‘Buyers are ... drying up’

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We picked a bad day to be out of pocket. We’ll try to catch up quickly, starting with a quick roundup:

The Dow fell 311 points on fears the housing crisis will weaken the entire economy and that a widening credit crunch -- which started in housing -- will jeopardize all the private buyouts that have been supporting the stock market.

The earnings reported by home-building companies Pulte Homes, D.R. Horton and Beazer Homes were so bad Reuters wrote, ‘The slaughterhouse that has been the U.S. housing market for the past few months got bloodier on Thursday...’ Sales of new homes fell 6.6% from May to June. ‘Overall, the market for new homes stinks ... liquidity is getting sucked out of the system,’ said analyst Alex Vallecillo. ‘Mortgages are going to be tougher to come by, more expensive. The buyers are basically drying up.’

Wells Fargo is getting out of the subprime wholesale lending business. About 200 jobs will be cut, and the bank will continue to make subprime loans through its own retail channel. We’ll have an additional item on this later, an e-mail from an axed worker.

Photo Credit: AP
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