Mortgage borrowers continue to shrug off historically low interest rates and pass up the chance to refinance in the bond market rally that U.S. homeowners didn’t – or couldn’t – take advantage of. A total of $103.46 billion of new agency MBS were issued in July. That was the strongest monthly production volume since January and marked a modest 2.0 percent... [Includes one chart and one graph]
Read More
Speculation over aggressive government refinancing of the entire agency mortgage market ignited intense debate among Wall Street analysts last week and, possibly, may have put mortgage-backed securities investors on edge. It all began when economists at Morgan Stanley sent out an item July 29 entitled “Slam-Dunk Stimulus,” in which they argued for...
Read More
Market participants expressed deep concerns about risk-retention requirements in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed revisions of Regulation AB and other rules regarding the offering, disclosure and reporting for asset-backed securities. Major trade associations engaged in the MBS and ABS markets urged the SEC to either withdraw or re-issue the proposed risk-retention...
Read More
Citigroup became the latest in a roll call of major mortgage lenders and Wall Street finance giants to feel the wrath of the federal government in the wake of the subprime-induced collapse of the mortgage market and the resulting economic loss to MBS investors. Last week, Citigroup agreed to pay $75 million to settle charges that it lied to investors about...
Read More
Holders of covered bonds in the United States stand to gain from the investor protection provisions of legislation that recently passed the House Financial Services Committee, but they would face some market value volatility and have to contend with different standards for different kinds of issuers. That’s the gist of a Moody’s Investors Service overview of the bill, H.R. 5823, the United States...
Read More