The performance of U.S. residential MBS keeps getting better, thanks mostly to favorable economic conditions, but the effects of greater regulatory oversight and intervention can be positive or negative, and sometimes both, depending on what hat a participant in the secondary market wears, according to experts at Moody’s Investors Service. “RMBS performance continues to improve, and that’s mainly because of the confluence of two factors: fewer borrowers are becoming delinquent for the first time because of the economy, and re-default rates on loans which have been modified – which is a significant share of the population of private-label MBS loans – continue to be stable,” said Youriy Koudinov, vice president and senior credit officer at Moody’s. “The second point we want to convey is...