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Citigroup ‘Defrauded’ Fannie, Freddie: Whistle-Blower

Secured Loan Calculator Reviewer Arianna — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:13:48 +0000

Citigroup ‘Defrauded’ Fannie, Freddie, Whistle-Blower Claims

A CitiBank sign is reflected in a window, in New York. Robert Caplin/Bloomberg

Citigroup Inc. (C), which last week
admitted breaking Federal Housing Administration rules and paid
a fine, also violated regulations for home loans sold to Fannie
Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), according to a whistle-blower’s complaint.

The bank “defrauded, falsified information or misled
federal government entities” by selling or securing insurance
for mortgages with defects such as improper appraisals and not
reporting them as required, Sherry Hunt, a Citigroup quality-
assurance vice president, said in her complaint, which was
unsealed yesterday. It was filed under the False Claims Act in
federal court in Manhattan in August.

Hunt’s charges formed the backbone of the U.S. Justice
Department’s case against Citigroup, which paid $158.3 million
in a Feb. 15 settlement and admitted that it certified loans for
FHA insurance that didn’t qualify. Her complaint provides
additional details into the bank’s broken mortgage-processing
system. In last week’s agreement, the government reserved the
right to pursue criminal and other charges related to mortgages
originated or underwritten by Citigroup and not insured by the
FHA.

“Everyone is a little bit guilty for not keeping an eye on
the processes and doing what we should have been doing,” Hunt
said in a telephone interview from her home in Silex, Missouri.
“Managers have to take ownership of their area, know what’s
going on and make sure they’re doing the right thing.”

Loans Repurchased

As a whistle-blower, Hunt’s share of the settlement will be
$31 million before taxes and attorney’s fees, she said in a Feb.
15 interview.

For Citigroup, the third-largest U.S. bank by assets, the
high defect rates could be costly. It might be forced to buy
back substandard mortgages sold to government-controlled Fannie
and Freddie, who buy or guarantee most U.S. mortgages.

Last year, Citigroup repurchased 6,600 loans from
government buyers, an 89 percent increase from 2010, according
to a presentation on its website. The bank set aside $1.2
billion to buy back defective mortgages as of the end of 2011.
That’s the most ever, and up from $969 million in 2010.

“We take our quality-assurance processes seriously and
have pro-actively undertaken process improvements to ensure that
they are as strong as possible,” Sean Kevelighan, a Citigroup
spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.

Andrew Wilson, a spokesman for Washington-based Fannie Mae,
and Chad Wandler, a spokesman for McLean, Virginia-based Freddie
Mac, declined to comment.

Flawed Mortgages

Hunt said Citigroup knowingly vouched for the quality of
loans that were “deficient” in income documentation, had
incomplete borrower job histories, appraisal problems, errors in
closing paperwork, missing credit reports and miscalculated
maximum mortgage amounts, among other flaws.

Some managers’ compensation was tied in part to reducing
the defect rate, Hunt said.

CitiMortgage Inc., Citigroup’s home-loan unit, is run by
Sanjiv Das, who was hired by Chief Executive Officer Vikram S. Pandit, 55, in July 2008. Das reports to consumer-banking head
Manuel Medina-Mora and Eugene McQuade, head of Citibank N.A.,
the bank’s deposit-taking unit. Both Das and Pandit are former
Morgan Stanley executives.

During an April 7, 2010, meeting with Freddie Mac
executives at the main Citigroup mortgage-processing facility in
O’Fallon, Missouri, Mike Mazanec, head of CitiMortgage’s Fraud
Prevention and Investigation unit, said all loans flagged for
possible fraud were resolved within 15 to 30 days — “a false
statement,” Hunt said in the complaint.

‘Systemic Failure’

In fact, in a list of about 1,000 loans referred to the
fraud unit because they were suspected to be fraudulent, many
were more than a year old and some were eventually erased from
the Citigroup computer system, according to Hunt’s complaint.

Attempts to reach Mazanec for comment at a telephone number
listed under his name were unsuccessful.

Hunt cited an “overall systemic failure” in her complaint
that she said in a May 2011 letter to the Securities and
Exchange Commission “threatens the thin ice the entire market
is treading on.” The letter was also released yesterday.

For certain types of home loans, Citigroup’s “defect
rate” — the rate at which the underwriting raised questions –
was 80 percent, said Hunt, 54.

Taxpayer Lifeline

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have survived on taxpayer aid
since September 2008, when losses from failing home loans forced
them into government conservatorship.

Since then, the companies have drawn more than $180 billion
from a U.S. Treasury Department lifeline. Today, they guarantee
about $100 billion worth of new mortgages a month, about three-
fourths of all single-family home loans.

Hunt said she was hired by Citigroup in 2004. She said she
worked for Richard M. Bowen III, the former Citigroup
underwriter who testified in April 2010 to the Financial Crisis
Inquiry Commission, the panel created by Congress to investigate
the causes of the 2008 financial meltdown.

The case is U.S. ex rel. Hunt v. Citigroup Inc., 11-cv-
005473, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
(Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story:
Bob Ivry in New York at
bivry@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Gary Putka at gputka@bloomberg.net.

