Roy Ho’s Blog

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) yesterday said that his panel on Thursday will consider a draft housing bill that would allow the Federal Housing Administration to insure up to $300 billion in refinanced mortgages, and create a new regulator for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks. Under the legislation, lenders would, among other things, volunteer to substantially reduce the amount of the original mortgage note. In exchange, the FHA would insure a new loan at a 30-year fixed rate that the borrower could afford. The House last week passed a housing package with some similar measures.

This is not the version of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. 

This plan is more consumer-centric than that of Henry Paulson, although improvements can still be made.  For instance, the mortgage write-down has to be initiated by the lender in this version.  For that reason, the lenders have the strongest incentive to unload the riskiest mortgages first.  However, the riskiest mortgages may not be the neediest. 

This riskiness may be perceived as loan by asset.  The lender may also see that as mortgage payment by burrower’s income.  However, the most desperate burrowers usually would see the need as payment by income.

Burrower’s consent is not needed.  The house has to be owner occupied.  The gov’t will also own part of the house’s equity (proceed upon sale).

Bush has threatened veto this legislation.

The text can be found in the Banking panel of the Senate website.

CNN continues to report the newest death toll caused by China’s earthquake.  What stocks are affected by this earthquake?  This natural disaster in China is a lot closer to America than Myanmar’s simply because China is a lot more involved in the global economy.

More than 2 dozens of Chinese public traded companies can be found in the States either as stocks or as ADR.  The PetroChina (NYSE: PTR) is the first one to be affected because it has fields in Sichuan, the province where the quake occurred.  Those oil wells are now shut.  This company is the largest oil company in China.  Nippon Oil (TSE only) has a joint venture with PetroChina.  

China Telecom (NYSE: CHA) may get the worst hit since it has 10% of all land lines in the region.

Sinopec (NYSE: SNP), which is developing a field in Sichuan may see decrease in revenue.  Damage to this gas field is unknown.

China Life (NYSE: LFC) is also dropping since it is expected to have a lot more life insurance claims.  This life insurance company is the largest in China.  The selling pressure is short term since the life insurance penetration in that area is low.  In fact, the price has come back up after the initial drop.  This selling pressure only lasted for 1 day.

PICC Property & Casualty (other-otc: PPCCF) may actually get a bigger hit than the life insurance companies.

Negative impact on HSBC will be minimal since this bank has very exposure to this geographic area.

Qingling Motors (OTC: QGLHF) will get negative impact.  This area has some exposure to auto factories and circuit design.  However, the foreign trade is not concentrated here. 

Huaxin Cement’s price is going up already, in anticipation of more infrastructure projects.  Huaxin is traded in Shanghai only.  Lafarge SA (OTC: LFRGY), of France, is the parent company of Huaxin.  Cement company Anhui Cement is other-otc: AHCHF.

Construction equipment companies that have a presence in China will do well.  Check Caterpillar’s (NYSE CAT) exposure in China or Hong Kong.  Its competitors are Deere, Gehl.  Astec builds road construction equipements and components (NASDAQ ASTE).  Check its exposure in China or Hong Kong.  A strong exposure will be a good sign.   

All medical supplies companies are going up in China and Hong Kong.

Foreign companies such as IBM, Intel, Wipro (NYSE: WIT) have sites here.  Japanese Toyota and Hitachit also have sites here. 

This earthquake will drive up inflation in China.  Given the tourism brought by Olympics, Chinese yuan is expected to appreciate until the end of the games.

If your desired company cannot be found in the States, find a proxy company in Hong Kong stock exchange, or ADR in the states.  If you are interested at funds, then get an Asian (or Far East) fund that has a heavier emphasis of infrastructure and medical supplies industries, a heavier emphasis in Hong Kong.  A lot of companies in China may get suspended if it has a big swing in price.  Hong Kong does not have such restriction.  This gives your mutual fund manager a greater flexibility.

Bush is complaining the Congress is delaying his every effort to get us out of recession, CNN reports.

What does he expect?  He is about to go.  Who would want to send him legacy legislations?  

Everyone should be in a transition mode and see what solutions will better fit the direction the next President will want to take.  After all, there is never one solution.  So, any legislator would think “why not wait and see?”

Any real meaningful legislation will require work from both House and Senate.  Every Joe, Dick and Harry will want to add his stamp, his pet project, pet cause, pet donor’s wishes to the legislation.  And it is much better to trade favours with a new president than an out-going president.  

All possible outcomes from this congress are items that are fiscally inexpensive and good for TV items.  This mortgage crisis cheque is a good example.  Everyone gets a few hundred bucks.  It is good for re-election.  And if the problem persists to 2009 January, then there is something the legislators can trade with the new president.  

This is just a blamemanship game. 

The political solutions usually cannot do a dent in a short run.  The effects of government fiscal policies and programs usually do not affect the economy in a matter of months.  These interventions affect the market set up and their effects are measured in years and decades.

Short term interventions require government’s active participation in the market (be it real estate or stock market or whatever else).  This kind of short term interventions are effective only when the action 1) is rare and 2) is taken shiftly.

Interest rate fluctuation is the first type, however the Fed can affect only the interest rate aspect of the economy. And that is not the solution for everything.

Shiftly is a time element.  The reaction has to be quick.  Such a quick action can only be carried out by an undemocratic institution, like the Fed.  And China’s interventions are effective because they are undemocratic.  They can shut down all stock transactions to serve whatever the political purpose is.  But we live in a democracy with freedom, right?

