JPMorgan launched a new index this week aimed at connecting with clients looking to invest in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae MBS. The company said it is the first institutional agency mortgage index built on individual security valuations. The index, referred to as MAX, is billed as a “contemporary and comprehensive” benchmark of the agency MBS market. It combines 30-year, 15-year and 20-year MBS in an index that the bank says contains more than 400 aggregates that cover almost 85 percent of the agency market. And because it updates from the sixth business day of the month instead of the 15th, as most other indices do, JPMorgan said the MAX reduces a number of tracking errors. “Agency MBS is...

A number of lenders have experienced a sharp decline in refinance volume without a meaningful increase in purchase-mortgage originations, according to Jonathan Corr, president and CEO of Ellie Mae.

Large banks continue to dominate the business of servicing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac home loans, but a group of hard-charging non-depository institutions are gaining ground. A new Inside The GSEs analysis of Fannie and Freddie mortgage-backed securities disclosures shows that total single-family MBS outstanding actually declined slightly, by 0.1 percent, during the second quarter. This was due to a 0.3 percent drop in Fannie MBS servicing – the figures do not include servicing of whole loans held by the enterprises – while the Freddie market grew 0.3 percent. Some 46.2 percent of Fannie/Freddie MBS servicing was held by banking organizations with more than $100 billion in assets. That included four of the top five GSE servicers and seven of the top 10.

The Federal Reserve’s effort to normalize its balance sheet later this year would cause no significant falloff in the agency mortgage-backed securities market over the next six to 12 months, according to global investment firm Loomis Sayles. In an analysis, the firm concluded that agency MBS remain attractive for now with modest excess returns for agency MBS versus Treasurys. “We favor a modest overweight agency MBS stance versus Treasurys for the remainder of 2017 and ...

GSEs Hand Off More Than $5 Billion in Credit Risk.

Mortgage origination volume was up sharply in the second quarter of 2017, but total production this year still trailed the pace set in 2016 because of slumping refinance activity. An estimated $455.0 billion of first-lien mortgages were originated in the second quarter, according to an exclusive new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. That was up 18.2 percent from the January-March cycle, but production over the first six months of 2017 totaled just $840.0 billion, off 6.7 percent from the same period last year. Most other mortgage market indicators sent...[Includes two data tables]

It looks like Flagstar won't be the only bank to issue jumbo mortgage-backed securities.

Only two lenders have consistently provided more than 5.0 percent of the dollar volume in jumbo MBS Redwood has issued this year: First Republic Bank and Quicken Loans.

By comparison, ARMs accounted for less than 1.0 percent of total prime non-agency MBS issued in the first quarter.

A sharp increase in business-finance ABS issuance offset declines in other sectors to lift overall ABS production during the second quarter of 2017, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. The market produced $59.31 billion of new non-mortgage ABS during the second quarter, an 11.1 percent increase over the first three months of the year. That brought year-to-date issuance up to $112.68 billion, a 30.4 percent gain over the first six months of 2016. The star performer was...[Includes two data tables]