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Citigroup ‘Defrauded’ Fannie, Freddie: Whistle-Blower is a post from: Secured Loan Calculator

Article source: http://webfarm.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-22/citigroup-defrauded-fannie-freddie-whistle-blower-claims.html

Wall Street Crowds Into Trader Joe’s

Secured Loan Calculator Reviewer Arianna — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:13:45 +0000

Enlarge image

Wall Street Crowds Into Trader Joe’s for Bond Deals

Francis Specker/Bloomberg

Morgan Stanley is selling about $1 billion of commercial mortgage-backed securities with five of the 10 largest loans tied to retail buildings, including specialty supermarket Trader Joe’s in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a Kings Food Market in Millburn, New Jersey.

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — Leon Cooperman, chief executive officer of Omega Advisors Inc., talks about investment strategy and President Barack Obama’s policies.
Cooperman spoke with Bloomberg’s Erik Schatzker yesterday. (Source: Bloomberg)

Wall Street is scouring the U.S. for
grocery stores as bankers are pushed out of lending to trophy
office properties.

Morgan Stanley (MS) is selling about $1 billion of commercial
mortgage-backed securities with five of the 10 largest loans
tied to retail buildings, including specialty supermarket Trader
Joe’s in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a Kings Food Market in
Millburn, New Jersey. About half of the largest loans bundled
into CMBS in the past six months are linked to retail, up from
27 percent in December 2007 and as low as 12 percent in June of
that year, according to data compiled by JPMorgan Chase Co.

Wall Street has turned to financing a broad swath of retail
properties, from shopping centers to suburban strip malls, as
insurance companies and government-backed Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie
Mac offer better lending terms on the best office buildings and
apartments. Investors are wagering the economic recovery is
strong enough to justify buying the securities even as analysts
and debtholders are concerned that the deals include too many
stores amid restrained consumer spending.

“In this market you eat what you kill,” according to Alan Todd, head of CMBS research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in
New York. “If those are the assets you find you can originate,
than those are the properties you find in the deal.”

About $16 billion of mortgages on retail properties
packaged and sold as bonds come due in 2012. Landlords who need
to borrow more than insurance companies are prepared to lend
will turn to the commercial mortgage-bond market, Todd said.

‘Need More Diversification’

More than 20 percent of investors in a JPMorgan survey
cited heavy retail concentration as their primary concern with
new CMBS deals, the bank said in a report this month. The
proportion of loans linked to retail buildings rose to 45
percent for bonds sold in 2011, from 25 percent for 2007,
according to the New York-based lender.

“We need more diversification in these deals,” said Lisa Pendergast, a commercial-mortgage debt strategist at Jefferies
Group Inc. (JEF) “If there is some kind of big hit to the consumer,
you don’t want to have too much retail. It’s not a good
investment decision to put your eggs in one basket.”

Commercial-mortgage bond lenders, who profit on the
difference between what borrowers pay and the cash brought in by
selling the securities, charge higher rates than insurers and
other financial institutions that hold loans on their books.

Difficulty Competing

Wall Street has had difficulty competing against insurers
and government-supported housing agencies since CMBS sales
revived in 2010, according to Darrell Wheeler, a bond strategist
for Austin, Texas-based Amherst Securities Group LP. Issuance of
the securities, which peaked at $232 billion in 2007, plummeted
to $11.5 billion in 2010. Wall Street arranged $28 billion of
the debt last year.

Government-supported entities such as Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac have also increased lending by selling $33.9 billion
of bonds tied to apartment buildings last year, from $21.6
billion in 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg,
reducing another pool of potential borrowers. Multifamily
buildings fell to 5.5 percent of CMBS in 2011 from 18.6 percent
five years earlier, JPMorgan data show.

Lending to retail property owners has risks. The average
vacancy rate for neighborhood and community shopping centers was
11 percent through the fourth quarter of 2011, holding at the
highest rate in more than 20 years, according to research firm
Reis Inc.

Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD), the second-largest tenant in the $600
billion CMBS market, said in December that it was closing as
many as 120 stores after sales fell.

Late Payments

Late payments on retail mortgages packaged and sold as
bonds rose 32 basis points, to a record 7.21 percent last month,
according to Fitch Ratings. That compares with a rate of 8.32
percent for all property types. A basis point is 0.01 percentage
point.

“Moody’s is concerned about retail concentration in CMBS
2.0 deals,” said Tad Philipp, an analyst at Moody’s Investors
Service, referring to deals sold after the boom ended.

At the same time, “the recession did an excellent job of
separating retail winners from losers, and three-year track
records for sales and occupancy are more valuable than ever,”
he said.

Increased lender demand means better terms for mall owners
such as Simon Property Group Inc. (SPG), the largest in the U.S., and
General Growth Properties Inc. (GGP)

The largest loan in the Morgan Stanley pool being sold is a
$130 million mortgage to The Shoppes at Buckland Hills, a
Manchester, Connecticut-based mall owned by GGP, according to a
regulatory filing.

