S&P 500 is The New Bubble: Current S&P 500 Value is Betting on Return to Bubble Peak, Housing Mania, and 4 Percent Unemployment.
One question that seems to pop up every so often is whether the S&P 500 is overvalued. To put it simply, it is hyper-valued. From the 666 low reached in March the index has rallied 57 percent. Unfortunately much of the rally is based on temporary government stimulus, the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve trashing the dollar, one-time inventory gains, cash for clunkers, $8,000 tax credits for home buyers, and artificial stimulus. These are not the things that makes for sustainable recoveries. This is like running wind sprints on mile 6 of a marathon. We have a long way to go to get out of this mess.
Interest Only Mortgage Time Bomb: $71 billion in Loans will Reset in next 12 Months. Total Loans Outstanding at $908 Billion. Average Balance of $324,000. Median U.S. Home Price $178,000.
Interest only (IO) loans seemed like a viable mortgage option when home prices were appreciating on a double-digit basis every year. The interest only loan allowed borrowers the option of making no principal payments for 5, 7, or even 10 years. Now why would someone not make any principal payment for such a long time? The way these mortgages were pitched, people would buy a home for 3, 5, or 7 years and would sell their home before the reset period. Yet the housing bubble has burst and home prices are now below the average balance of these mortgage in many areas. Recent data has the median U.S. home price at $178,000 while the average loan amount of an interest only loan is $324,000. How many of these loans are out there? Try 2.8 million. Many in overpriced states that have taken the brunt of the housing downturn.
California Lost Decade of Employment: Bulk of Recent Income Gains went to Wealthiest Californians. 76.8 Percent of Adjusted Gross Income Gains between 2006 and 2007 went to the Wealthiest Fifth of California Personal Income Taxpayers.
California may now have one of the distinct misfortunes of enjoying a lost decade of job growth. This not only applies to the battered economy of California, but to the nation as well. To put the magnitude of the current recession in perspective, the only other time in economic history to see a contraction wipe out a decade long expansion of job gains was during the Great Depression. Yet somehow in the midst of all these job losses the S&P 500 is now up 56 percent from the low reached in March. You might have missed the fact that we are reaching year highs on the market because the underlying economy is still in tatters. California is home to the same number of jobs from a decade ago even though we now have 3.3 million more workers.
Option ARM Disaster Arrival: Mortgages More Problematic than Originally Thought. $134 Billion Recasting in Next Two Years. 94 Percent Made only Minimum Payment. Only 35,000 of the 1 million Option ARM loans Modified.
Option ARMs, the dubious name for a mortgage product of financial destruction, are back in the limelight showing that they have not gone away. Everyone by now has heard about option ARMs. These toxic mortgages allowed borrowers a buffet of payment options. However, in recent data released this week we are told that things are much worse than we had initially thought. Option ARMs have now become an oxymoron. In fact, they should be called minimum payment mortgages because 94 percent of those who took on these mortgages elected to go with the minimum payment.