Paul Tharp writes in the New York Post yesterday on the plight of Countrywide Home Loan stock price taking a beating while the CEO, Mr. Angelo Mozilo, cashes in stock options worth more than $118 million! Anytime the executives start cashing out, you know there’s trouble.

Washington Mutual Mortgage along with eAppraiseIT, their appraisal firm, was accused of over inflating the appraisal values of homes by New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo.

Washington Mutual Mortgage allegedly colluded with eAppraiseIT, an appraisal management subsidiary of First American Corp. to “meet the numbers”. The lawsuit said that eAppraiseIT succumbed to pressure from Washington Mutual Mortgage to use appraisers who overvalued homes allowing the bank to close more home loans.

Mortgage stock prices are dropping like a stone creating a huge profit opportunity. I wrote a post 10 months ago on my ActiveRain blog showing folks how to “short” mortgage stocks to bank these profits.

Since then a most mortgage stock prices have literally freefallen. Right after that post, Novastar’s stock (symbol: NFI) dropped 40% in one day down to about $15 a share. Today Novastar has dropped even further down to $2.08 another 60%.

Mortgage banking behemoths Wells Fargo and Countrywide Home Loans are dealing with ongoing and more recent charges of predatory lending. Predatory lending is a moniker usually reserved for the most egregious examples of unscrupulous lending behavior. The consumer groups ACORN and NACA are recently shining the light on what mortgage brokers like myself have known for a very long time…

Merrill Lynch yesterday downgraded the stock of Countrywide Home Loans (CFC ticker symbol) and speculated on the analyst call just how they could go bankrupt. First this was irresponsible and reckless on the part of Merrill…or was it?

Since the call yesterday a lot has happened:

1. The stock has fallen about 10 points.