Little Effect of Obama's Foreclosure Plan on Wall Street

By: Joseph Smith

The release of some details of President Obama's foreclosure plan failed to lift Wall Street prices on Wednesday and Thursday. S&P 500 lost 1 point and ended Wednesday at 788. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted a minuscule increase of 3 points to end Wednesday at 7,556. Meanwhile, Nasdaq declined by 3 points to 1,468.

Shares of computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard (HP) declined by 3.5 percent to $32.90. Forecast for HP's 2009 performance surpassed estimates, but HP's second-quarter estimates disappointed investors.

Media corporation CBS declined in quarterly earnings and dividends, but its shares still increased by 6.4 percent to $5.46. It appeared that investors supported the conglomerate's decision to retain cash during difficult times. The media industry has been suffering from reductions in advertising budgets since 2008.

Wall Street also gave a bland response to Obama's plan to help fund the restructuring of car manufacturers General Motors and Chrysler. Perhaps they are waiting for the Treasury Department's plan to offer auctions of treasury notes and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's release of its regional manufacturing index.

Wall Street investors are also still evaluating the effects of the president's foreclosure prevention plan. The foreclosure plan includes the restructuring of mortgage loans issued or serviced by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Loan modifications and refinancings will be funded with up to $75 billion to save millions of homeowners from foreclosure. Mortgage lenders will be provided with cash incentives to encourage them to help as many troubled borrowers as they can. There are several options that lenders can offer to borrowers to make monthly payments affordable. If monthly payments are more realistic in comparison to their monthly income, it is more than likely that they can make their payments current and prevent their mortgages from going into foreclosure.

Investors know that the housing crisis was largely the cause of the nationwide recession. If the foreclosure problem is addressed, home prices will rise and the housing market will be stabilized.

Even so, the Federal Reserve's most recent forecasts are not encouraging. The Fed predicted a further decline in gross domestic product for the year and increase of the unemployment rate until 2010. The Labor Department’s producer price index and unemployment report for the month of January is expected to post over 600,000 new jobless claims. Nevertheless, investors did not focus too much on the Fed's dismal outlook because Treasury notes yielded 2.77 percent on Wednesday, an increase of 2.66 percent from Tuesday.

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Joseph Smith has been educating buyers on the finer points of tax foreclosures at BankForeclosuresSale.com for over five years. Click here to visit and read more advice on finding foreclosure homes.

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