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[ad_1] Each week, Cut the Crap Investing founder Dale Roberts shares financial headlines and offers context for Canadian investors. Is your portfolio ready for war?  In the early morning of February 24, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And, sadly, the invasion of Ukraine dominated the headlines this week.  President of Russia Vladimir Putin was quoted in this Reuters.com article:  “I have decided to conduct a special military operation … to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide … for the last eight years. “And for this we will strive for the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine. And to bring to court those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.” And Ukrainian President Olodymyr Zelinskiy is quoted in the same article:  “As of today, our countries are on different sides of world history. Russia has embarked on a path of evil, but Ukraine is defending itself & won’t give up its freedom no matter what Moscow thinks.” Chilling words, and troubling times indeed. It is with a heavy heart that I write this column. The safety of those in Ukraine dominates the importance of our portfolio readiness. That said, we should protect our wealth and recognize the risks that take many shapes and forms when we can.  Very sad. Attempting to flee to safety. https://t.co/u9tHryj6Xw — CutTheCrapInvesting (@67Dodge) February 24, 2022 These are certainly the darkest hours for Europe since World War II.  Unfortunately, I was right in early February when I suggested that Russia could invade Ukraine.  In that column, I wrote:  “Those political risks might be growing in the early months of 2022, as Russia looks ready to invade Ukraine. That invasion appears quite likely as Russia has amassed over 120,000 troops on the border. They have set up military hospitals. This is a fighting army and not a political bargaining chip, experts say.”  Regarding portfolio risk management, I wrote:  “While the risk to life and property of those in Ukraine is the greatest concern, we might be able to predict the movement of certain assets during this time of strife. Gold and energy might soar if Russia invades Ukraine. Gold may prove itself—once again—to be the ultimate safe haven asset.”  These were not difficult calls to make. Gold has a very solid record as a safe-haven asset. The world was already experiencing energy shortages and much higher energy prices. Gold prices and oil and natural gas prices have spiked in recent days.  Brent crude topped US$100 a barrel, and gold prices hit a one-year high, reaching US$1,970 per ounce. Gold is up almost 9% from early January, while U.S. stocks (S&P 500) are down almost 12% into trading on February 24. The tech-heavy Nasdaq slid into a bear market, now down more than 20% from recent peaks.  International stocks (XEF) are down by 10%, year to date.  In Canada… Canadian stocks (XIC) are holding up much better, down just 3% year to date. The Canadian high-dividend route (VDY) is still in positive territory, up 3% for the year into Thursday’s trade.  In my coverage of advanced couch potato ETF portfolios, I suggested to consider gold and commodities in the area of 10% to 20% weighting. And here is gold and other precious metals and energy assets within the PRA Diversified Real Asset ETF. That exchange-traded fund (ETF) is up almost 9% over the last month and over 20% over the last year.  You can find gold and commodities offerings at Horizons.  For those with U.S. accounts, look to the Invesco Index Commodity Tracking ETF.  You’ll find long-term U.S. treasuries (ZTL) in the advanced couch potato models as well. That asset is also having a good week, doing its thing as a risk-off asset.  The key of course is to rebalance your portfolio during these uncertain times as assets move to extremes to the upside and downside.  There is a greater need to manage risks when in retirement or within the “retirement risk zone.” But if you are young and early in the accumulation stage, you may decide to not hold defensive assets like bonds, gold and commodities. Stocks are going on sale in 2021. If you have the risk tolerance level, you might keep adding to your equities on a regular schedule. I’d suggest it is important to be emotionally prepared and aware. Markets could correct for years, months or weeks. We simply don’t know the future, of course. It is crucial you always invest within your risk tolerance level.  While past performance does not guarantee future returns, wartime is historically not a bad time for stocks. Stocks can sell off in the initial stages and then soon recover. Investopedia shows tables of wartime returns for stocks and other assets.  As this tweet says, don’t let short term fear cloud your judgement: Short term fear, should not influence a long term #investing strategy. Don't let emotions cloud your judgement. Wars don't last. pic.twitter.com/X7ad4MvGBD — Tom | decryptom.eth (@decryptom) February 24, 2022 Stocks recovered throughout the day on Thursday, February 24. Then oil and gold weakened.  Source: Seeking Alpha  Stock markets opened in positive territory on Friday, February 25.  The invasion of Ukraine has taught us another lesson on the topic of risk. Within two years, we experienced the first modern-day pandemic—and now, war in Europe.  Be prepared.  More Canadian earnings  While earnings season is slowing down, the big Canadian banks are just getting started. Here’s an overview of Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO) courtesy of Dan Kent at stocktrades.ca.  Royal Bank posted solid results to kick off 2022, with earnings per share of $2.87 topping estimates of $2.72 and revenue of $13.1 billion exceeding expectations by more than $1.1 billion. The Canadian housing market continues to fuel results, as Royal Bank of Canada posted 11% growth in its residential mortgage segment. Surprisingly, despite market activity cooling down, Royal Bank is still benefiting from pandemic-fuelled tailwinds in the capital markets segment as well. There was no

