Introduction
Background information
Sub-prime loan is a type of loan that is offered at a rate above prime to individuals who do not qualify for prime rate loans. The additional percentage points of interest often translate to tens of thousands of dollars worth of additional interest payments over the life of a longer-term loan (investopedia, 2008).
Sub-prime lending originated in the US and had evolved with the realization of a demand in the marketplace and businesses providing a supply to meet it coupled with the unwillingness on the part of legislators at the national level to recognize the inherent risks to consumers (wikipedia, 2008). Having emerged more than two decades ago, sub-prime mortgage lending began to expand in earnest in the mid-1990s, the expansion spurred in large part by innovations that reduced the costs for lenders of assessing and pricing risks. In particular, technological advances make it easier for lenders to collect and disseminate information on the creditworthiness of prospective borrowers (Bernanke, 2007).
The ongoing growth and development of the secondary mortgage market has reinforced the effect of these innovations. Whereas once most lenders held mortgages on their books until the loans were repaid, regulatory changes and other developments have permitted lenders to more easily sell mortgages to financial intermediaries, who in turn pool mortgages and sell the cash flows as structured securities. The growth of the secondary market has thus given mortgage lenders greater access to the capital markets, lowered transaction costs, and spread risk more broadly, thereby increasing the supply of mortgage credit to all types of households (Bernanke, 2007).
The value of U.S. sub-prime mortgages was estimated at $1.3 trillion as of March 2007 (associated press, 2007), with over 7.5 million first-lien sub-prime mortgages outstanding (Bernanke, 2007).
Body
Reasons for the Sub-prime loan crisis
Housing downturn- housing bubble
As shown in figure 1 and 2 in appendix 1, due to increasing stocks value and decreasing interest rates, since around 2001, house prices have soared way above the current housing price. Homeowners have seen their wealth climb due to the increase in selling price of the house (time magazine, 2005). Thus enabling them to buy a second home under a sub-prime loan, thinking that they will get a more favourable terms as rising house price usually occurs for a long period of time. The amount of outstanding loan secured by mortgages increased significantly (time magazine, 2005). After an amazing four-year boom in residential real estate, the housing market could finally be topping out and heading for a downturn (Coy et al, 2004), which is when the bubble burst, around 2006, the prices of the house fell. Demand for housing decline and there is an oversupply of housing, which results in low housing price. The borrowers, facing the risks of being unable to pay the monthly loans choose to default, which increase foreclosures, thus causing losses to the major lenders.
As shown in figure 3 in appendix 1, the housing bubble reached its peak in 2005, and started to deflate in 2006 and accelerated since. According to Lahart (2007), In June 2006, sales of existing single-family homes were 9% below their year-earlier level, sales of new homes were down 15% and framing lumber prices were down 19%.
Roles of financial institutions
Due to moral hazards and lack of supervisions by the regulators, the regulations of providing loans to sub-prime borrowers become less strict. Therefore, many major mortgage brokers, accepts borrowers with very poor credit risk in order to get bonuses as they steer borrowers to very high interest rates. As shown in figure 1 below, sub-prime mortgage originations grew from $173 billion in 2001 to a record level of $665 billion in 2005, which represented an increase of nearly 300% (investopedia, 2008).
Figure. 1 Sub-prime mortgage origination
Source: <http://www.investopedia.com>
These mortgage brokers give loans to borrowers at an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) where interest rates are periodically adjusted based on a variety of indexes (Macdonald, 2004). In addition to considering higher-risk borrowers, lenders have offered increasingly high-risk loan options and incentives. One example is the interest-only adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM), which allows the homeowner to pay just the interest (not principal) during an initial period. Another example is a "payment option" loan, in which the homeowner can pay a variable amount, but any interest not paid is added to the principal. Further, an estimated one-third of ARM originated between 2004-2006 had "teaser" rates below 4%, which then increased significantly after some initial period, as much as doubling the monthly payment (Trehan, 2007).
Due to the decline in housing prices and inflation, the Federal Reserve increases interest rate. Thus, in order for the lenders to maintain profits, they set a higher interest rate (ARM) which results in people defaulting their mortgage, increasing foreclosures.
Role of credit agency
Credit rating agency (CAR) mainly the Standard & Poor's (S&P), Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Group had assures collateral debt obligation (CDO) buyers the quality of the investments as each had blessed most of the CDO with the highest rating of AAA or Aaa (Tomlinson & Evans, 2007). As shown in Figure 2, the value of the once rated AAA CDO had been decreasing below par value. Banks that had been underwriting MBS and CDO admitted $30 billion in losses. Citigroup estimates that big banks may be facing $64 billion write-downs, excluding its own figures- Citibank was one of the top two underwriters of CDOs (The economist, 2007).
