The average daily trading volume in agency MBS climbed to $215.9 billion in May, the highest reading of the year, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. But don’t get too excited. May’s activity is still below the two-year high established in January 2015 and nowhere near the peaks established back in 2008 when crumbling financial markets caused investors to go gaga for agency MBS. The relatively low daily trading volumes continue...

A partisan debate is brewing in the Senate over whether a more complex regulatory system could actually lead to increased systemic risk for U.S. banks even as House Republicans weigh proposals to eliminate financial and consumer protections under the Dodd-Frank Act. Discussions in the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs this week revolved around the Basel and Dodd-Frank capital and liquidity requirements and whether they are forcing big and small banks to focus more on safety and soundness instead of meeting the needs of consumers and the economy. Post-crisis financial regulations have become...

The weighted average loan loss severity for U.S. commercial MBS was 49.3 percent for the 139 loans liquidated in the first three months of 2016, versus 58.2 percent for 240 loans liquidated in the last three months of 2015, which was the highest quarterly loss severity since 2010, Moody’s Investors Service said in a new quarterly report. However, “In both quarters, severities topped the weighted average of 42.8 percent for loans liquidated between Jan. 1, 2000, and March 31, 2016,” the ratings service added. The Moody’s report tracks...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac produced $73.23 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities in May, a solid 6.3 percent increase from April, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside The GSEs. The key ingredient was a 13.0 percent jump in the volume of purchase mortgages delivered by lenders last month. The GSEs securitized $33.25 billion of purchase-money mortgages in May, the strongest monthly total since October 2015 ... [Includes two data charts]

In anticipation of plans to securitize loans that had been previously delinquent, this week Fannie Mae announced that it will release historical data on some 700,000 re-performing loans. The release, scheduled for July, will include updated credit scores and loan-to-value ratios at issuance. This coincides with Fannie’s efforts to become more transparent and give the market the ability to analyze how these re-performing loans, or RPLs, have performed over ...

Calls for a GSE recapitalization are growing louder as industry groups and lawmakers urge Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt to exercise his authority and suspend the Treasury Department’s sweep of Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac profits. Letters to the FHFA and Treasury last week came from a group of small lenders, affordable housing organizations and civil rights advocates, while a group of 32 Democrats on Capitol Hill also chimed in ...

A key judicial review panel last week said the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s March bid to consolidate all the GSE shareholder lawsuits and transfer them to one court was “inappropriate” and rejected the government’s request. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation said that the government’s case for centralization was not strong enough. “On the basis of the papers filed and hearing session held, we conclude that centralization is not necessary for the ...

A new poll by the U.S. Mortgage Insurers showed strong consumer support for housing reform efforts that rely on private capital to take on a majority of the risk currently placed on the GSEs. Close to half of the 2,000 respondents, 48 percent, said the private sector should bear the responsibility for the risk of losses on bad loans. Some 19 percent of the respondents said borrowers should bear the responsibility, while another 19 percent were not certain who the loss should ...

A judge overseeing a key GSE shareholder lawsuit says she will look at another batch of government documents to determine whether they should be made available to the plaintiffs. The Federal Housing Finance Agency and Treasury Department are opposing the decision. Judge Margaret Sweeney’s May 20 order, in the Fairholme Funds, Inc. v. The United States case, requests that the defendants provide the court with hard copies of some of the documents listed in the ...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, is urging the Federal Housing Finance Agency to solicit public comments on FHFA’s policy regarding super-liens imposed by homeowner associations on loans in foreclosure. The FHFA has said it is obligated to protect the rights of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and will aggressively do so. Super-lien laws are currently in 22 states and the District of Columbia. They allow homeowner associations that are owed fees to take priority over ...