A decreasing credit quality

99The refinancing sensitivity increases with a decreasing credit quality. This means that weak B- and C-rated companies are the most refinancing sensitive. There is a close relationship between the ratings cycle and the Fed fund cycle. Atight Fed policy goes hand in hand with a lower amount outstanding of CCC paper. If the Fed switches to an easing mode the proportion of CCC-rated bonds will increase in the credit market. AFed tightening policy goes along with credit rating upgrades whereas an easing policy cycle is usually associated with credit rating downgrades. This is because the effects of the Fed policy will have an impact on the credit markets with a time lag of several months.

Asteepening of the treasury curve – driven by declining short-term rates will provide the credit market with liquidity, which in turn helps to lower default rates. In this scenario, companies will have easier access to liquidity (e.g. bank loans, debt and equity markets).

Failure to panic in a crash

Failure to panic in a crash is more troublesome. Tech stock investorswho did not get out in April 2000 know these feelings well. Holding on through a crash will lead to depression and a sense of inferiority. Longer bear markets lead to confusion, free-floating fear, resentments, and regrets. Those who failed to panic in 1966, 1970, and 1974 suffered until the 1980s bull market became fully established in 1985. Investors who hold on during long bear markets feel helpless, unable to stay in the market and sit with the pain of loss, yet unable to get out for fear of missing a great rise in prices. These emotions may last many years.

How swiftly can you process your emotions?

Stock prices will always be volatile. Every form of media extensively covers the stock market. As a result, stock prices are influenced by all major events, whether they are political, social, or economic. Elections, earthquakes, terrorists, unemployment, assassinations, foreign affairs, the dollar, war, peace, and much more: All send stock prices up and down.

During bubbles, extensive media coverage will lead you to be overconfident in your ability to pick stocks. If you are caught up in the herd hysteria, you may even reach a sense of grandiosity, believing yourself an investment genius. Addiction can take over as you constantly seek the high of easy money.

A sudden drop in stock prices triggers more troubling emotions. Some investors panic and sell everything. Panic is highly discouraged by those who make a living selling stocks. Investors who panic and sell out often feel guilty that they went against the advice of investment professionals. However, panic is the clearest sign that stocks are outside your comfort zone. A good panic can save you decades of trouble. Investors who panicked and sold in 1929 got over the guilt and had no regrets for the next 21 years.

Investors who panicked in 1966, 1970, and 1974 got over the guilt and had no regrets until the mid-1980s.

The investment emotions inventory

Step 2 explains in detail how you can gain self-knowledge from an emotions inventory. An emotions inventory is similar to a physical inventory of goods in a shop or investments in a portfolio. It is done for the same purpose as well. Goods that are defective must be discovered and discarded; investments that have no future must be liquidated. Emotions that prevent investment compatibility must be recognized and isolated to make room in the psyche for those that are functional. Thereafter you will be investing in your comfort zone.

This simple process has worked for me, an ordinary investor, and it will work for most of you. I do not claim any high level of emotional maturity or spiritual development. No one who knows me would describe me as a saint or a guru. I am not a trained therapist. I do not have an MBA. I am not a Certified Financial Planner, and I am not a Chartered Financial Analyst.

After 21 years of living off my investments and taking regular investment emotional inventories, I do know which investments work best with my personality and which investments irritate me or keep me awake at night. By staying in my comfort zone, investing is fun for me. It will be fun for you too, though you may not see that yet.

What is your monthly debt service

Another important measure and motivating factor as you do battle with debt is whether or not you could get pre-qualified or pre-approved for a loan if you really wanted one. What if your car needs a major repair and you’d rather just buy a new one instead of repairing the old? What if you found the house of your dreams?

Aside from credit cards, which companies seem to hand out like candy on Halloween, many loans are approved based on a couple of key ratios that consider your monthly debt service. Now granted, you still have to have a good credit score, but many lenders would not approve someone with the best credit score if they fell outside these ratios:

A front-end ratio is a comparison of your loan payment for the purchase you’re making against your total household pre-tax monthly income. For example, a $500 payment compared against a $2,000 per month income would give you a front-end ratio of 25% ($500 divided by $2,000). For most car and home loans, the front-end ratio needs to be in the ballpark of 30%, though this changes based on the lender and the size of the loan.

