New production of mortgage- and asset-backed securities failed to reach the $2 trillion mark for the third year in a row in 2010, falling 19 percent below the volume of new deals generated in 2009, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. Activity did pick up in the fourth quarter, when a total of $494.5 billion of new MBS and ABS were issued. That represented...[Includes two data charts]
Read More
Industry analysts believe that the recent repurchase agreements that Bank of America and Ally Financial have reached with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac suggest the industry will have substantial, but manageable, exposure from the non-agency side. Analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods estimate...
Read More
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. recently sold almost half of a $603 million mortgage loan portfolio to RoundPoint Financial Group, a company that originates and services residential loans, marking the federal agency’s second transaction with the company in 2010. Roundpoint, based in Charlotte, NC, announced...
Read More
The Securities and Exchange Commission this week asked for public input on whether credit rating terms and methods could be made more standardized. Congress directed the agency to undertake the credit rating standardization study under provisions in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Standardization could...
Read More
Investor demand for more information about MBS performance has motivated loan-level data providers and analytics firms to offer enhanced analytics platforms at various price points. BlackBox Logic and Thetica Systems have responded by partnering to produce a residential MBS forecasting capability that can provide...
Read More
Analysts at the Federal Reserve have concluded that the agency’s 16-month MBS purchase program implemented during the financial crisis helped lower mortgage interest rates by removing substantial risk premiums as well as re-established a robust secondary mortgage market. But they noted...
Read More