Jul. 5, 2007: The definition of “pennies on the dollar”, and a future change to FICO scores

Jul. 5, 2007: The definition of “pennies on the dollar”, and a future change to FICO scores Rob Chrisman

What do you think Joey Chestnut is doing today? “Belching” would be an understatement. Joey received the coveted mustard yellow belt yesterday for eating 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes (one every 11 seconds), knocking off six-time winner Takeru Kobayashi in a record-setting triumph.

Investors in one of the now-infamous Bear Stearns hedge funds are offering to sell their shares for 11 cents on the dollar, but the best bid is only at 5 cents! This is according to Hedgebay, a secondary market for funds. Bankers said initial valuations of the Enhanced Leverage Fund’s assets indicated a strong chance that investors’ cash had been wiped out.

The only news out today was the weekly Jobless Claims number, and the 10-yr yield sits at 5.10%, and 30-yr mortgage prices are worse by almost .250 in price. Jobless Claims came out at 5:30AM, and showed they were +2k to 318k, and although it hasn’t helped us this morning the more important 4-week moving average has been creeping up. Tomorrow we have the employment data which has the potential to cause a great deal of volatility in the markets. It is expected to show that 125,000 new jobs were added to the economy last month, while the unemployment rate remained at 4.5% and average earnings rose 0.3%.

Based on current data, 11% of loan collateral for all sub prime mortgage bonds had payments at least 90 days late, were in foreclosure, or had the underlying property seized, according to securities firm Friedman, Billings & Ramsey. As little as two years ago, it was half that number. Interestingly, the three securities rating agencies (S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch) have yet to downgrade most of the outstanding sub prime debt because they “don’t downgrade based on assumptions and are awaiting the reality that the value (based on sales) has fallen.” If this should happen, which is likely according to many analysts, many investors subject to holding conditions of high-rated assets will be forced to sell, leading to even lower values.

In September, the FICO credit-scoring system is set to undergo a major overhaul. Fair Isaac Corp. is saying that it won’t have much of an effect. Fair Isaac currently divides the population into 10 segments based on credit history and applies a different formula to each. Eight segments include people with good credit, and two are for people with serious problems. Under the new system, the population will be divided into 12 segments: eight for people with good credit, and four for people with bad credit. That could result in a slight change in many scores, but Fair Isaac believes that the new system will give lenders more dependable scores for those higher-risk consumers and those who have little history.