More Evidence Banks are Holding Back Foreclosures

According to this Foreclosures.com blog article, More on Stress Tests, due to 10 of 19 big banks needing to raise funds as a result of the "stress tests" the big banks, and other banks, will start selling shares and begin to dump their increasing pool of foreclosures very soon. Foreclosures (non-performing assets/real estate owned/REO's) have been piling up since 70% are not showing up in MLS's as being for sale. That means there is a large pool of foreclosed homes coming on the market soon. I discussed this "hidden foreclosure" problem in a previous blog post. Clearly, this dump of foreclosed homes is going to hurt the real estate market. I see no reason to believe that foreclosures will decline any time soon as the jobless rate hits 10% by the end of the year combined with the fact that too many homeowners have no savings to get them through a period of unemployment (see my previous blog post on this topic).

"Stress Tests a Sham"; Banks Have $2 Trillion Dollar Hole While Credit Card and Commercial Real Estate Loan Defaults Soar

According to this interview with William Black, a former bank regulator, author and current law and economics professor at the University of Missouri, the "Stress Tests" are a "sham"and US banks need $2 trillion dollars to remain solvent. Since he directly attributes this figure to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner I am guessing that the real number is much higher since according to Mr. Black the "stress tests" do not factor in bank reserves or asset quality (i.e. the increasing defaults on all types of loans including credit cards and commercial real estate loans). Additionally, Mr. Black states that commercial real estate is in for a "world of hurt". As I stated previously, there is going to be a surge in the number of foreclosures hitting the market as banks fail and are forced to finally liquidate the foreclosures they have artifically been holding back and most of the large banks in the US are already insolvent and will need to be nationalized soon.

Don't Believe the "Good News Bulls"

According to this New York Times article, U.S. Says Ailing Banks Need $75 Billion, US Banks need $75 Billion in additional capital in order to pass the government stress tests and this is good news!?  First, it is not good news.  It means that US banks need a lot of additional capital.  Second, it is not even accurate.  According to Gary Shilling we should not be trusting the rosy government reports as they are really meant as a PR piece then they are a measure of the banks' financial condition.  I agree.  The government stress tests are a joke.  Regardless of these phony stress tests most large US Banks are insolvent.