Friday, 28 October 2022

Economy hits the buffers

Mortgage prisons

One of the leaders in the mortgage broking and lending space, Ben Kingsley (PICA Chairman, and CEO of Empower Wealth), makes a point about the 300 basis points lending buffer I've been making myself.

The 300 basis points lending assessment buffer made sense when interest rates were glued to zero, but now it's trapping borrowers on awful deals as the fixed rate cliff begins to gather pace.


It's not doing a whole lot of good for rental supply either, to be frank. 

Needs a rethink.

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Not happy times at Facebook as the heavy investment Metaverse struggles to gain traction or capture the imagination, with the stock price down nearly 70 per cent over the past year.


Amazon also reported its 3Q results after hours, and the stock promptly dropped  by more than -20 per cent, as recession risks become more evident in the results and consumer spending outlook.


Source: FT

Credit Suisse continues to attract attention as it restructures to lay off 9,000 staff, with another huge drop in the stock price of -19 per cent overnight. 


The group reported a net loss of CHF4 billion after write-downs, eight times the expected loss of CHF500 million.


Source: (David Ingles/Bloomberg)

The group is planning to raise billions to shore up the balance sheet.

Somewhat worrying for the global outlook, you'd think. It's probably nothing!