interesting that gold got smacked down this morning but most of my miners are up.
Also here's an idea. This weekend I was perusing the insider buys and sells when I came upon Weyerhaeuser (WY). It appears that just about the entire management team is selling its stock. These are not partial sales, but liquidations. Most of these upper management people now own zero shares in their corporation. Digging deeper I discovered that besides its lumber business serving the faltering construction trade, WY is a home builder in its own right and has a large finance business. Could it be that they are
experiencing some defaulting loans?
This morning I bought some July puts that seemed reasonably priced to me.
I guess we now know why KRY's auditors resigned.

"Interesting that gold got smacked down this morning but most of my miners are up."

Not at all. The share prices of the miners are very stretched compared to the underlying commodity right now.

Best...

In re KRY, can I call a bottom or what! <8)

I did exercise the perogatives of an invidual investor and took a different type of long position in KRY using July puts and calls. This way I can benefit from a strong move if the permit comes through without having to put as much capital at risk - and more, not having to suffer the wild swings in stock price.

I was a buyer or RNO today, too. It's a gold stock, but looks very good from a technical perspective.

number2son,

It could just as easily have gone the other way. Did you put on a straddle?

Jake and Jock, would sure like to see your reports on PDAC....tia

2nd_Ave, yep you're right. And I would have done the same again given the avaialble information.

Yep, I have a straddle (2.50p/5.00c). The premium of the puts has more than paid for the calls and gives me a ~$2.20 cost basis if I get those shares put to me (that includes the premium on the calls).

Of course, the cost of this strategy is loss of any gain between $2.80 and $5.00. But I believe permitting or buyout will move the stock much higher than $5.

I also like the fact that I have much less capital at risk than if I owned the underlying shares outright.

OK, nice move. Maybe I'll try it later in the "game."

I'll start right off the bat saying that I'm not smart enough to make full sense of this filing, but this is what I ascertain from the NEW filing. I'm not sure that I've heard much on TV about what is on this filing:

1. Their funds were cut off from all of their lenders. That is what you are seeing reported, but, like the ginsu knives and bamboo steamer, there's more.. . .

2. EACH of their lenders have required NEW to REPURCHASE all outstanding mortgages in the amount of $8.4B outstanding loans as follows:
A. Bank of America: $600M repurchase

B. Citigroup Global Markets Realty Corp: They were paid $717M (03.08.07)from Morgan Stanley Obligation to pay this--what do you think MS thinks about this? They still owe $31.9M for a default.

C. Credit Suisse First Boston Mortgage Capital: $900M repurchase

D. DB Structure Products (DBSP, Aspen Funding Corp, Newport Funding Corp, and Gemini Securitization, Corp., LLC)(Part of Deutsche Bank): Basically calling for the company to provide for backup servicing arrangement;

E. Goldman Sachs Mortgage Company: $100M repurchase

F. IXIS Real Estate Capital, INc.: $800M

G. Morgan Stanley Capital Mortgage: 2.5B (yes B)

"The Company and its subsidiaries do not have sufficient liquidity to satisfy their outstanding repurchase obligations. . .

Credit Suisse analyst Ivy Zelman issued a report today highlighting the risk in the housing market to tightening credit.

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007/03/credit-suisse-not-just-subprime-issue.html

Prices are still too high, and as an astute commenter on the CR blog noted, home builders cannot sell overpriced houses to people who are already carrying high levels of debt and living paycheck to paycheck.

Rigdon, thank you for the WY tip. I passed it on to a friend who trades options, only options, nothing but options. If he takes your tip, I'll be sure to have him thank you.

Leisa, wonderful information. Thank you.

number2son: Ditto!

MarkM: Love seeing your comments.

Thanks to Bill (oh, many, many thanks to Bill!) I now think in terms of "letting the market come to me".

Here is a good article by Mr. Kass on sub-prime.

http://www.thestreet.com/pf/newsanalysis/investing/10343814.html

GemmaStar
Just an idea (not a tip). I'm sure your friend will do his own research and make his own decision.
Now watch some private equity guys announce a bid for WY and send it through the roof. At least my downside is capped.

abx is sitting at good risk reward spot, possible buy now easily defined risk, it has been range bound for last 6 months.

FRED has released its banking series. You can find it here http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/

Loan losses are still at historical lows, but you can see that they are moving higher. My question is this....Given the now-repudiated lending standards + the enormity of recent debt issued, is it not reasonable to expect that we would blow out all historical numbers? My knee-jerk answer to that would be yes. So....why all of this complacency? There's an interesting mix of variables--each of them quite different from earlier years to now: interest rates (higher v. lower now); asset prices (most likely lower relative to qualifying income v. higher relative to qualifying income now); sub-prime lending (lower v. higher now); liquidity (lower v. higher now? ); alternative loans (lower v. higher now). Depending on how these variables weight then v. now, it would appear to me that we ought to see a parabolic rise in loan loss reserves.

...and outright loan losses as I see it, Leisa.
Thanks for reminding me about the opportune use of the "stradle", number2son, it would have been (and might still be) the perfect way to play KRY.
Good on ya and cheers.

I have tried to post two comments/responses in the last 1/2 hour and in both cases my keyboard freezes at some point and I have been unable to continue.
Anyone else experiene this?

I have tried to post two comments/responses in the last 1/2 hour and in both cases my keyboard freezes at some point and I have been unable to continue.
Anyone else experiene this?

Rigdon,

You may want to compose your comments using a word processor progam and pasting them into the comments section of this blog.

Right, good idea Ronk.
mikede- sorry I don't see ABX the way you do.
Looks like a "yard sale" to me. Many better PM charts in my view.
Is ABX still hedged?

It's hard to be leaning long right now. On the other hand, we have too many people expecting the worst, so the "right" trade might be to go long. This quote from Todd Harrison's site has the right "feel" to it today:

“My position? Both sides. I think 2007 will prove to be an exceptional trading environment, frustrating both dedicated longs and shorts who refuse to (or can’t) be nimble.” Professor Ryan Krueger on today’s Buzz.

Kinda hard to act on, though.

The markets are indecisive, need to watch the housing impact as well as what China is doing. Two factors that will probably make or break all markets.