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Mortgage Lenders Can't Escape Morgenson's Wrath
Sugar: Get in While It's Still Cheap
Jim Rogers' Picks and Pans - Barron's Interview
When the Rest of the World Stops Hoarding US Dollars
Citi's Deal: Unclogging of the System
As for "finding a buyer," it's always possible to find a buyer if you finance him. In fact that's how the homebuilding industry found buyers for the past 5 years. That worked well, so why not repeat the experience with leveraged loans?
A Tale of Two Coasts
Naked Shorting Comes Full Circle
Comparing Clinton and Bush on Income Taxes
Dick Bove Says Banking Is Sound - Time to Buy Financials?
Then the President was George HW Bush, now George W Bush
In 1990 Paula Abdul was a top rated pop star, now she evaluates pop stars
Michael Milken wore a toupee, now he doesn't.
But the point is not that 2008 and 1990 are different. The point is to establish what losses banks will suffer in a system-wide flight from risk and refusal to lend (which we didn't have in 1990!) Commodities were in deflation in 1990, fine, but houses are in deflation now and houses are a much bigger balance sheet item for this economy than commodities. This essay needs to be rewritten.
Blame Realtors, Brokers and Bankers - Not Greenspan
Now you can blame other people for getting drunk, but it was Al who spiked the punch. And now that interest rates are non-zero, the housing bubble is over. QED.
Freefall Fed Policies?
JPM, Citadel Tag Teaming Thornburg Mortgage?
Back to the future and 20% downpayments with income verification and self amortizing loans. Goodbye to TMA and their ilk who sold free puts to homedebtors.
Moscow Now Has More Billionaires Than New York
Oil, Gold, Silver, Platinum and Copper Hit Record Highs
Thornburg's a Huge Bargain After Monday's Crash
Also as to FICO scores (which I did not directly address earlier) you will no doubt be aware that Fair Isaac recently announced substantial changes to their scoring algorithm because of its perceived failure to predict risk of default.
"We don't think FICO scores have caused or contributed to the subprime mortgage problem," says CEO Mark N. Greene, a 12-year IBM veteran who took the helm at Fair Isaac last February as its problems were becoming apparent. Lenders that followed traditional underwriting standards, he says, "steered clear of subprime issues."
Of course, Thornburg Mortgage's entire reason for being was to help borrowers avoid "traditional underwriting standards" by lending them money that they could not demonstrate an ability to service.
And this is all before we get into the question of how a company can miss a $270 million margin call and still be a buy, which I suppose has been exhaustively examined by other posters.