December 23, 2008
By BusinessWeek, Standard & Poor's, and Action Economics staff U.S. economic reports released Dec. 23 were a mix of the unsurprising and dispiriting. While a revised ...
December 1, 2008
Now it's official. On Dec. 1, the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research—the widely acknowledged arbiters of when the U.S. ...
November 21, 2008
It's been a tough real estate market, but S&P Equity Research is still enthusiastic about select real estate investment trusts (REITs). Since the beginning of ...
November 20, 2008
The current U.S. downturn continues to generate remarkable moves in economic data. Consider the reports on U.S. consumer prices and housing starts for October, ...
October 18, 2008
Tune in to Anderson Cooper on CNN and watch as he counts down the "10 Most Wanted Culprits of the Collapse." Pick up the New York Post and read about FBI ...
September 26, 2008
From a report released Sept. 22 by Standard & Poor's Market, Credit and Risk Strategies The credit crunch has been with us for more than a year. The Federal Open ...
September 8, 2008
Skepticism swept over the financial blogosphere in response to the government's historic bailout of mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) announced on...
September 8, 2008
It wasn't hard to find skeptics on Wall Street on Sept. 8, the day after the federal government's weekend takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac ...
August 25, 2008
On Wall Street, the yearlong credit crunch continues to hog headlines. For example, the future is still in question for investment banks like Lehman Brothers (LEH) and...
August 7, 2008
In light of the ongoing difficult operating environment for U.S.-based homebuilders, investors have raised several questions about S&P Ratings' views on the sector's ...
July 23, 2008
Over the last several years, many banks galvanized by the housing boom affixed their names to sports stadiums and arenas across the country, hoping to drive brand ...
July 1, 2008
After a great run, real estate investments have suffered over the past year, with the average real estate mutual fund down 18%, according to Morningstar. David Lee has...
June 27, 2008
Mortgage rates are skyrocketing. Credit is locked up. Economic pressures are rising. Time to bail on that McMansion? Some homeowners who are three months to a year ...
May 20, 2008
It was already clear that Home Depot (HD) and Lowe's (LOW) would get pummeled by the drop in new-home construction and housing sales. But now even consumers who are ...
May 16, 2008
By BusinessWeek, Standard & Poor's, and Action Economics staff The housing market may be loosening up a bit, but the consumer mood is the darkest it has been since the...
May 6, 2008
With home prices continuing to drop and the pace of home sales slowing further, nobody has been looking for encouraging results from homebuilders. On May 6, D.R. ...
May 6, 2008
Fannie Mae's worse-than-expected first-quarter loss, reported on May 6, shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the news of continuing declines in home...
April 25, 2008
Did someone say something about the deflating of a real estate bubble? Sure, home prices may be falling, but real estate investment trusts (REITs) outperformed broad ...
April 17, 2008
Homeownership has long been a vibrant part of achieving the American Dream. But these days owning a home is more like starring in a horror flick, perhaps called ...
April 16, 2008
by BusinessWeek, Standard & Poor's, and Action Economics staff The U.S. economic picture remains murky, to say the least. Reports released Apr. 16 showed that ...
March 26, 2008
by BusinessWeek, Standard & Poor's, and Action Economics staff Reports released Mar. 26 show that two key segments of the U.S. economy—housing and ...
March 25, 2008
The recent run of optimistic headlines enjoyed by financial markets was interrupted, at least for a day, by two economic reports released Mar. 25. The releases ...
March 20, 2008
Another stone fell into place in the federal government's plan to build a path to credit market recovery. On Mar. 19, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise ...
March 18, 2008
The year 2008 is turning into the ultimate stress test for investors. The troubles pile on top of each other: wild volatility in stock prices, a housing slowdown, a ...
February 29, 2008
Egad. Take just a bit of time (O.K., a few months) off from chronicling the doings and undoings of the denizens of Subprime City, and all hell breaks loose. As the ...