Banks Calling

The fourth-biggest is a $65.8 million mortgage on Capital
City Mall in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, owned by Pennsylvania Real
Estate Investment Trust. (PEI) The real estate investment firm used
the loan to refinance maturing debt, the filing shows. Mary Claire Delaney, a spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley, declined to
comment.

Andrew Ioannou, senior vice president, capital markets and
treasurer of the REIT, said since the commercial mortgage
market’s revival banks are now calling them instead “of the
other way around.” One advantage is Wall Street allows
borrowers to take on more debt in exchange for higher interest
payments, he said.

“Without a doubt the CMBS market right now is more
aggressive than it’s been in a long time,” he said.

Relative yields on top-ranked commercial-mortgage bonds
have narrowed 48 basis points this year to 213 basis points,
according to a Barclays Plc index. The spread is the narrowest
since July and fell in January by the most in almost two years.

‘Sexiest Looking’

Deutsche Bank AG is planning a $1 billion CMBS deal as soon
as this week, according to a person familiar with the deal, who
declined to be identified because the transaction hasn’t been
announced. Banks are arranging as much as $11 billion in new
sales through April, according to Commercial Mortgage Alert, an
industry newsletter.

Investors got accustomed to seeing Manhattan trophy
properties in 2007 when Wall Street was offering low rates and
high leverage, said Pendergast of Jefferies. Buyers should be
looking for stable properties in reasonable markets, she said.

“It may not be the sexiest looking deal, but that doesn’t
make it a bad thing,” the Stamford, Connecticut-based
strategist said of lending to less prominent buildings.

Economic Outlook

The retail industry has spawned an array of property types
over the past 15 years, from neighborhood strip malls to outdoor
lifestyle centers, according to Ryan Severino, an economist at
Reis, and some have withstood the economic downturn better than
others.

“We are very picky with what we will do,” said Paul Vanderslice, co-head of the U.S. CMBS group at Citigroup Inc. in
New York. “Shopping centers anchored by grocery stores are very
good, and are a much better bet than a third-tier regional
mall.”

The retail loans getting placed into recent deals have
relatively low leverage, meaning the owners are not as deeply in
debt, said Harris Trifon, a commercial-mortgage debt analyst at
Deutsche Bank in New York.

“Barring some catastrophic change in the economic outlook,
most of the properties should perform as expected,” Trifon
said. “It’s not going to be a situation where all of a sudden,
all of the retail loans start going bad at the same time.”

Still, shopping malls in slow-growth markets, with
significant exposure to a single tenant or with unproven track
records do show up frequently in CMBS 2.0, according to
Amherst’s Wheeler.

Even as the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent
in January, the lowest since February 2009, from 10 percent in
October 2009, consumers remain defensive about spending, said
Severino of Reis. Household purchases climbed 2.2 percent in
2011 after an increase of 2 percent in 2010, the weakest two-
year performance of any expansion since the end of World War II.

“We are definitely over-retailed as a country,” said Bank
of America’s Todd. “If the third mall in a one-mall town is the
largest loan in the deal, then obviously the retail
concentration works against you.”

To contact the reporter on this story:
Sarah Mulholland in New York at
smulholland3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Rob Urban at
robprag@bloomberg.net

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Wall Street Crowds Into Trader Joe’s is a post from: Secured Loan Calculator

Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-22/wall-street-crowds-into-trader-joe-s-as-trophies-prove-elusive-mortgages.html

Shilling: Why Renters Rule U.S. Housing Market (Part 1)

Secured Loan Calculator Reviewer Arianna — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:13:42 +0000

The collapse in housing and the 33
percent plunge in house prices since 2006 are favoring renting
over homeownership. This trend will dominate the housing market
for the next four or five years, and put additional pressure on
a weak economy.

Policy makers in Washington continue to have a soft spot
for homeownership. Many recent government actions can be viewed
as attempts to keep people in their homes, even owners who
clearly can’t afford them. In addition to specific plans such as
the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, and the Home
Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, the Obama administration
is trying to revive the moribund housing sector by encouraging
mortgage lenders and servicers to refinance loans at lower
rates.

This reduces interest income for banks, which are now
compelled by the Dodd-Frank law to retain 5 percent of the
credit risk on lower-quality residential mortgages that are
securitized and sold to others. Furthermore, banks are reluctant
to refinance loans that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (NMCMFUS) then
guarantee and put back to the lenders if they find any defects.
The White House plan is a tough sell.

Refinancing Woes

As banks deleverage and mortgage activities increasingly
involve unwanted loans, the ability to deal with refinancing has
diminished. Four banks now control more than 60 percent of the
mortgage market, and many mortgage servicers have reduced staff
or been slow to gear up to handle delinquent mortgages and
refinancings. Except for those who qualify for HARP, refinancing
is highly unlikely for 8 million owners who are underwater –
owing more than the value of their homes — because new terms
are treated as new loans. Those who have positive home equity
face dramatically tightened lending standards, a clogged
refinancing system and new fees that can wipe out the savings
from refinancing.

Almost 90 percent of mortgages today are only originated
because of guarantees from Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the
Federal Housing Authority, and all three have raised their fees
substantially. As a result, many of the 20 million borrowers who
could cut their mortgage rates by more than one percentage point
through refinancing are unable to benefit.