Fubon has been approved to buy approximately 20% of Xiamen City Commercial Bank at a price of US$34 M.  The biggest shareholder of Xiamen City Commercial Bank is the Xiamen City government’s Commerce Bureau, approximately 24%.  Fubon is traded in international exchanges.  Fubon is expected to name members to the board.

Xiamen City Commercial Bank is a local bank.  Xiamen (Amoy) has the heavies concentration of Taiwan businesses.  This local bank is not a troubled bank.  The significance is not who bought whom, but the approval by Taiwan’s authorities.  This will be considered a plus for Fubon. 

Taiwan’s government bureaucrats are quick to recognize the president elect Ma and quickly steering to approvals that would be considered as consistent with his platform.  There probably will be other approvals before May that are considered favourable to businesses/industries building ties to Mainland China. 

Paulson made this long expected announcement about residential mortgage regulation.  What is relevant? To Who?  Irrelevant or indifferent to McCain, this plan is not adding points to McCain.  It does not do anything to elevate the pains a lot of people are suffering right now.  What is going on?Below is the news from Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/bankingFinancial/idUSN3142489220080331

This kind of regulation is not something Democrats are good at.  However, putting something like this up front can reduce a lot of fire in this election from the Democrats.  So, it does not add points to McCain, it can take a few hits from Democrats.  However, after reading the pdf file from Paulson, one may protecting McCain is only a collateral benefit.  This piece of work is more about pay back time, paying back to a core constituence.

This overhaul is to take the initiative of repair from the Democrats to the Republicans, in particular, someone who knows the financial industry well.  Paulson is not a retail banker.  He comes fromt he capital markets.  His placed a great emphasis on capital markets, like merging SEC and futures trade commission.   

The change regarding exchange traded funds is a good call.  But then, how is it related to the purpose of residential mortgage overhaul?  Fixing the approval process is needed. And couldn’t this be done in legislation maintenance?  Why packaged in such a big fix?  It serves the industry more than the purpose of residential mortgage regulation, similarly for expanding the Investment Company Act to permit a new global investment company.  

It is probably a good idea to have oversight of broker-dealers and investment advisers offering similar services to retail investors.  What about the practice of licenses being licensed to the companies rather than the individuals who actually do the work?  That has been the cause of a lot of discrimination lawsuits.  Since the licenses are licensed to the companies, this looks more like territorial fighting than “oversight”.  Of course, some kind of retail investor protection will be part of the deal.  

Of the whole 7 pages of summary, only 0.5 page of it is focused on residential mortgage origination.  Another 0.5 page about state banks, payment systems and thrift charter, the real retail customers related issues.  Once insurance is added on top, there is 1.5 page of material!  

It is true there are other issues involved, such as the new powers to the Fed that has indirect positive consequences to the retail customers as well.  However, the meat is in the regulation reduction.  And for all fairness, it is about redundancy.  But don’t do it in the name of preventing similar mistakes like this mortgage crisis!

Who cares? Of course anyone who has a heavy position in FIs.  However, the benefit is more on the bigger guys.  The bigger institutions are the ones who have cross jurisdiction issues.  The retail level gets affected the most looks like the mortgage brokerages.  More details regarding the mortgage origination is needed to see if Home Depot and the like would get affected.

Nothing looks good.  Today’s data are weak.  US dollar falls against yen, reports CNN.  In real time, US is bouncing up against Yen and Euro.  GDP grew very little.  Durable orders are down.   

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/03/27/asia.dollar.ap/index.html

Essentially, everything depends on this mortgage crisis.  And politicians are offering all kinds of things.  What for? To occupy your TV box so that you forget about the other ones. 

Depending on your time horizon, all the political fuss about the mortgage crisis may or may not have an impact on you.  This is the newest round of talk, from Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120658212569867477.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news

The most visible talks related to mortgage crisis come from the presidential candidates.  They make get you excited.  However, you need to start align this temporal emotional development to TIME.  It’s election year!  All bets off!

The new president will take office next January.  It takes a month of 2 to transition the administration.  So, any work for such an important topic will be some time in Feb, almost a year for anything to be put on the table.  So, don’t let Clinton’s auction talk, Obama’s credit card solution or McCain’s inaction be a factor on your today’s decision.  If your horizon spans > 18 months, then I would say you need to pay attention to their talks.  For instance, you are about to buy an existing internet foreclosure auction site, due diligence is about to complete and on to develop a term sheet.

What is really relevant is about what Treasury Secretary Paulson says.  Below is not exactly news any more since it is almost 2 weeks old.  However, it is relevant:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/business/13cnd-paulson.html?em&ex=1205553600&en=5ceef68e75d21e48&ei=5087%0A

It may look inconsistent to this:

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/AFX-0013-24037412.htm

They are not inconsistent of each other.  Paulson does not want a quick fix.  He wants a “solution”.  That translates to regulatory risk (not compliance risk.  A lot of people mistake regulatory risk as compliance risk.).  And if one looks at the Feb 7 press release of the Undersecretary Robert Steel, Paulson will definite create new regulations in a very short term.  

 Related industries will not only be FIs or mortgage insurance companies, but from suppliers to appraisal firms to ABC Papers packaging shops.  Paulson seems to be undeterred by the election politics.  Or Bush is not? Paulson is the real deal.