A back-end ratio is a comparison of the payment on the loan you’re applying for plus all your other types of monthly debt service, compared against your income. (This is the one that gets most people denied for a loan.) For example, the back-end ratio on a new monthly car payment of $500 and an existing monthly mortgage payment of $1,000, when compared against $2,000 in monthly income, would be 75% ($1,500 divided by $2,000). For most auto and home loans, the maximum back-end ratio is 50%, though 35–40% is common.

So what is your back-end ratio? Let’s figure them out:

Total monthly debt payments (short + long term) $________
Total monthly income before taxes $________
Back-end ratio (monthly debt payments divided by your income) $________

Could you get loan if you need it?

As big and bad as these numbers may be, it’s probably not the balance that is causing you the biggest problems. Rather, it’s probably your monthly payments or debt service. Virtually everything in your financial world, from bills to paychecks, operates on a monthly basis. Injecting $200, $500, or $1,000 of debt service can make surviving month to month utterly exhausting.

Just as you did with your total balances, add up all your required payments before you try and pay any extra, breaking them down into those categories again. Short-term monthly payments (car, credit card minimum payments, medical, etc.) and long-term payments (mortgage, student loans, child support/ alimony).

Record those numbers here:

Total short-term debt monthly payments $__________
Total long-term debt monthly payments $__________

I ask you to consider the short-term debts, because they tend to be the easiest to eliminate, while simultaneously having a large impact on your budget. Even though your mortgage or student loan balance may be 10 to 100 times your credit card balance, the lower interest rates and longer repayment schedule make it relatively painless. Paying down $10,000 on a $250,000 mortgage is not going to change your monthly cash flow that much. Paying off $10,000 out of your $25,000 credit card balance, which is charging you 30% interest per year, will make a huge difference.

Financial Excess Interest

Excess interest represents the difference between the collateral weighted average mortgage rates and the weighted average cost of the liabilities, net of fees and expenses. Generally, the mortgage loans are expected to generate more interest than required to pay the liabilities.

To the extent that excess interest (net of fees, expenses or derivative payments) is positive, it is used to absorb losses on the mortgage loans. After the financial obligations of the trust are covered, excess interest is used to maintain overcollateralization at the target level.

Several factors could affect the extent to which excess interest is available to maintain overcollateralization:
Full or partial repayments and defaults may reduce the amount of excess interest. This is because borrowers with mortgage loans carrying higher WACs have a greater tendency to repay. This, in turn, reduces the weighted average rate of the underlying mortgage loan pool (this is commonly referred to as WAC drift).

If the rates of delinquencies, defaults or losses turn out to be higher than expected, excess interest will be reduced by the amount necessary to compensate for any shortfalls in the cash available to make required distributions to the senior and mezzanine certificates.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE LOANS

The following four property types constitute the majority of CMBS collateral—apartment buildings, shopping or strip malls, office properties and industrial properties. Other asset types included in CMBS pools are hotels, manufactured housing, self-storage, and healthcare properties.

One appealing factor for borrowers is that the loans are nonrecourse (or limited recourse) to the borrower. Ultimate repayment comes solely from the collateral and not the borrower. There are exceptions for fraudulent borrower activities or representations, and the like. Borrowers typically make their borrowing decisions either on price (which conduit or other lender is offering the cheapest financing) and/or proceeds (which lender is willing to lend the largest amount of proceeds—that is, allowing the borrower the greatest leverage).

In exchange for nonrecourse and favorable rates, the loans come with prepayment restrictions, making it possible to create bonds that have excellent call protection and average life stability. Most loans amortize over a 25-to 30-year period. However, most loans also balloon at 10 years and must be paid in full. Since 2004, the amount of loans with IO periods (where no amortization is taking place) has been increasing. For many years, IO periods as a percentage of a loan’s term has hovered around 5%. This percentage has grown to nearly 70%.