– Second Mortgages: Refinancing underwater borrowers is
tough when they have second mortgages that also have to be
renegotiated, or if mortgage insurers have to agree to the new
loans. Many borrowers can’t qualify for refinancing because of
tightened lending standards. Fannie, Freddie and the FHA have
strengthened their requirements because of pressure from the
administration to avoid more losses on bad mortgages. High
credit scores are needed to refinance outside HARP, along with
two years of tax returns, proof of income and recent evidence of
assets such as retirement and brokerage accounts.

During the housing boom, appraisals for house purchases
were generous. (And why not? Everyone was certain that house
prices would rise indefinitely.) Cooperating appraisers were
often recommended by real-estate brokers and mortgage lenders
who wanted the deals to go through. After the house-price
collapse, however, appraisals became very conservative, as
lenders pressured appraisers to make low estimates.

– Postponed Foreclosures: Foreclosures (HOMFCLOS) have been curtailed
for several years, mainly because the administration essentially
told lenders and servicers to hold off while they attempted
mortgage modifications. Those efforts largely failed. Then the
industry voluntarily imposed a moratorium while it was caught in
the robo-signing flap, in which documents were approved without
proper examination. More recently, lenders and servicers have
been trying to avoid throwing people out of their homes as the
industry worked out the recently announced restitution with the
federal government and state attorneys general for troubled
mortgages. As a result, foreclosures in 2011 fell significantly
from 2010, and in the third quarter were the lowest since 2007.

Sadly, these efforts to keep people in houses they can’t
afford are simply prolonging the process of repairing the
housing mess and getting rid of excess inventories.

These measures are the opposite of the successful program
led by the Resolution Trust Corp. to clean up the savings-and-
loan mess two decades ago, when loans, other assets and whole
financial institutions were sold off quickly to private buyers,
at very low prices. As we discovered then, large inventories of
distressed assets overhang the market and depress prices. To
rejuvenate markets, initial sales at low prices are needed to
attract buyers and lead to higher prices.

– Sagging Homeownership: Despite all the efforts to keep
people in their houses, homeownership is falling. It dropped to
66 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with a peak
of 69.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2004. Meanwhile, the
33.5 percent drop in median single-family house prices is the
first nationwide decline since 1930s.

Growing Delinquencies

Foreclosures, high unemployment, tight lending standards
and lack of money for down payments are playing a role. In the
second quarter of 2011, at least 3.6 million mortgages were
delinquent and at risk of foreclosure; that could climb to 5
million with further house-price declines and if the recession I
forecast for this year takes hold.

The FHA reported that 711,082 single-family loans it
insured were seriously delinquent in December 2011, up 3.2
percent from November, and up 18.9 percent compared with
December 2010. That pushed the seriously delinquent rate to 9.59
percent in December from 9.34 percent in November and 8.65
percent in December 2010.

Many people who are technically homeowners are really
renters. They put little if anything down. In many cases, the
equity is negative when, for example, home-improvement loans
piggybacked on first mortgages and brought total indebtedness to
more than 100 percent of the house value. Many also planned to
refinance their mortgages with cash-outs due to appreciation
before their mortgage rates reset upward or, in some cases, even
before they skipped enough monthly payments to be foreclosed.

– Rent-Free Renters: Since 2006, 3.1 million people are
essentially living rent-free by not paying their monthly
mortgage payments. Assuming a monthly mortgage bill equivalent
to the national average of $1,721 per person, these nonpayers
have increased their purchasing power for other items by $65
billion at annual rates, or the equivalent of 5.6 percent of
after-tax income.

That is a big number, but then 12.5 percent of residential
mortgages are past due or in foreclosure. This may be an
important reason that consumer spending has held up as well as
it has in this recovery, despite all the pressure to increase
the saving rate and reduce debt. Nevertheless, as heavy
foreclosures resume and ex-homeowners are forced to pay rent,
this free money will evaporate.

– Ripple Effect: When house prices were rising, Americans
were eager to keep their houses. So the mortgage was the first
bill they paid each month, even if that meant they postponed
payment on credit cards, cars and student loans. Now, with house
prices falling, mortgages are paid last or not at all,
especially by the mortgage-holders who are underwater and may be
strategically defaulting.

If historical trends hold, the total homeownership rate
will return to its earlier base level of 64 percent by the
fourth quarter of 2016. Continuing the average annual growth in
households over the last decade of 891,000 would increase the
total number by 4.5 million by the fourth quarter of 2016. This
is enough to increase the number of new homeowners by 550,000
even with that further drop in the homeownership rate.

But it also means the addition of 3.9 million new renters,
or 780,000 per year. This doesn’t suggest that we are becoming a
nation of renters. Instead, it reflects the elimination of the
widely held belief that house prices always rise and the end of
loose lending practices that drove the homeownership rate to its
2004 peak. In fact, the reversal to falling prices and the
extraordinarily tight lending standards may push the
homeownership rate below that 64 percent norm; it would now be
60.9 percent if all those with mortgages that are delinquent or
in foreclosure become ex-homeowners.

