Today's ReadsInteresting readings from today
Edward J. DeMarco, the acting director of the FHFA gave a speech at the Brookings Institute and talked in details about the US Treasury's programs to help struggling mortgage borrowers. DeMarco said that 11 million homeowners are under-water and raised issues over principal reduction.
Goldman Sachs has developed a "House Price Index" that estimates the percentage of zip-codes with year/year increase in house price. Like the Case-Shiller index, it is bouncing at the bottom. What is not exactly clear is how many zip-codes GS analyzes to create the index but I think it is certainly less than 43,000 zip-codes (43,191 to be precise) in the US.
There seems to be lot going in the Money Market Funds (MMFs). The SEC proposed a rule late last year to let NAV of MMFs fluctuate and to require them to impose higher reserves and restrictions on withdrawals. The SEC has been tightening rules over MMFs since 2008 crisis. In October 2008, Reserve Primary Fund, the oldest MMF "broke the buck" because it held $785 million in Lehman debt out of $64.8 billion in total assets. In May 2010, a SEC rule shortened the average maturity of assets held from 90 to 60 days, required that 10% of a fund be in cash or securities that mature in one day and that 30% of a fund must mature within 60 days. But looks like the SEC's new proposal is dead on arrival owing to push-back from powerful industry players.
