“U.S. commercial paper outstanding fell for a third week, dropping 3.1 percent as more investors refuse to buy debt secured by mortgage assets.”
“Commercial paper outstanding has fallen by $244.1 billion in the past three weeks as more than 20 companies and funds including Cheyne Finance and Thornburg Mortgage Co. fail to find buyers for new paper after losses on some mortgage-related securities scared investors into safer investments. An $18 billion auction yesterday for two-year U.S. government debt drew the most demand since 1992.” (Commercial Paper Falls for Third Week as Mortgage Losses Mount)
“Thornburg Mortgage Inc., the jumbo- mortgage specialist that was forced to stop making new loans, sold $500 million of convertible preferred stock to help alleviate a shortage of cash.” (Thornburg Mortgage Sells $500 Million of Preferred Stock)
Thornburg is THE lender for jumbo mortgages to cream of the crop borrowers including many of those Ferrari driving $2M+ property buyers who don’t necessarily need a mortgage. The fact that even they have been hit hard by the credit crunch does have a lot of people concerned and scrambling.