Blog Posts by Henry Blodget

President Obama has just taken the wraps off his new plan to help the housing market, which will make it easier for "underwater" homeowners to refinance their mortgages.

Until now, the government has refused to refinance houses that had greater than 125% "loan-to-value" ratio, meaning houses for which the loans are much bigger than the underlying value of the houses.

Now, the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) is eliminating the 125% loan-to-value ceiling, which will allow homeowners who are deeply underwater to refinance federally guaranteed mortgages at lower rates. This will make it easy for the homeowners to make their payments, and, in turn, give them more money to spend on other things. Theoretically, anyway, it will also make the homeowners less likely to default, because their payments will become more affordable.

So far, the government's attempts to ease the pain the housing market have been disappointing. The original "HARP"--Home Assistance Refinance Program--has only

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A bizarre situation has developed in Washington.

The Federal Reserve, which has tried everything it can think of over the past two years to resuscitate the economy, is now reportedly telling Congress behind closed doors that it has done all it can and that it's Congress's turn to do something.

Congress, meanwhile, appears intent on not doing anything: Yesterday, the Senate quickly voted down President Obama's jobs bill, which would have been killed in the House.

And then, suddenly, just when it seemed like no one was going to do anything, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Fed is now considering launching a new round of "quantitative easing" designed to bring down mortgage rates, thus making it cheaper to buy and own houses.

The market loves that idea, and stocks rose to start the day on Friday.

So what's really going on in Washington? Is Congress going to stonewall every attempt to save the economy? Will the Fed's new scheme finally

Provided by the Business Insider:

When Apple launched the iPhone 4S instead of the iPhone 5 last week, I initially thought it was a disappointment and a mistake.

If Apple had launched the actual iPhone 5, I thought, they'd have sold more of them.

And that's probably right.

If Apple had launched a radically new iPhone 5, more of the folks who currently own iPhone 4s would have upgraded, so Apple would have sold some more 4S units. As it is, the iPhone 4S is likely to appeal primarily to iPhone 3G and 3GS owners, non-smartphone owners, and non-iPhone owners, most of whom (like me) are presumably stoked to buy the iPhone 4S.

But viewing the 4S as disappointing ignores Apple's likely thinking behind it, which Asymco analyst Horace Dediu explains very clearly here.

The thinking is that most iPhone 4 owners are still bound by the 2-year contracts they had to enter into when they bought the iPhone 4, so they'll be less likely to now upgrade anyway (barring carriers waving those contracts,

Provided by the Business Insider:

Terribly sad news: Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs has died.

Steve was one of the most remarkable entrepreneurs and inspirational leaders in history.

His death is a tremendous loss, not only to the company he founded and built, but to American industry and hundreds of millions of people around the world. In the accompanying video, The Daily Ticker's Aaron Task and Henry Blodget reflect on the legacy he leaves behind.

Along with everyone else who has marveled at and benefited from Steve's amazing life, we are deeply saddened by this news. Our thoughts go out to Steve's family.

Apple released a brief statement this evening:

We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today.

Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.

His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them

Until a month ago, investment experts seemed to be unanimous: Whatever you did, you had to own gold.

But then gold suddenly plummeted from $1,900 an ounce to about $1,650 an ounce, and suddenly the conviction level seemed to weaken.

So is that it? Is the great gold boom that has taken the metal up nearly 10-fold from about $250 an ounce a decade ago finally over? Are those who buy now just leaping aboard a train that's about to wreck?

Or is this just a pause in the up-trend--a, dare we say it, "buying opportunity."

It's a buying opportunity, says Frank Holmes of San Antonio-based U.S. Global Investors.

Holmes thinks two ongoing factors will drive gold prices to double again over the next few years:

• The "fear trade," in which traders seek to hedge their exposure to fiat-currencies while governments continue to spend way more than they take in, and

• The "love trade," in which millions of newly wealthy consumers in India and China load up on jewelry

Holmes is not bothered by the fact



The United States is in a very tough spot, economically and politically. The 25-year debt-fueled boom of 1982-2007 has ended, and it has left the country with a stagnant economy, massive debts, high unemployment, huge wealth inequality, an enormous budget deficit, and a sense of entitlement engendered by a half-century of prosperity.

After decades of instant gratification, Americans have also come to believe that all problems can be solved instantly, if only the right leaders are put in charge and the right decisions are made. And so our government has devolved into a permanent election campaign, in which incumbents blame each other for the current mess, and challengers promise change.

The trouble is that our current problems cannot be solved with a simple fix. They also cannot be solved quickly. It took 25 years for us to get to this point, and it will likely take us at least a decade or two to work our way out of it, even if we make the right decisions.

So it is time that we began

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The July numbers for the most widely followed measure of house prices, the S&P/Case-Shiller Index, were released this morning.

The numbers weren't terrible--on a seasonally adjusted basis, July was basically the same as June--but one of the creators of the index, Professor Robert Shiller of Yale University, isn't taking much solace in them.

The economy has deteriorated significantly since July, Professor Shiller observes, and he suspects that the housing market has followed suit. And, from a broader perspective, house prices are still down more than 4% year over year.

In February, Professor Shiller startled those looking for an imminent "bottom" in house prices by suggesting that house prices could still fall 10% to 25%. He's standing by that assessment.

House prices won't necessarily plunge from here in nominal terms, but in real terms--after adjusting for inflation--they could still drop significantly, Professor Shiller says. And the bottom

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Apple has cut Q4 iPad orders from its Asian supply-chain partners by 25%, JP Morgan analysts say (via Bloomberg).

The analysts say "several" of Apple's supply-chain partners have reported this cut, which has come in the last two weeks. It is the first such cut that JP Morgan analysts have ever seen.

Interestingly, the JP Morgan report also says that the firm's US-based Apple analyst, Mark Moskowitz, does not plan to cut his forecast of 10.9 million to 12 million iPad shipments in Q3 and Q4.

JP Morgan did not say which companies had reported the cut.

It's hard to know how concerned to get about a report like this. Even if it's dead-on accurate, we don't know what Apple's internal orders were versus the market's expectations. We also don't know the reason for the cut, though the most obvious one is disappointing demand.

A 25% cut is a big cut. And it's hard to see how it could possibly be good news. But in the hours since the story appeared,