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[ad_1] The government on Friday set the target for wheat procurement at a record 44.4 million tonnes (MT) for the Rabi marketing season (2022-23) commencing on April 1. Food Corporation of India (FCI) in collaboration with state government-owned agencies will procure wheat from farmers in the key producing states, including Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh during April-June. According to the second advance estimates of foodgrain production, the Ministry of Agriculture had estimated India’s wheat production at 111.32 MT. This implies that the government agencies would be purchasing close to 40% of the total wheat production in the country. In the 2021-22 (marketing session), the government had purchased 43.34 MT of wheat from the farmers by paying the minimum support price (MSP). This year the government will pay an MSP of Rs 2,015/quintal to farmers for wheat. The state-wise procurement target of wheat: Punjab (13.2 MT), Madhya Pradesh (12.9 MT), Haryana (8.5 MT), Uttar Pradesh (6 MT), and Bihar (1 MT). Sudhanshu Pandey, secretary, Department of Food and Public Distribution, chaired a meeting of food secretaries and officials of FCI to discuss the arrangements of procurement for wheat for the Rabi marketing season and Rabi paddy procurement season. The government has also decided to procure 4.29 MT of rice (Rabi) from seven producing states; a lesser quantity of rice is grown in southern states. Rice is mostly grown in the Kharif season. During the meeting, promotion of coarse grains, implementation of minimum threshold parameters for online procurement operations, supply of jute bags and packaging material, storage space, improving efficiency and transparency in procurement operations and online settlement of food subsidy claims were also discussed, according to a government statement. FCI is the central agency that manages procurement, storage, and transportation of rice and wheat to states for distribution mainly for the NFSA and other welfare schemes. More than 800 million people get highly subsidised five-kg foodgrains per head per month under NFSA. This includes around 2.5 crore Antyodaya Anna Yojana households, which constitute the poorest of the poor. They are entitled to 35 kg per household per month at subsidised prices. The economic cost of food grains procurement by FCI which includes expenses such as MSP payment to farmers, procurement, acquisition and distribution costs, etc for rice and wheat are Rs 3,597.17 and Rs 2,499.69 per quintal, respectively in 2021-22, while the government distributes rice and wheat to beneficiaries under NFSA as Rs 3 and Rs 2 per kg, respectively. The Union Budget (2022-23) has made around 28% less provision for food subsidy allocation of Rs 2.06 lakh crore in 2022-23 against the revised estimates of Rs 2.86 lakh crore in 2021-22. Lesser provisioning of food subsidy is because of additional expenses incurred because of implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana till March 31 2022. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] The new home sales report came in as a miss of estimates at 803,000, but positive revisions make the report much better than the headline. To be honest here, the new home sales market is stuck for now. While housing permits have been growing, completions have gone nowhere for years. The builders have pushed their pricing power on American consumers, and as long as new home sales can grow, they will use their pricing power to offset all the other costs in this economy of higher prices and shortages. The builder’s confidence data has been stalling out the last two months, so not much is happening in this sector yet. From the National Association of Home Builders: For many years I have stressed that the most important housing data I follow is the monthly supply of new homes. It gives an idea of what to expect for housing construction. From Census: The seasonally‐adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of January was 406,000. This represents a supply of 6.1 months at the current sales rate. My rule of thumb for anticipating builder behavior is based on the three-month average of supply: When supply is 4.3 months and below, this is an excellent market for the builders. When supply is 4.4 to 6.4 months, this is an OK market for the builders. They will build as long as new home sales are growing. When supply is 6.5 months and above, the builders will pull back on construction. The significant positive revisions actually show up here in the data. We have gone from 6.6 months on a three-month average of supply down to six months on a three-month average. Of course, we all know how long it takes to build and finish a new home, which plays into this data. However, traditionally speaking, when sales are declining, the HMI data falls, and once we get over 6.5 months, it’s a red flag. We don’t have that now, but I wouldn’t say this is a booming new home sales marketplace; it’s just ok. The real question is how much higher mortgage rates will bite the most sensitive sector to rates: new homes. This stands in contrast to the existing home sales market, where higher mortgage rates can create more inventory and cool down price growth. The builders will pull back on construction growth if new homes sales start to head lower. The builders need to make sure they have a sound, profitable business; this is normal and has been done for decades. So, the impact of higher rates on demand for new homes is more negative than positive. A good example was 2018. Back then, 5% mortgage rates created a spike in monthly supply, and the builders’ stocks were down 30% plus from their recent highs. They held back on construction growth until demand got better and monthly supply went down again, which did happen in a few months. From Census: Sales of new single‐family houses in January 2022 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 801,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.   