CHESSNOID

The weather is still cold where I am living at. The low tonight will be 41 degrees. I went outside to run some errands and it certainly feels even colder than that. I love it. The only thing we need is some rain and it might come down as snow.

I didn’t see the whole fight between Mayweather and Hatton. I just caught the last round where Hatton gets knocked down twice. It looked like he

was exhausted and walked into those punches. I was hoping he would get a lucky punch and knock out Mayweather. I know he is not in the same level as far as boxing skills but Hatton seems like a humble person. I thought DeLaHoya even passed his prime could of beaten Mayweather when they fought if he just utilized his jab and threw combinations. DLH got a split decision but really just needed one round to win the whole fight.

Now that the writers strike has been going on for awhile, many shows are just in rerun mode. Also, the shows I actually watch have ended or will be ending this coming weekend. Looks like I will be taking a vacation from watching TV.

The federal reserve lowered the rates as expected and the stock market tanked. Investors wanted a bigger rate cut but really would make no difference in the short run for our economy. Lowered interest rates will not motivate house buyers to buy in the state of economy that we are in. Most people just expect the prices to come down in real estate. Until there is an advantage of house payments with its tax advantage being better than rental payments in this market after taxes, people will sit on their money. The good thing about this recession is that most of the housing speculation in many states have basically died which have made those creative subprime loans become extinct dinosaurs in the finance world. Also house prices are coming down to real prices where most people can afford them. We are definitely not there yet but we are on our way. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have announced expectations of lower earnings in the 4th quarter. According to CNN.Money:

Our fourth-quarter results are not expected to be better than they were in the third quarter,” said Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron, speaking at a conference sponsored by Goldman Sachs.

Less than a month ago, the government-sponsored enterprise reported a net loss of $2 billion in the third quarter. Future credit losses are expected to reach between $10 billion and $12 billion, Syron said.

“We think we’ve been quite cautious in this, but we did it in the interest of trying to assure people where we are and are trying to go,” he said.

Syron also offered a dismal view on the broader housing and mortgage market, saying he expected national home prices to fall by 10 percent from their peak, while that decline could be even steeper in California and Florida.

Now that the federal reserve has lowered the interest rates again, I wonder if we will get more of a reaction in the currency markets. The US dollar was once a favored currency for many countries to park their money in. Now that they are losing money, I wonder if they will start pulling their money out of our banks and putting them in rising currencies. Another move foreign companies might do is start buying up everything American since in their currency, everything here is cheap or on sale. Check out this Bloomberg article where an Australian company is buying a piece of Las Vegas:

The purchase of three casinos near Las Vegas and a racetrack in Pittsburgh comes less than two weeks after Packer, Crown’s biggest shareholder and Australia’s richest man, split his media assets into a separate company to focus on the faster growing casino business. The 40 year old has led more than $3 billion of gaming acquisitions in North America this year, adding to assets in Australia, Macau and the U.K.

“They’ve been looking to expand in the U.S. and this is where they see their opportunity,” said Sean Fenton, who helps manage the equivalent of $832 million at Jenkins Investment Management in Sydney.

I think this will be a trend in 2008 where we will see an influx of foreign investors with strong currencies against the US dollar. This is actually a smart move for them. I hope the federal reserve figures out a better game plan than just continued lower rate cuts which was one of the reasons housing prices skyrocketed from 2001 to 2006.