– Affordability (AFFD): There are many, including the always
bullish National Association of Realtors, who believe that
homeownership is bound to rise because houses are now so
affordable. In calculating its housing affordability index, the
association assumes that a family with median income buys a
median-priced single-family house with 20 percent down and
finances at the current 30-year fixed mortgage rate. The
collapse in house prices and decline in mortgage rates in recent
years have more than offset the weakness in median family
income, which, according to the Realtors’ group, dropped from
$63,366 in 2008 to a $60,824 average for the first 11 months of
2011.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to compare the current
attractiveness of buying a home and the conditions in the 1990s
and early 2000s. Unemployment rates were much lower then, and
house prices were rising as they had been since the 1930s.
Financing a mortgage was easy with little or nothing down and
spotty credit. Then, huge house-price declines and widespread
foreclosures were unthinkable.

– Weak Earnings: Furthermore, real weekly earnings are
falling in what is supposed to be an economic recovery, even as
payroll employment growth has been modest. Long-term
unemployment is now becoming common, with 43 percent of the
unemployed out of work 27 weeks or more and the average length
of joblessness at 40 weeks. Job openings have been rising, but
hiring is little changed because many of the long-term
unemployed, and the newcomers to the job market, don’t have the
required skills. Manufacturing output has revived, but it has
been accompanied by the resumption of rapid growth in output per
employee, which means production advances have arrested but not
reversed the long-term downtrend in manufacturing employment.

Realistic housing affordability is also subdued by the 10.7
million underwater homeowners who cannot move to different,
perhaps more expensive houses and thereby free up starter houses
for new homebuyers. A recent study reveals that underwater
borrowers are 30 percent less likely to move than renters or
those with positive home equity.

– Expensive Houses: Despite the collapse in prices,
homeownership is still expensive relative to rentals, even as
apartment rental rates rise and vacancies decline. Moody’s
Analytics Inc. calculates a ratio of home prices to yearly rents
at 11.3, down from the bubble peak of 18.5, but still higher
than the 1989-2003 average of 10. You’d expect house prices to
be lower than average in relation to rents, not higher, now that
prices are falling.

Rents have to be higher for landlords to offset the eroding
value of their properties. The decline in a rental house’s price
is just another cost like taxes and maintenance. In any case,
the house price-to-rent ratio is only relevant to the few who
can qualify to buy.

In past decades, houses have sold for about 15 times rental
income. That was true of the post-World War II years, when
owners of rental properties expected inflation to enhance their
6.7 percent return, not including maintenance costs and property
taxes. If I’m right about the outlook for slow economic growth
and falling house prices, houses and apartments are more likely
to sell below 10 times rental income.

The consumer retrenchment and recession I foresee for this
year will only add to the lack of affordability of owning houses
and to the attractiveness of renting. With it, unemployment will
rise, while incomes will fall further. As employment drops, the
duration of unemployment will rise, labor force participation
will fall and median single-family house prices will decline an
additional 20 percent. That will definitely make ownership less
attractive even if it raises the Realtors’ housing affordability
index.

(A. Gary Shilling is president of A. Gary Shilling Co.
and author of “The Age of Deleveraging: Investment Strategies
for a Decade of Slow Growth and Deflation.” The opinions
expressed are his own. This is the first of a three-part
series.)

Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View.

To contact the writer of this article:
A. Gary Shilling at insight@agaryshilling.com.

To contact the editor responsible for this article:
Max Berley at mberley@bloomberg.net.

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Shilling: Why Renters Rule U.S. Housing Market (Part 1) is a post from: Secured Loan Calculator

Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-22/why-renters-rule-u-s-housing-market-part-1-a-gary-shilling.html

DailyMarkets.com Announces Winners of Best Credit Cards 2012 Guide

Secured Loan Calculator Reviewer Arianna — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:11:59 +0000

NEW YORK, Feb. 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – DailyMarkets.com, a personal finance website based in New York that helps people save smarter and invest smarter has just announced its choice of the Best Credit Cards 2012.

To ensure the best credit card choice for US consumers, staff writers and editors of DailyMarkets.com searched through hundreds of credit cards using their smart Credit Card Search Wizard. The result is a list of the best credit cards available in the US organized by categories such as cash back, travel, rewards, business, student cards and credit cards for bad credit.

“Our new guide to the Best Credit Cards 2012 has been put together to help people find the best cards available in the market this year so that they can get the most rewards, travel privileges, discounts and best balance transfer offers,” says Grace Cheng, founder and CEO of DailyMarkets.com. “Some of the best credit cards listed here offer signing bonuses of 30,000 points, and some even offer 21 months of 0% annual interest rate when making purchases and balance transfers.”

“Most credit cards in this guide have no annual fee, and most of them offer special perks and bigger rewards when making purchases in certain spending categories,” says Grace Cheng.

DailyMarkets.com has organized the winners of the Best Credit Cards 2012 in these 7 categories:

Best Cash Back Credit Cards. Cash back credit cards reward people with cash rebates when they make their everyday purchases. They sometimes offer higher rebates in select categories, such as gas or groceries. The highest-rated card in this category offers a signing bonus of $200.

