Archive for May 6th, 2009
May 6th, 2009
The Rockford Area Association of Realtors released its April sales figures and the number of homes and condominiums sold were down year-over-year for the 34th straight month.
April’s total of 265 sales were disappointing considering it was down from March’s figure of 289. Beginning in January, sales typically grow every month until August before slowing down as a new school year starts. In the past 14 years, sales have increased from March to April 10 times.
Economists are watching home sale totals closely because one school of thought is that the economy will begin growing again when the housing market does. The area almost snapped the year-over-year decline streak in March when 2009 sales were only four fewer than 2008. This April’s sales, however, were 23.9 percent lower than April 2008’s total of 348 sales.
Average sale prices were even more depressing. The average sale price through December this year was $118,257. The average price through December last year was $141,603.
May 6th, 2009
This round of quarterly earnings reports have been as bad as expected. So far, 37 companies in the Star 60 stock index have released earnings and just six reported net incomes above the same quarter of 2008.
The super six are — Allegiant Travel Co., McDonalds Corp., AmeriSource Bergen, Deluxe Corp., Verizon Communications and Dean Foods Corp.
At least most companies are still making money. Only four of the companies on the index that tracks publicly traded companies important to the local economy have reported losses — Caterpillar Inc., SuperValu Inc., BorgWarner Inc. and AMCORE Financial.
May 6th, 2009
Bank regulators seized three more banks on May 1, raising the total for the year to 32.
One of the three closed was Silverton Bank of Atlanta. Georgia leads the U.S. this year with five closings, California has had three shut down and Illinois 3. Fifteen states total in 2009 have had at least one bank closed.
The seizure of the Silverton Bank was interesting because for the third time this year the FDIC was unable to find a bank willing to take it over. Since 1982, the FDIC basically had engineered takeovers for every single bank it has closed. But just since April 1, it was unable to auction off New Frontier Bank in Greeley, Colo., First Bank of Beverly Hills in Calabasas, Calif. and now Silverton Bank in Atlanta.
That’s an even worse trend for the economy. Typically, as long as the FDIC finds a bank to take over a failed institution, the vast majority of jobs at those banks stick around. The new owners need people to run the branches. In the case of the three now being run exclusively by the FDIC, the government will operate them for about 30 days, then let most of the workers go, except for a handful of people needed to continue to dispose of the assets.
As of Dec. 31, Silverton had 412 employees, New Frontier had 237 and First Bank of Beverly Hills had 35.
