Wells Fargo Bank

HSBC got plenty of attention when it disclosed that it had suspended foreclosures in its annual report Monday. But its not the only bank whose annual report made for interesting reading. The risk disclosures in banks' annual reports shed some light on their attitudes toward the mortgage mess.

A U.S. bankruptcy court judge in New York wants officials from HSBC and Litton Loan Servicing to appear in her courtroom next month -- to explain their failure to provide adequate documentation concerning how HSBC wound up claiming to hold a mortgage that's involved in a bankruptcy case.

If struggling homeowners can make trial modified mortgage payments, the next logical step, it seems, would be to make the modifications permanent. Sadly, however, this is a rare occurrence. Follow the stories of three families as they wrestle with the foreclosure process.

The Federal Reserve may soon start letting some banks boost their dividends again, according to The Wall Street Journal. If that happens, it would signal that regulators have become comfortable enough with the new financial rules to let institutions hike shareholder payouts.

Wells Fargo has admitted it made mistakes in the paperwork for thousands of foreclosure cases. The company has promised to fix the mistakes by refiling documents in 55,000 cases by mid-November. But the bank says it has no plans to stop foreclosures.

Those complex financial instruments known as mortgage-backed securities, which famously caused so much damage in the banking sector and the nation's economy when the housing bubble burst, are causing another problem for some mortgage lenders: the inability to prove that they have a legitimate claim...

The much-awaited third-quarter gross domestic product number to be released Thursday is expected to show a 3.5 percent increase. In the view of most economists, a positive number will mark the end of the recession which began in late 2008. But a positive print in the GDP is so widely expected that...