Figure. 2 credit rating on sub-prime performance in 2007
Source: <>
Role of Securitization
In the mortgage market, securitization converts mortgages to mortgage- backed securities (MBS) (wikipedia, 2008). These MBS are sold to investors and the secondary market as securities so that the mortgage originators will be able to pool more funds thus can lend to many more borrowers, increasing profits. Investors now bear the related credit default risks of the mortgage payment.
The MBSs are structured so that interest payments on the mortgages are at least sufficient to cover the interest payments due on the bonds. Principal payments on the mortgages are used to pay down the principal on the bonds. Since investors can invest in MBSs directly or indirectly (e.g., through mutual funds), these asset-backed securities allow a broad investor base to help fund home mortgages. In part for this reason, an increasing share of home mortgages have been securitized, with the ratio of MBSs to total mortgages now over 50% as shown in figure 3 below (wessel, 2007).
Figure 3 Increasing share of securitized home mortgages
Source: <>
Hedge funds
Another party that added to the mess was the hedge fund industry. It aggravated the problem not only by pushing rates lower, but also by fueling the market volatility that caused investor losses. There is a type of hedge fund strategy known as “credit arbitrage” which involves purchasing sub-prime bonds on credit and hedging these positions with credit default swaps, it increases demand for Collateral debt obligation
(CDO). Because hedge funds use a significant amount of leverage, losses were amplified and many hedge funds shut down operations as they ran out of money in the face of margin calls (investopedia, 2008).
Global impact
The shock waves emanating from the sub-prime mortgage earthquake are now spreading around the financial world. The collateral damage is being unveiled so quickly that it is difficult keeping up with all the collapsed hedge funds, injured banks, and defaulting mortgage brokers (Numerian, 2007).
Credit crunch and the effect in the banking sector
The credit crunch was sparked as a result of the housing slump, rising interest rates, and record defaults in the sub-prime sector of the United States, and over recent weeks the global repercussions of this crisis have become increasingly evident. The credit crunch affected the Northern Rock bank in Britain most. When the fact of the credit crunch was discovered, many of the bank’s 1.5 million savers queued at all hours of the day and night in order to withdraw their savings amidst fears that the bank might be on the verge of collapse (Kenny, 2007). The run on the Northern Rock's continued for days, despite the Bank of England's intervention with a guarantee of deposits (Long, 2007). In the space of a few days, over two billion pounds was withdrawn from Northern Rock by worried savers. Not only did this damage the company financially but it also did not favours in terms of its reputation, and many experts predicted that even if the bank survived the financial losses it would not survive the damage to its reputation. Northern Rock also saw its share prices plummet at the start of the chaos, with over 80% being shaved of share values (Kenny, 2007).
Effect in hedge funds
Bear Stearns, the New York investment bank, announced that two of its hedge funds had invested in these sub-prime bonds, and were now broke. Bear Stearns for one of its funds had raised about $600 million in cash from investors, but then borrowed over $5 billion more from banks to leverage up the profits in the fund. They lost $600 million immediately due to the accelerating price depreciation (BBC news, 2008).
Effect in equity markets
Stock is a form of equity instrument. Due to the crisis and increase in interest rate, stock prices have fallen significantly. Causing loss to many financial markets and institutions.
Stocks like Mizuno Bank of Japan have dropped 10% or more merely from announcing some losses in their investment portfolios. In the case of American Home Mortgage Investment Corp., that stock has fallen 90% amid market rumors that the company is facing bankruptcy (Numerian, 2007).
Another example was the Thornburg mortgage (TMA); a stock exchange company was forced to sell off $21.9 billion of assets to raise cash as its stock dropped 65% in two-and-a-half weeks in 2007. (Steverman, 2007). In 2008, within 3 months time, the share price had decreased by 85.10%.
Effect in financial institutions
Due to the heavy investments in the MBS and CDOs in the US market, many financial institutions including banks, investment banks, hedge funds, mortgagers have suffered significant losses as a result of mortgage payment defaults or mortgage asset devaluation. As of April 3, 2008 financial institutions had recognized sub-prime-related losses or write-downs exceeding U.S. $210 billion (wikipedia, 2008). As shown in table 1, the top 3 banks that suffer the greatest amount of MBS and CDOs loans are the UBS AG ($37.77 bln), Citigroup ($24.1 bln), and Merrill Lynch investment bank ($22.5 bln), (BBC news, 2008).
Table 1 Write-downs on the value of loans, MBS and CDOs
Source: <http://news.bbc.co.uk>
Impact in Australia’s Financial Market
According to analyst, the exposure to the US sub-prime mortgage market will not produce significant losses for the Australian banks, market conditions for credit have tightened in recent weeks. Australian banks are typically reliant on wholesale funding for a large part of their total funding requirements. The cost of accessing the wholesale market has also increased. If prolonged, the current liquidity crunch could impact the ability of Australian banks to do business through higher funding costs and, potentially, result in difficulty refinancing debt as it matures, particularly commercial paper. The latter is likely to be more of an issue for the smaller institutions (anonymous, 2007). However, not only banks are affected. Many companies are also exposed to the sub-prime crisis, as discussed in the examples below.