Best Hotel and Airline Credit Cards. One of the winners in this category rewards cardholders with 30,000 bonus miles when they spend $500 in the first 3 months.

Best 0% Balance Transfer Credit Cards. Some of the winners in this category offer 0% APR on balance transfers during the first 21 months so that cardholders can repay their debt interest-free.

Best Rewards Credit Cards with no annual fee. The winner in this category offers 30,000 points as a signing bonus and rewards cardholders with up to 10 points when shopping online and 2 points for every dollar spent on dining and travel.

Best Business Credit Cards with no annual fee. The best business credit card this year offers $250 cash back bonus and up to 5% cash back bonus on certain categories.

Best Student Credit Cards. One credit card here offers 0% introductory APR on purchases for 7 months, $75 statement credit, and up to 5 points for every dollar spent on certain categories.

Best Credit Cards for Bad or No Credit. Credit cards in this category report automatically to the 3 major credit bureaus in the US.

About DailyMarkets.com
DailyMarkets.com is a New York-based personal finance and investing site founded in 2008 by Grace Cheng who was named as one of the ‘new kids in cyberspace’ by Financial Times in 2007. DailyMarkets.com has an exclusive personal finance section, with a special emphasis on educating US consumers about credit cards and helping them find the best credit card for their needs. Find the best credit card in just seconds using DailyMarkets.com’s unique Credit Card Search Wizard. For more information, visit DailyMarkets.com.

DailyMarkets.com Announces Winners of Best Credit Cards 2012 Guide is a post from: Secured Loan Calculator

Article source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dailymarkets-com-announces-winners-best-142000300.html

Personal Finance: Rebalancing portfolio deals with market shifts

Secured Loan Calculator Reviewer Arianna — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:11:56 +0000

Perhaps the most important aspect of an effective investment plan is the asset allocation. Deciding upon an appropriate mix of equities, fixed income and cash is essential to long-term success as an investor.

One oft-neglected but essential component of keeping the right mix is the need to periodically review and rebalance the portfolio to maintain the target allocation over time.

A well-considered asset allocation depends upon a number of factors, including age, employment status, risk tolerance and specific goals like cash flow and legacy planning. The plan is likely to include some specific percentage allocations to U.S. equities, foreign stocks, bonds, commodities such as gold and silver, and some cash equivalents.

However, over time some classes perform better than others, leading to gradual deviations from the original target mix. This development requires that investors periodically shift funds from some asset classes into others to restore the desired balance.

Gone are the days when a portfolio can be left on autopilot. The old buy-and-hold strategy has not worked over the past decade and is unlikely to prevail over the next.

It is essential that investors monitor and rebalance at least once a year to adapt to variegated sector returns and keep on track to achieving their ultimate goal. Early in the year is a good time to revisit the plan and freshen up the mix.

Generally, asset class returns do not move in lockstep but ebb and flow in an endless rotation from year to year. This year’s best performer often sinks to the middle of the pack the following year. Of course this lack of synchronicity or correlation is the precise reason for diversifying among asset classes in the first place.

However, to make the strategy work one must periodically restore the target mix following bouts of uneven performance.

The importance of periodic realignment was amply illustrated over the past two years. While U.S. equities made small gains in 2011, emerging market stocks plummeted 21 percent, leaving a big hole in investors’ portfolios.

But that big dip was coming off of a very respectable 16 percent gain in 2010, so the investor that rebalanced early last year had taken some profits and had less exposure to the steep decline.

Now, if the same investor had again rebalanced at the beginning of 2012, he would have snapped up emerging market stocks at a discount, just in time to benefit from the 16 percent run-up so far this year.

The point is even more sharply illustrated with U.S. Treasury bonds. To the surprise of most analysts, long-term U.S. government bonds were the best performing investments in 2011, jumping 29 percent and resulting in a serious overweight condition in a balanced portfolio. Rebalancing early in 2012 turned out to be just the ticket, as bonds are down 4 percent so far this year.

Step one is creating a thoughtful investment plan and asset allocation. But it is also critical to review and rebalance your portfolio at least once a year to keep the plan effective.

Get answers to financial questions on Wednesdays from our columnists who work in the financial services industry. Christopher A. Hopkins CFA, is a vice president at Barnett Co. Submit questions to his attention by writing to Business Editor Dave Flessner, Chattanooga Times Free Press, P.O. Box 1447, Chattanooga, TN 37401-1447, or by emailing him at dflessner@timesfreepress.com.

Personal Finance: Rebalancing portfolio deals with market shifts is a post from: Secured Loan Calculator

Article source: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/feb/22/personal-finance-rebalancing-portfolio-deals-marke/

Payday Express Holds Internal Trainee Team Leader Program For 2012

Secured Loan Calculator Reviewer Arianna — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:11:54 +0000

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UK provider of payday loans online, Payday Express, has once again demonstrated its commitment to staff development with the hosting of the first Trainee Team Leader Programme for 2012.

Online PR News – 21-February-2012 –UK provider of payday loans online, Payday Express, has once again demonstrated its commitment to staff development with the hosting of the first Trainee Team Leader Programme for 2012.

