Commercial banks and thrifts held $1.58 trillion of residential MBS at the end of March, a 2.6 percent increase from the previous quarter.

Is a single GSE security years in the distance? It's hard to say. The FHFA won't offer a timeline.

First Republic Bank is the top contributor to the Chase jumbo MBS with a 20.9 percent share.

One market participant, speaking under the condition his name not be used, likened it to MBS buyers “going on strike.”

The mortgage market faces a big challenge when the Federal Reserve figures out how to unload its massive $1.7 trillion portfolio of agency MBS, but anticipated widening of spreads could at least improve market liquidity. The fixed-income market has seen a sharp decline in trading volume resulting in part from regulatory issues, said Mike Fratantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, during the group’s annual secondary market conference in New York this week. “Banks have been hoarding liquidity instead of providing it to the market,” he said. Average daily trading volume of MBS has dropped...

Officials involved in the development of the common securitization platform and the single, interchangeable MBS for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have vowed not to publicize any timetable for the project. And despite several attempts to get an answer during a panel session at this week’s secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association, they stuck to their plan. They went out of their way to stress that they haven’t forgotten about potential non-agency users sometime down the road. But that’s...

In April, the average daily trading volume in agency MBS fell to $187.8 billion, the worst reading of the year and a possible harbinger of problems to come. One market participant, speaking under the condition his name not be used, likened it to MBS buyers “going on strike.” He added: “Right now, you have an illiquid market, and that’s not a good thing.” In December of last year, the MBS trading volume was...

Commercial banks and thrifts reported robust growth in their MBS portfolios during early 2015, including a special appetite for Ginnie Mae MBS, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of call-report data. Commercial banks and thrifts held $1.579 trillion of residential MBS at the end of March, a 2.6 percent increase from the previous quarter. It was the industry’s biggest MBS portfolio since the third quarter of 2012, when banks and thrifts held a record $1.617 trillion of mortgage securities. The biggest gain was...[Includes two data tables]

The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee approved a Republican regulatory relief bill on a strictly partisan vote late this week, with all of the mortgage-finance provisions previously reported intact. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-PA, momentarily offered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a “get out of jail free” card, in the form of an amendment addressing capital requirements for the two government-sponsored enterprises, then withdrew it, presumably for use at a future point in time. “This is...

Industry participants, both on their own and with help from the Treasury Department, continue to work on reforms to attract investors to buy new non-agency MBS. Servicing standards will likely play a key role in the reforms, though progress has been slow. The Structured Finance Industry Group published its first RMBS 3.0 “green paper” in August 2014 with a follow-up in November. The Treasury Department has been working with industry participants toward the issuance of a benchmark non-agency MBS since at least September 2014. Analysts at Fitch Ratings stressed...