Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

WaMu's Suspect Mortgage Pool- Fallout from Liar Loans Continues

Housing-Market / US Housing May 07, 2008 - 07:22 AM GMT

By: Mike_Shedlock

Housing-Market Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleI have been tracking a particular Washington Mutual (WM) Alt-A mortgage pool for several months. The pool is known as WMALT 2007-0C1.


In Evidence of "Walking Away" In WaMu Mortgage Pool , I wrote about data January.
The February update was WaMu Alt-A Pool Revisited .
The March update was called WaMu Alt-A Pool Deteriorates Further .

This is the April Update

WMALT 2007-0C1 April Picture



January Pool Stats
  • 19.3% 60 day delinquent or worse
  • 13.15% Foreclosure
  • 1.83% REO
February Pool Stats
  • 22.69% 60 day delinquent or worse
  • 11.62% Foreclosure
  • 3.56% REO
March Pool Stats
  • 25.3% 60 day delinquent or worse
  • 13.35% Foreclosure
  • 4.44% REO
April Pool Stats
  • 29.07% 60 day delinquent or worse
  • 13.87% Foreclosure
  • 6.21% REO

Note the above progression. This cesspool from May of 2007, was 92.6% originally rated AAA, even though loans had full doc only 11% of the time. In one year, the pool was 29.07% 60-day delinquent or worse. Of that, 13.87% is in foreclosure and 6.21% is bank owned real estate.

The problem should be clear. In no way shape or form, should any package of liar loans been rated AAA.

Thanks to "CS", "YV" and several others for emailing me the latest chart. Chris Puplava at Financial Sense went one further and sent in the following charts to consider.

Pool Balance vs. 60 Day or worse Delinquencies

Pool balance is left scale (red)
Delinquencies 60 day or worse is right scale (green)
Delinquencies 90 day or worse is right scale (blue)




REOs vs. Foreclosures



Thanks for those charts Chris!

REOs Rising Faster Than Foreclosures

The above image is particularly interesting. Are banks so loaded to the gills in REOs they are reluctant to start more foreclosures? If so, people are now living in their homes for free. There have been various media reports of this happening.

As bad as that sounds, from a bank perspective that is better than having a house sit there to become infested by vermin, rats, bees, mold etc. I spoke on the phone with Mike Morgan this morning and he tells me the latter is happening right now in Florida. Some homes are so infested with mold they are a health hazard and have to be bulldozed down. Total loss to the lender is 100%, perhaps greater if they have to pay to clean up the mess!

This Alt-A pool may not be indicative of all Alt-A pools but it likely indicative of what is happening to liar loan Alt-A pools in California and Florida. Furthermore, I believe all Alt-A pools (because that is where the bulk of the liar loans and option ARMs are hidden), are extremely suspect.

Just yesterday it was reported that Bank of America (BAC) is reconsidering its deal with Countrywide Financial (CFC). I talked about this yesterday in Countrywide Shares Worthless?

Professor Sedacca commented " Buried in the $2 billion investment Bank of America (BAC) made in CFC was the fact that BAC has 'last look' to buy the company. That was the main reason for that deal, me thinks. So I imagine common shareholders get little if anything, preferred holders get potentially wiped out and some subordinated debt holders could get smoked as well. The same could be said for Washington Mutual(WM). "

Indeed. And if Bank of America is investigating Countrywide Alt-A pools that look anything like the above, they cannot possibly be liking what they see.

Meanwhile Bernanke Urges Action to Slow Foreclosures . Inquiring minds may wish to open that link to see a series of charts from Bernanke's perspective. The Fed is clearly spooked, and rightfully so. However, the Fed is powerless to halt changing attitudes towards walking away and it is a moral hazard to even attempt to do so at taxpayer expense.

By Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Mike Shedlock / Mish is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance, low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/ to learn more about wealth management for investors seeking strong performance with low volatility. You are currently viewing my global economics blog which has commentary 7-10 times a week. I am a "professor" on Minyanville. My Minyanville Profile can be viewed at: http://www.minyanville.com/gazette/bios.htm?bio=87 I do weekly live radio on KFNX the Charles Goyette show every Wednesday. When not writing about stocks or the economy I spends a great deal of time on photography. I have over 80 magazine and book cover credits. Some of my Wisconsin and gardening images can be seen at www.michaelshedlock.com.

© 2008 Mike Shedlock, All Rights Reserved

Mike Shedlock Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in