Emma Furlong, group trainer at Payday Express, and the company’s operations manager Sarah Carroll, began the first programme for 2012 on February 10, with the aim of developing budding team leaders in different areas of the business. Six staff, from the company’s contact centre, collections, marketing and business development teams, will participate.

The programme involves weekly catch-up sessions in which participants receive coaching on management skills, as well as the chance to discuss exactly what the team leader role entails. They also get to share ideas and experiences and impart knowledge they have learned. They will work as acting team leaders while on the course in order to put their learning into action and will also get the chance to swap roles and run different teams as part of their on-the-job experience.

Operations manager, Sarah Carroll said: “Staff development is extremely important to us at Payday Express. This course gives high-achieving agents the chance to take the next step in their careers.

“Its success comes from giving them the chance to take what they learn in the training room each week and immediately practise it on the job. It’s also valuable for them to get the chance to discuss mistakes and difficulties with people in the same position as them,” she added.

Marketing executive, Therese Rydberg, said: “I am excited to get the opportunity to take part in this programme as it will help me to grow and take the next step in my career.”

The programme is designed to be suitable for employees from all departments within the payday loan company and is geared towards developing broad skills that can then be applied to their own jobs and teams.

To kick-start the programme, each participant is required to produce a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis on his/her own team, along with a personal development plan, which is then re-visited at the end of the course.

The programme also includes the following sections:
- Conducting monthly staff reviews
- Handling and steering conversations – this is a vital section in the programme and is revisited throughout, as it covers conversation and communication with peers, staff, management and customers
- Effective reporting
- Carrying out effective team incentives
- Interview techniques
- Coaching and development
- Absence management and operational overview
- Dealing with expressions of dissatisfaction
- Reporting upwards (to management)
- Process suggestions and implementation.

[ENDS]

About Payday Express:
Payday Express is one of the UK’s leading payday advance loans specialists, offering an online service to help employed people across the country get access to emergency payday loans. The company is committed to responsible lending and provides customers with a discreet and reliable service that will cover their short-term credit needs.

For further information contact:
Ashleigh Slade
Telephone: 0800 652 4661
Email: enquiries@paydayexpress.co.uk
Website: http://www.paydayexpress.co.uk

Payday Express Holds Internal Trainee Team Leader Program For 2012 is a post from: Secured Loan Calculator

Article source: http://www.onlineprnews.com/news/208120-1329835967-payday-express-holds-internal-trainee-team-leader-program-for-2012.html

Scam debt collectors bilked millions through intimidation – Chicago Sun

Secured Loan Calculator Reviewer Arianna — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:11:52 +0000

BY SANDRA GUY
Business Reporter/sguy@suntimes.com

February 21, 2012 6:30PM

Updated: February 22, 2012 2:15AM

JanLaree DeJulius was going through a divorce and anxious about paying her daughter’s private high school tuition when an official-sounding debt collector called her at work and demanded that she pay a payday loan immediately or he’d have her arrested, file a lawsuit and garnishee her wages.

“The caller said he was from the ‘Federal Government Department of Crime and Prevention,’ gave his title and badge number and knew everything about me, including my daughter’s birthdate, the name and phone number of my employer’s human resources manager and even where I parked,” DeJulius said at a news conference at the Federal Trade Commission’s Chicago office. The FTC works to prevent fraud, deception and unfair business practices.

DeJulius, of Las Vegas, said she was frightened that her credit would be hurt if she didn’t pay a loan she didn’t know she had. She said hadn’t been aware that her then-soon-to-be ex-husband had applied for a payday loan.

“It was an inopportune time, and it created financial and emotional stress,” she said.

She started installment payments but got a second threatening call anyway. That’s when she heard a report on her local TV station about the fraud operation.

Such scams are a serious national problem, and often victimize people who have no payday loans outstanding, Federal Trade Commission officials said Tuesday.

Scammers pretending to be law-enforcement officials typically demanded payments of $500 or more, say they will have the debtor immediately fired, arrested and/or sued, and sometimes even threaten a person’s employer, said C. Steven Baker, director of the FTC’s Midwest Region based in Chicago.

The scam that intimidated and embarrassed DeJulius is believed to have operated out of India, and collected $5 million from more than 10,000 U.S. residents, the FTC investigation found. Some people were duped into paying twice for a nonexistent debt.

No criminal charges have been filed. But the FTC charged Villa Park, Calif.-based American Credit Crunchers LLC, Ebeeze, LLC and their owner, Varang K. Thaker, with violating the FTC Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act in connection to the alleged scheme. The agency obtained a Chicago federal judge’s permission to seize their assets. Officials are concerned that scammers are sharing details from consumers’ online applications for payday loans.

Before filling out such a form, people should read the website’s privacy policy, Baker said. The information is often shared freely.

No one has the right to threaten, jail, sue or otherwise intimidate anyone with or without a legitimate debt, and debt collectors are required to give written verification of any debts outstanding, Baker said.

Asked her advice, DeJulius said, “Call their bluff if you know you haven’t applied for credit or taken out a payday loan. Don’t go online and fill out forms (for loans). Go to the bank and do it in person.”

