Trends in demand for non-QM jumbos were more clear-cut, with 25.4 percent of 59 banks reporting that demand was weaker…

Officials at American Capital Agency announced last week that the real estate investment trust formed a wholly-owned broker-dealer subsidiary. The broker-dealer will help provide the REIT with repo funding and to-be-announced MBS trade-clearing capabilities. Peter Federico, a senior vice president and chief risk officer at American Capital, said the REIT started forming the broker-dealer about six months ago. He said the entity is fully staffed and is in the regulatory application process, with operations expected to begin midyear. “Once our broker-dealer is up and running, we will pursue...

A long-expected correction in MBS prices was put on hold this week as interest rates took another dive and concerns continued to mount about China’s stagnant economy and weakening oil prices. As Inside MBS & ABS went to press late this week, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury was at 1.61 percent, the lowest it’s been in roughly four years. The volatility in the market was sparking...

Agency MBS backed entirely by “conforming jumbo” mortgages was one of the fastest-growing sectors of the market last year, but traditional 30-year fixed-rate mortgages remained the overwhelming favorite, according to a new analysis by Inside MBS & ABS. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued $21.17 billion of jumbo-only MBS in 2015, a 90.2 percent increase from the previous year. Ginnie Mae issuance of such pools was up even more, by 163.0 percent, last year. Conforming-jumbo loans are...[Includes two data tables]

The bid price on the FNMA 3.50 bond has become so frothy that some investors are shorting the security...

The jumbo MBS business may be struggling but not "GSE jumbos," according new figures from IM&A...

Don’t tell Bernie Sanders this, but the upper class appeared to suffer less than other folks during the fourth-quarter decline in mortgage production, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. Mortgage lenders produced an estimated $78 billion of big-ticket home loans to, hopefully, well-to-do borrowers during the final three months of last year. That was down 8.2 percent from the third quarter, a little over half the rate of decline in total mortgage originations during the period. For the full year, jumbo mortgages accounted...[Includes two data tables]

The FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund is projected to make $9.1 billion in profits in fiscal year 2017, but the Obama administration currently has no plans to cut FHA premiums. In fiscal 2016, the program is expected to generate $7.7 billion in profits, according to the White House proposed budget released this week. The administration projects FHA next year will insure $204 billion of forward single-family loans, with a negative credit subsidy of 4.42 percent for each loan, resulting in a projected profit of $9.1 billion. During a briefing this week. Julian Castro, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, downplayed...

At year-end, Arch MI had $6.83 billion of risk-in-force...

The mortgage banking and real estate industries this week called on the Department of Veterans Affairs to adopt policy changes to improve the VA Home Loan Guaranty program. In a hearing week before the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Association of Realtors offered several changes that could further enhance the program. Testifying on behalf of the MBA, James Danis II, president of the Residential Mortgage Corp., urged...