I hear that Felix Beck (who sold Margaretten & Co. to Chase several years ago) is gettingback into the business. Actually, that's an early April Fool's Day joke, but the way things have been going lately,if someone had told me that this well-respected elder statesman (he continues on as chairman emeritus of Chase)was getting back in, well, it wouldn't surprise me. As National Mortgage News has already reported,Jack Mayesh (ex-Long Beach), Bill Starkey Sr. (ex-AccuBanc) and a few others who soldtheir firms at what they thought was the top of the market (three years ago) are starting new mortgage bankingfirms. The latest ex-mortgage banker to jump back in is Peter Paul, who a few years back sold Headlandsto Greenpoint. One mortgage vet joked that rumor has it that Lewis Ranieri is thinking of reformingthe Salomon Brothers trading desk circa 1982 "to trade all the (mortgage) bonds" that are beingcreated...
Refis forever? Rock bottom mortgage rates for another 12 months? Lehman Brothers thinks that even thoughthe Federal Reserve didn't act on Tuesday, the central bank eventually will cut the overnight FedFunds Rate by at least another 50 basis points. In case you're counting, that would bring the rate to just 0.75%.The yield on the 10-year rose last week after the stock market rallied. But there are still plenty of stock marketbears out there. "Although we expect a war-related rally of 15% to 20%, we expect this to be relatively shortterm," said Jason James of HSBC. "Those investors who expect current economic and marketmalaise to be ended by a successful Iraqi war will be disappointed before the end of the year." MerrillLynch's chief bear, I mean, U.S. strategist, Richard Bernstein, told equities investors to sell intorallies...
The mortgage division of National City had net earnings (after taxes) of about $480 million last year.That's a stunning performance...
Bear Stearns said on Wednesday that its quarterly earnings rose 52%, thanks, in part, to its boomingmortgage-backed securities business. "Our fixed-income franchise (bonds) achieved record performance whilethe equity and equity-related businesses remained stable," said CEO James Cayne. Bear Stearns postednet income of $274 million...
It looks as though the publicly-traded LendingTree has some competition. MortgageExpo.com, whichlike the Tree wants to marry consumers with lenders, is advertising on Yahoo...
Lehman Brothers has upgraded Countrywide to "overweight" from "equal weight." Countrywide'sshares have been trading up lately...
Inspired Lending, Denver, is opening three new branch offices in Boulder County...
The Gartner Report predicts that software spending will rise 3.5% to $76 billion in 2003, compared with$73 billion last year. We assume that some of that will be by mortgage lenders, servicers, as well as S&Ls,and commercial banks...
Remember the Resolution Trust Corp., the government agency that helped clean up the S&L mess in theearly 1990s? Well, apparently Germany may need an RTC of its own. Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank,said recently that the German government should make plans for a bailout amid one of the worst business environmentsthat nation has seen since the end of WWII...
WASHINGTON NEWS: Is the Mortgage Bankers Association thinking about spinning off its researchdivision into a for-profit subsidiary? A spokeswoman for the trade group said no, but someone who interviewed fora research job there said he was told by MBA that it's a possibility. MBA is trying to hire two researchers toaid it in increasing its quarterly collection of mortgage data from lenders. One Washington source noted that inyears past, "MBA has tried to spin off for-profit subs but has failed."... Two congressmen have introducedlegislation to make mortgage insurance payments by consumers tax deductible. (See NMN issue of March 24for full details)...
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: WaMu Capital Corp., a fixed-income institutional broker-dealer and subsidiary of WashingtonMutual, has hired two veteran traders: Jack Donahue and David Nagle. Both joined the firm in earlyMarch and report to managing director, John Drastal.
CORRECTIONS: In last weekend's briefing we misspelled the names of former Wells Fargo PR officialsJon Ferchen and Dan Frahm. For that we apologize...