For more tips, go to the FTC website at ftc.gov/credit or call 1-877-FTC-HELP.

Scam debt collectors bilked millions through intimidation – Chicago Sun is a post from: Secured Loan Calculator

Article source: http://www.suntimes.com/business/10787456-420/scam-debt-collectors-bilked-millions-through-intimidation.html

San Mateo County is drafting law to regulate future payday lending businesses

Secured Loan Calculator Reviewer Arianna — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:11:50 +0000

A customer who steps inside the Check Into Cash off El Camino Real in Redwood City with ID, proof of income, a recent bank statement and a postdated personal check can walk out in less than an hour with a $300 loan that’s due when his or her next paycheck arrives.

The catch is that the payday lender keeps 15 percent of that amount for the two-week wait. Spread out over a year, that would be the equivalent of a 406 percent cut.

It’s all legal, though highly controversial. California allows payday lenders to charge a 15 percent fee for short-term loans of up to $300. Critics contend the practice exploits customers too cash-strapped to escape the cycle of mounting debt while supporters counter it offers a last resort for many who cannot otherwise borrow from banks or credit unions.

Because the state regulates lending, some local governments have tried to restrict the number and operating hours of payday operators through local zoning restrictions or special permits.

San Mateo County is riding the tide. County officials are crafting an ordinance for unincorporated areas that “cherry picks” from payday laws already passed by East Palo Alto, Oakland and other cities, said County Counsel John Beiers. A draft of the proposed law is being circulated among city departments and will go before the planning commission next month, he said.

“It’s subject to change, but yeah, we’re looking at restricting the location of payday lending

businesses,” Beiers said. “And possibly regulating the hours of operation and having certain security requirements.”

Supervisor Rose Jacobs Gibson, who last year asked her board colleagues to consider a payday lender ordinance, said in an email to The Daily News that she is “very concerned about the predatory nature of payday loans.”

The average customer takes out 10 to 13 loans per year and ends up paying considerably more than what started out as a $300 loan, Jacobs Gibson said.

Although none of the 24 payday lenders in San Mateo County actually operate in unincorporated areas, the ordinance is a preemptive move, Beiers said.

Liana Molina with the nonprofit California Reinvestment Coalition, a financial advocate for low-income communities, said payday loans are rarely used for one-time emergencies.

“For a working person struggling to make ends meet, unless there’s some change in your income or something decreases your debt, the likelihood is that someone is going to take out a loan, struggle to pay it back and then have to take out another loan to pay back the loan and make ends meet,” Molina said. “It’s a cyclical debt.”

Greg Larsen, spokesman for the California Financial Service Providers Association, a trade group for payday lenders, said the businesses provide a needed service.

“Payday loans are a legitimate, government-overseen source of short-term credit in a competitive market place that’s convenient and often less expensive than other options such as bounced checks and utility disconnection fees,” he said.

Email Bonnie Eslinger at beslinger@dailynewsgroup.com.

San Mateo County is drafting law to regulate future payday lending businesses is a post from: Secured Loan Calculator

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county-sports/ci_20016299

New mortgages down, but stabilising

Secured Loan Calculator Reviewer Arianna — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 03:10:41 +0000

The number of mortgages was down 31.4% from a year earlier, but up almost 7% compared with the third quarter, according to the figures from Irish Banking Federation and PwC.

For 2011 as a whole, 14,273 new mortgages worth €2.46 billion were issued. Both figures were almost half the figures for 2010.

The number of mortgages has now risen for three quarters in a row, the first time this has happened since 2005.

The value of mortgages was down almost 35% from a year earlier, but up 2.6% from the third quarter.

First-time buyers accounted for 49% of new mortgages in the fourth quarter, the highest percentage since the figures were first compiled in 2005.

“Three successive quarters of growth provide the first tentative signs that the market may be stabilising,” said IBF chief executive Pat Farrell. But he said it was still too early to view this as an indicator of recovery, as the fourth quarter was usually a strong quarter.

Brokers’ group PIBA described the quarterly rise in mortgage lending as “unremarkable given the very dramatic drop of 94% that has taken place in lending since 2006″.

PIBA’s Rachel Doyle said brokers were still reporting a very high rate of rejection for mortgage applications, some as high as 80%.

New mortgages down, but stabilising is a post from: Secured Loan Calculator

Article source: http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0221/mortgage-business.html

Why Renters Rule U.S. Housing Market (Part 1): A. Gary Shilling

Secured Loan Calculator Reviewer Arianna — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 03:10:38 +0000

Refinancing Woes

Sadly, these efforts to keep people in houses they can’t
afford are simply prolonging the process of repairing the
housing mess and getting rid of excess inventories.

Growing Delinquencies

Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View.

To contact the writer of this article:
A. Gary Shilling at insight@agaryshilling.com.

To contact the editor responsible for this article:
Max Berley at mberley@bloomberg.net.

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Why Renters Rule U.S. Housing Market (Part 1): A. Gary Shilling is a post from: Secured Loan Calculator

Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-22/why-renters-rule-u-s-housing-market-part-1-a-gary-shilling.html