Sunday, March 18, 2012

Treasury to announce $25 billion profit on mortgage bonds: WSJ

(Reuters) - The Treasury Department may announce on Monday that taxpayers have made a $25 billion profit on mortgage bonds purchased at the height of the meltdown, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Treasury had spent about $225 billion on purchases of mortgage debt over 16 months before it began selling the securities last year, the Journal said.

The government last week sold the last of the bonds, liquidating the Treasury's ownership of debt backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , the newspaper said.

Investors were worried about the movement of asset prices in the event of curtailment of government support.

"We said if we thought there was any stress in the market around this, we would pull back," Mary Miller, the Treasury's assistant secretary for financial markets, told the Journal.

"We frankly never saw that and just continued," she added.

The mortgage purchases were one of the tools employed by the U.S. government to prop up the financial system at the height of the credit crisis. Separately, the Federal Reserve had also rolled out its own programs to achieve economic stability.

Treasury Department could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Ramya Venugopal)

[ [ [['The public radio show This American Life has', 2]], 'http://yhoo.it/AaEZ6u', '[Related: Mike Daisey Says Technology Is New Religion]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['Apple fanboy Mike Daisey that aired in early January', 6]], 'http://yhoo.it/zAwXWV ', '[Related: The Darker Side of Apple]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['I think that these guys are getting mercilessly picked apart', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/FOlkib', '[Related: Invisible Children defends Kony 2012 film in new video]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['With U.S.-Afghanistan relations in crisis', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/no-afghanistan-obama-campaign-video-021313177.html', '[Related: No ‘Afghanistan’ in new Obama campaign video]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['Jon Stewart weighed in on the Rush Limbaugh', 2]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/rush-limbaughs-slut-controversy-proves-staying-power-100110062--abc-news.html', '[Related: Rush Limbaugh comment controversy proves it has staying power]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['Mammadyarov said democratisation', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/russian-grannies-win-bid-sing-eurovision-095946819.html', '[Related: Russian grannies win bid to sing at Eurovision]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['With U.S.-Afghanistan relations in crisis', 1]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/civilians-killed-in-afghanistan-attack-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/7/82/782db3234689df989a5b05a09e71511c.jpeg', '630', ' ', 'Reuters/Naseer Ahmed', ], [ [['Rutgers', 7]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/tyler-clementi-cyberbullying-trial-begins-1329842758-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120316/ravi.jpg', '630', ' ', 'Reuters', ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP', ] ]

[ [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], '28630306', '0' ], [ [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], '28493546', '0' ], [ [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], '28413590', '0' ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], '28413590', '1', 'Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ', 'on Yahoo! Music', 'http://music.yahoo.com' ], [ [['keyword', 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999]], 'videoID', '1', 'overwrite-pre-description', 'overwrite-link-string', 'overwrite-link-url' ] ]

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.