This is 4.5 percent (±16.2 percent)* below the revised December rate of 839,000 and is 19.3 percent (±15.2 percent) below the January 2021 estimate of 993,000. The same story here with new home sales, the slow and steady ride higher from the previous expansion continues. COVID-19 has created a lot of strange-looking charts due to the surge in make-up demand in 2020-2021, but when you make some proper adjustments, you can see the uptrend in sales is still intact for now. This is also why you need to focus on revisions trend data and not the headline new home sales report because it tends to be off a lot. As you can see below, the market we’ve had from 2018-2022 looks nothing like the overheating demand we saw from 2002 to 2005. I have always stressed this because many extreme housing bears in America are just side-hustling professional grifters. Every housing weakness we have seen from 2012 to 2022 was supposed to be the housing bubble crash. Hopefully, my work on HousingWire over the last two years has demonstrated why this is not the case. This is why I have stressed that we don’t have a credit housing boom and set specific home sale level targets for the years 2020-2024. If total home sales of new and existing homes combined beat over 6.2 million, consider that a good year. So far, 2020-2021 and now 2022 look to be passing that level.  The MBA purchase application data from 2002-2005 is much different than what we have seen from 2018-2022. If we had a FOMO housing market with emotional buying, the credit demand would look much more robust than what we have seen. It hasn’t for a reason; that was always a marketing pitch. Now for the bad and unhealthy news of the housing market in 2020-2022, price growth. From Census: The median sales price of new houses sold in January 2022 was $423,300.  The average sales price was $496,900.  As you can see below, new home prices have taken off much like the existing home sales market. During these last two years, I have tried my best to warn people that we should have always worried about home prices accelerating, even creating the term forbearance crash bros in the summer of 2020 to make it a bit fun. However, it feels like people didn’t want to believe the 2020 housing rebound or the scorching home-price growth in 2021. We need a cool down, folks; this is not a good thing. The positive aspect of this report was the revisions which drew down monthly supply data on a three-month average noticeably. However, we don’t see a big booming sales market, so housing construction will have limits unless new home sales start to pick up. Know that the builders are always mindful of higher

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[ad_1] Companies shut Ukraine operations, assess impact of sanctions on Russia [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Investors’ wealth on Friday jumped over Rs 7.72 lakh crore as the broader market clawed back some of its lost ground, a day after Russia’s attack on Ukraine roiled investor sentiments. On Friday, benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty rebounded up to 2.5 per cent, in line with higher global markets, as the US and allies put up a united front to punish Russia with harsher sanctions over the Ukraine conflict. Helped by the robust gains in equities, the market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies soared by Rs 7,72,873.6 crore to reach Rs 2,49,97,053.39 crore.The market capitalisation, an indicator of notional wealth of investors, stood at Rs 2,42,24,179.79 crore on Thursday. All 19 sectoral indices bounced back on Friday, with realty, power, utilities, basic materials and industrials spurting as much as 5.68 per cent.Smallcap, midcap and largecap indices too surged up to 4.17 per cent. “Global markets including Indian equities witnessed a smart pull back after yesterday’s crash as the new sanction imposed by US and UK appeared to be less severe for the Russian economy,” said Siddhartha Khemka, Head – Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd. Also, the US and NATO refused to send their soldiers to Ukraine, thus preventing an extreme war-like situation. Further, the geopolitical turmoil has led to an expectation that the US Fed may not aggressively increase interest rates in its March meeting, thus adding to positive sentiments on Friday, Khemka said. The US, EU and Japan have vowed to support Ukraine and agreed on a second tranche of economic and financial sanctions on Russia, even as Russian forces continued their advance towards the Ukrainian capital. