Mortgage Market Getting Ugly
HSBC Holdings PLC (HBC) said late last night that its loan impairment charges and other credit risk provisions in 2006 are now expected to be 20 pct above the consensus estimate of $8.8 billion made by analysts, due to higher-than-earlier expected provisions for its US mortgage business.
HSBC now expects their mortgage loss to be $10 billion.
New Century Financial (NEW), a large subprime mortgage lender, projected a fourth-quarter loss, and said it expects to restate each of the previous three quarters' earnings lower because it did not set aside enough money to buy back subprime loans that went bad.
This unwinding of the mortgage market is just beginning. Large financial institutions have been reporting spectacular results due to gains in fixed income and credit related trading. It appears this era is over. While investors often refer to equity bubbles bursting, credit bubbles are equally as ugly. Watch out for more blow ups.
February 8, 2007
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