As first quarters go, the start to 2017 was relatively strong, but total issuance was down sharply from the previous period, a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking reveals. The market produced a total of $394.08 billion of residential MBS and non-mortgage ABS during the first three months of 2017, an 18.5 percent decline from the fourth quarter of last year. Production, however, was up 23.7 percent from the same period a year ago, and it was the strongest start since the first quarter of 2013, when agency mortgage refinance activity was running white-hot. In 2017, the agency MBS sector is...[Includes three data tables]