Fitch is including environmental, social and governance relevance scores as part of its ratings of securitized products. The scores help assess sustainability and ethics though they aren’t a major factor in credit ratings.
Credit Suisse made false statements about the LTVs on at least 2,392 of the 6,884 loans in their mortgage pool, overstating their value by at least 105%. The allegations against Barclays were almost identical.
New York has set a six-year statute of limitation to bring charges under the Martin Act. The deadline issue has been a bone of contention in a court case between the state attorney general and Credit Suisse.
Nonprime securitization was down for the second straight quarter and the S&D market was sluggish. But prime-jumbo and ECM production rose sharply in the third quarter. (Includes three data charts.)
Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has flagged concerns about the issuer-pays model used by credit rating agencies for securitized products. She said the SEC hasn’t done enough to address the conflicts of interest tied to the model.
Some investors prefer buying non-agency mortgages via whole loan transactions rather than stocked in MBS. Whole loans offer better yields and more loan information.