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] HousingWire recently spoke with LERETA CEO John Walsh about what servicers should bedoing to anticipate tax issues this year and how LERETA balances technology and humanexpertise. HousingWire: Taxes are never a very popular subject with consumers, and you think thisis going to be even more unpopular this year. Why is that, John, and what shouldservicers be doing to anticipate issues? John Walsh: Real estate prices (and home appreciation) have been on a tear over the past few years: up 27% since January 2020. But sooner or later, depending on where your borrowers live, all this good fortune will translate into higher assessments and tax increases. For every silver lining, there’s a semi-dark cloud, right? While homeowners have been thrilled to see their Zestimates go up month after month, many may be surprised (and less thrilled) to see a notice that their escrow is also heading north. Some servicers will be ready to handle higher call volumes and longer call times. But others may be more challenged. If I were a servicer, here are few of the questions I’d be asking my escrow operations staff now – while there’s still ample time to make changes ahead of the fourth quarter tax crunch. First, how did 4Q 2021 go? Was tax season a fire drill? Did your employees have to scrambleover the holidays triaging tax reporting and payments? Are you prepared to address themortgage payment changes due to tax increases? Do you have a proactive plan to handleborrower communications on tax increases (website posts, statement stuffers, call centerscripts?) Finally, has there been an increase in tax-related complaints to the CFPB or a jump in social media complaints? If servicers don’t like the answers to these important questions, now is the time to do something about them. HW: In the past, you’ve mentioned tax problems that some large clients have facedduring portfolio transfers and during peak tax cycles. Based on what you are seeing, arethings getting better or worse? JW: When I came to LERETA about six years ago, one of my first observations was that the taxservice industry hadn’t meaningfully changed in the previous 30 years. Many clients wereaccustomed to low service levels and accepting penalties and borrower complaints as the price of doing business. While I think we have made significant progress in changing the industry and client perceptions, the 4Q tax season continues to be grueling for servicers that are doing everything in-house or working with some large one-size-fits all tax servicers. How did our clients do last year? I think most would say things went smoothly from a reporting, payments and penalty standpoint. Dallas, which is one of our biggest operations centers, prides itself on finishing all tax work for our clients by Dec. 17th (their version of an early Christmas) and they did it again last year. Also, clients are seeing that they have new choices. At LERETA we’re adding an average of 20new clients per month: some shifting from in-house and others moving away from ourcompetitors. There’s also new interest in champion/challenger scenarios and in vendordiversification for business continuity reasons. One very large servicer awarded us a significant share of its tax business on this basis last year. In terms of portfolio transfers, we continue to see data integrity issues during the tax line set-up and on-boarding process. These problems usually stem from tax servicers that rely too heavily on automation during the initial tax line set-up process. Automation helps efficiency, but you have to understand the black holes of automation and build technology to catch the loans with exceptions that will ultimately lead to an unhappy borrower. To compensate, we added new technology into our tax line set-up process for all new loans,including acquisition portfolios and entire portfolio conversions. For example, our proprietarytechnology allows us to quickly identify contiguous or adjacent secondary parcels which arecommonly missed in our industry and can immediately cause missed tax bills, penalties orworse. Similarly, we have GIS (Geographic Information System) technology that allows us tomap lower liens (like utility districts or sewer liens). Finally, we have added a new document review service to make sure that taxes are paid (or not) at 30 days out from closing or during portfolio transfers, this prevents defaults or over-payments, both of which create reputational issues for clients. Anything outside of this is bad for the industry and bad for borrowers. HW: Tax servicers, like other participants in the mortgage space, are investing heavily intechnology and automation, do you think this means that there will be less need fordomain knowledge in the future? JW: Today’s clients want the robot-like efficiency of automation, until something goes wrong.That’s why LERETA takes a different approach to technology and automation than some of our competitors. We believe there needs to be a balance between automation and human expertise, and it is critical to understand how best to apply both. That said, we’re constantly investing in technology to continually improve accuracy, service-level performance, client transparency into the tax processes and our ability to customize oursolutions to client-business models. Technology is certainly one of the primary reasons that we met 99.8% of all customer SLAs last year, and why our outsourced customers recently rated us a perfect score of 100 on our net promoter score. At the same time, we are committed to investing in talented tax experts who know the nuances of various tax jurisdictions and who can anticipate issues before they arise. At LERETA, it’s not an either-or proposition when it comes to technology and domain knowledge. We’re expert in both. The post Here’s how home price appreciation impacts taxes – And what that means for servicers appeared first on HousingWire. [ad_2] Source link

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