Word: reds
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...Freddie's portfolio of [mortgage] insurance is more risky than the market was led to believe," says Paul Miller, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets. Sister company Fannie Mae lost even more last year, with $58.7 billion of red ink. But Fannie was better capitalized than Freddie going into the credit crunch. So even though Freddie by many measures is smaller than Fannie, the problems at Freddie will probably end up costing more...
Freddie's business, which in part comes from a government mandate, is insuring mortgages. So when borrowers lose their jobs, as many now are, Freddie is going to lose money. But only a quarter of Freddie's red ink, or about $13 billion, comes from mortgage-insurance woes. The firm took a larger hit from its investment in mortgage-backed securities tied to subprime, adjustable-rate or jumbo mortgages. By law, Freddie isn't allowed to insure against losses on those types of mortgages, in part because they are riskier. But it bought securities tied to those home loans anyway...
When will the red ink at Freddie stop? It's hard to say. In its most recent annual report, the company said that if it had to mark all its assets to the price similar bonds are trading for in the market, the company's net worth would sink by an additional $65 billion. But Freddie's bottom-line woes may run even deeper. Freddie has $38 billion in losses it has yet to acknowledge in its investment portfolio. The firm also has $48 billion in nonperforming loans that it either holds or has guaranteed against. In a painful stroke...
...Gilad Shalit was captured by Palestinian militants in Gaza, and they'll know exactly. On Monday, it was 995 days ago. On Tuesday, it will be 996 days ... The count is everywhere: on the front page of newspapers, on the TV nightly news, in school classrooms and in bright red numbers hanging from a tent that Shalit's parents have pitched outside the residence of the Prime Minister in Jerusalem...
...before the Salvadoran vote with the hemisphere's other alpha moderate, President Barack Obama. Funes had identified himself with the spirit of the pragmatic, bipartisan Lula left in his campaign and met with the Brazilian a number of times. He hit the stump not in the lefty-red attire favored by FMLN leaders (and by Chavez) but in white guayabera shirts. He also assuaged voter fears by convincing his own party to drop its insistence on lifting El Salvador's amnesty for civil-war crimes, on revising the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and on reversing El Salvador...