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Back at Ganley Chevrolet, the dealership's bank announced in a meeting yesterday morning that it will increase the floor plan rate - the interest on money that car dealers borrow to buy new inventory - by 1.5%. "Which forces me to have less inventory on hand," says Jim Helton, the general manager. "That makes it harder for me to sell cars, because I'm giving people fewer choices." The dealership's owners were planning this summer to spend millions of dollars on a complete renovation and expansion of the façade, showroom and service area. Rising credit costs, combined with...
...consumers, retailers, lenders and anyone else who depends on credit, these are worrisome times. Even the $700 billion bailout that President Bush signed last week to buy Wall Street's bad mortgage-backed debt was not enough to calm credit jitters. Consumer borrowing fell at an annual rate of 3.7% in August, the first decline in over a decade, the Federal Reserve reported yesterday. In a surprise coordinated move with central banks around the world, the Fed sliced interest by half a point on Wednesday morning before the markets opened...
Even hints from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, testifying on Capital Hill today, of a possible rate cut did not help. His prognosis that slow growth in the American economy, not inflation, is now the Reserve's primary concern only added bad news to a day that included fallout from yesterday's after-hours Bank of America announcement that it will need to cut its dividend and raise $10 billion in capital. The bank, which has acquired Countrywide Financial and plans to do the same with Merrill Lynch, dropped almost 25% on the announcement. Morgan Stanley shares also plummeted...
...striking insight. It is unpopular to say that the U.S. economy is resilient when firms are failing, but what story is told by the facts? Unemployment now exceeds 6 percent in the United States but it declined by 159,000 in September. In France, for example, the unemployment rate was nine percent (or more) in nine out of the last 12 years. As the U.S. outlook worsens, it is worth remembering how other, comparable countries are performing...
...That's because credit markets, which affect the ability of businesses and governments to borrow to fund day-to-day operations, continue to tighten in Asia as banks become more nervous about lending. In Hong Kong, the one-month interbank lending rate has doubled in the past month to 4%. Central banks are trying to pump liquidity into financial markets to avert a credit crunch. India on Monday cut the amount of cash that banks must deposit with the central bank in an attempt to loosen credit. "Credit markets are quite global," says Kirby Daley, senior strategist at financial services...