Australian New Zealand Bank (ANZ)
The Australian New Zealand Bank (ANZ) has boosted its forecast provisions for bad and doubtful debt to $975 million, mainly due to a higher collective provision charge (herald sun, 2008). Due to the effect of the credit crunch, ANZ will bolster its variable lending rates by 20 basis points in order to cover the bank's profit margins and protect earnings from the sub-prime fallout, analysts predict (Murdoch, 2008).
The news sent ANZ shares tumbling. They closed down 6.6%, or $1.55, at $22.01. Rival banks were also on the slide, with National Australia Bank shedding 4.7%, or $1.46, to $29.64, Westpac falling 4%, or $1, to $24.13 and Commonwealth Bank losing 3.12%, or $1.42, to $44.06 (Zappone & Saulwick, 2008).
As shown in appendix 3, the ANZ share in the stock market have been declining since 2007, although there is a little variation in the increase and decrease of the share price. The ANZ share price have decreased from around $32.00 to $ 20.9400 as of 11 April 2008, however, there is a 1.8% increase in stock price compared to the previous day (the age, 2008).
Macquarie Bank
Macquarie Securitization is Australia's fourth-largest issuer of residential mortgage-backed securities, according to Standard & Poor's. The top three are St. George Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Challenger Financial Services. It has about 2.5 percent of outstanding housing loans in Australia (Thomas & Lefort, 2008).
Macquarie Bank Limited announced on 5 March 2008 that Macquarie Securitization Ltd would wind-back its Australian residential mortgage origination services for both retail and wholesale customers due to the significant increase in the cost of funding mortgages and current conditions in the global mortgage securitization market, but would continue to provide full service to Macquarie’s existing Australian customers who hold 95,000 loan facilities (Macquarie, 2008).
Given the current conditions in the global credit markets and low investor sentiment, Macquarie Bank's share price has suffered a similar fate to other big banks in Australia, falling nearly 40% since its high of $83.59 in January (Australasian Investment Review, 2008). As at 11 April 2008, Macquarie Group Limited share was $ 54.7900, which is a 4.5% increase since the previous day, as shown in appendix 4 (the age, 2008).
Centro Properties Group
The global credit crunch broke out of the banking sector for the first time, sending Australia's second-biggest shopping centre owner into crisis and wiping more than $50 billion off the stock market.
Shares in Centro Properties Group collapsed by 76 per cent after the company admitted it had been unable to refinance $3.9billion worth of maturing debt in the risk-averse credit markets.
Centro, which ranks second to Westfield in the Australian shopping mall market with 124 centres containing 7000 individual stores, said it had suspended withdrawals from its unlisted property trusts, freezing almost $2 billion worth of investors' funds (Condon, 2007). The share price of Centro Properties Group is $ 0.46 as at 11 April 2008, with 0% change since the previous day (Centro, 2008), as shown in appendix 5. The share price had dropped significantly; causing great loss to investors and today, it is on the surge of bankruptcy.
Conclusion
In conclusion, if the housing price continues to decline, many more banks and companies will face bankruptcies. Economic growth will also slow down due to credit crunch, thus many of the world’s central bank will cut off interest rate in an attempt to counter the credit squeeze. Prices of stocks will continue to decline, as people will not invest their money in high-risk financial market. Banks will increase rules and regulations in lending requirement, thus making it hard for prime borrowers to make a loan. Banks in order to lessen the default risks faced when providing loans will impose higher interest rate loan to borrowers. As Australia is not greatly exposed to the effect of the sub-prime crisis, the economic growth will not be much affected. In fact, domestic investments in Australia will rise, as foreign investors will see that investing in Australia more attractive, compared to the US. In the long run, will appreciate the rate of Australian dollar in respect to other foreign currency.
Appendices
1. Figure. 1
Source: < >
Figure. 2
Source: < >
2. Figure. 1
Source: <>
Figure. 2
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Figure. 3
Source: < >
Period 1: This was mostly due to fundamentals of real wage growth, employment growth and demographics.
Period 2: This was primarily due to an interest rate shock (lower rates) that moved renters to home ownership.
Period 3: This was primarily due to speculation, especially homebuyers using excessive leverage for speculation.
3. ANZ - AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP LIMITED
Source: < http://markets.theage.com.au>
4. Macquarie Group Limited
Source: < http://markets.theage.com.au>
5. Centro Properties Group
Source: < http://www.centro.com.au>
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