Harry Terris

Many holes remain, but more extensive disclosures are helping to fill in the blanks for key variables in buyback projections.

Mirror-image disclosures from servicers offer a view on where GSE putbacks are landing, and accumulating.

Under some projections, much of the ultimate mortgage repurchase bill has already been recognized, but uncertainty reigns.

Large and mostly growing gaps between chargeoffs and cumulative reserves suggest billions more could flow through income statements in the coming periods.

In the seven months since the legislation's centerpiece protections went into effect, revenues have stabilized at elevated levels.

When the proportion of distressed sales has fallen, home prices have increased. Sputtering foreclosure machinery could give them another lift.

Average chargeoff rates at the largest issuers in the first two months of 2011 could be 7% to 20% lower than the third quarter, based on recent delinquency statistics.

Eddies of rehabilitation and relapse have obscured underlying trends, but ultimately 12 million borrowers could be destined for foreclosure, analysts argue.

While still well below marks set during the recession, the MBA's application indexes had been signaling that home sales might be leveling out.

The rebound in asset prices has improved the health of household balance sheets, but debt loads remain unwieldy even as low interest rates make servicing them more manageable.

A double dip in real estate could create a $13 billion capital hole according to an IMF stress test.

Margins on new loan production appear to have approached record heights achieved in the first quarter of 2009, judging from the gap between consumer and secondary market rates.

Early government data indicates that overall portfolios contracted apace in the third quarter, but that C&I lending came close to a turnaround.

The potential for a sustained era of greater frugality among consumers does not mean more deposits for banks.

Corporations rotated into time and savings accounts, and households moved the other way, but both sectors kept large proportions of assets on deposit.

High marks awarded to the stabilizing potential of some parts of regulatory reform, though executives in North America are more skeptical.

Changes in the value of securities continued to have an outsize impact in the first half, but net income returned to the fore.

Forward curves suggest continued narrowing between long term and short term rates, along with a continued squeeze on bank margins.

Under one hypothetical scenario, about half the improvement in the industrywide Tier 1 ratio since mid-2008 can be traced to smaller balance sheets.

Banks have filled some of the hole left by shrinking loans with bonds, but increases in cash - specifically reserves - has been a much bigger factor.