Articles About Financing

The last 30 years have seen a boom for skyscraper construction because the cost of borrowing money had declined significantly. When investors borrow money to purchase assets, they send prices higher.  The problem is that this borrowing makes the markets susceptible to busts when investors sell assets to pay their debts.  The recent financial crisis […]

Commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) are expected to remain below $15 billion in 2010 as borrowers cope with falling property values.  According to Alan Todd, a JPMorgan analyst, debt sales backed by CBD office, hotel and shopping center loans could be as low as $10 billion this year.  Aaron Bryson of Barclays Capital is more optimistic, […]

An independent audit released by the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) has found the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to be effective, so much so that the Department of the Treasury has extended it to October 3, 2010.  Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner plans to use the remaining funds to assist families facing foreclosure […]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is starting to look at ways to back off from the central bank’s heroic efforts to keep the nation’s economy afloat through the financial crisis of the past 18 months. The trick to raising short-term interest rates, which have been at historic lows for more than a year, is to […]

Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) wants to scrap Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in favor of an entirely new mortgage-financing system. According to Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and who previously supported the programs, “The committee will be recommending abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current forms and coming up with […]

A long-term steelmaker is not fleeing Chicago for Canada, thanks to a deal in which A. Finkl & Sons Co. purchased six properties adjacent to the Verson Steel site on the southeast side for just $1. Finkl, which has been in business since 1879, will move its headquarters from the western edge of Lincoln Park […]

Foreclosure is mutually destructive for all parties and something should be done about it.  That’s the opinion of Jafer Hasnain, Managing Principal of Lifeline Assets, the first large-scale institutional investment fund targeted toward acquiring single-family homes that are in financial distress.  The firm’s business model aligns the interests of distressed homeowners, banks, investors and American […]

David Tepper’s shrewd bet that the nation would avoid a second Great Depression inspired him to buy bank shares at rock-bottom rates, a move that has earned his Appaloosa Management hedge fund an estimated $7 billion worth of profit during 2009.  Last winter, Tepper invested heavily in Bank of America stocks selling for $3 a […]

President Barack Obama is angry with the big Wall Street banks that took TARP dollars and plans to do something about it.  “We want our money back and we’re going to get it,” Obama said in a White House speech when he proposed the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee.  “If these companies are in good enough […]

A Federal Reserve official predicts that 2010 will see a continuing moderate economic recovery with interest rates kept “exceptionally low” to encourage job creation.  Elizabeth Duke, a Fed governor, said “In the current environment, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) continues to anticipate that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal […]