Real estate investment trusts that focus on residential MBS continued to pare their investments in the fourth quarter, a trend that may last through the remainder of the year. Interest rate volatility and continued reports of “illiquidity” in the MBS market remain key factors plaguing the sector. Still, prices for agency product remain strong and, as Inside MBS & ABS noted recently, commercial banks and thrifts continue to add to their holdings, which reached a record $1.643 trillion at yearend 2015. The 16 public mortgage REITs tracked by this publication held $233.17 billion of MBS at year-end, 92.4 percent of which included Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae product. The non-agency market continues to shrink as legacy nonprime securities ...
With the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau declining to provide any more formal guidance on legal liability for secondary market players when originators make errors in TRID mortgage disclosures, a group of due diligence firms is moving ahead with their own clarifications. High-level sources familiar with the matter, and who spoke to Inside MBS & ABS under the condition of anonymity, said the forthcoming clarifications have been vetted by legal counsel and are almost ready for viewing. Several top third-party review/due diligence firms are involved in the effort, including Clayton Holdings and Opus. All the major rating agencies are involved as well. “We’re working to calibrate our methodology, to bring it in line with the spirit of the CFPB letter,” said ...
Commercial banks and savings institutions reported another decline in their holdings of non-mortgage ABS in late 2015, continuing an industry pullback that’s been ongoing for two years. Banks held $135.01 billion of ABS as of the end of 2015, according to a new analysis of call-report data by Inside MBS & ABS. That was down 4.2 percent from the third quarter and off 15.9 per-cent from the end of 2014. The supply of outstanding ABS itself fell slightly in the fourth quarter, down 2.3 percent to $704.91 billion, according to data from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. The ABS market had been growing more-or-less steadily since bottoming out in 2012 before fading in the second half of last ...
In another legacy residential MBS legal action, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System this week reached a record $130 million settlement with Moody’s Investors Service over the ratings service’s allegedly erroneous ratings of AAA-rated structured investment vehicles in the run-up to the financial crisis. Back in 2009, CalPERS sued Moody’s – along with Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings – after the pension fund claimed massive losses from investments in three structured investment vehicles that depended on the liquidity of assets that proved to be illiquid, such as subprime MBS, collateralized debt obligations and other ABS. In the lawsuit, CalPERS accused Moody’s of making “negligent misrepresentations” by assigning its highest credit rating to the investments. This caused significant losses as the market ...
After much discussion over the past two years, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority put out a request for comment last week regarding its proposed amendments to shorten the settlement cycle for U.S. secondary market transactions from three business days to two business days by late 2017. Industry representatives said a shorter, two-day settlement timeframe will promote financial stability and significantly mitigate risks to the financial system. FINRA seeks specific input regarding the direct or indirect impacts that the change may have on investors. The last time the settlement cycle was shortened was in 1995, when it went from five business days after the trade date to the current three days. Since then, the Securities and Exchange Commission and financial services ...
Falling oil prices may have little impact on residential MBS even if distressed prime jumbo borrowers in oil-producing states were to default on their loans, according to Standard & Poor’s. The rating agency’s optimistic conclusion may be good news to investors concerned that job cuts in the oil industry will lead to high default rates among prime jumbo borrowers, particularly in states where a high percentage of workers are in oil production. Market information suggests that values of prime jumbo MBS in oil-producing states are being affected, as the market factors in the risk of losses arising from borrower defaults in these regions, the S&P report said. However, it is unclear whether the additional spread on MBS with high concentrations ...
Two Harbors Investment is preparing to issue a jumbo mortgage-backed security that will include loans subject to the TRID integrated disclosure rule. The deal could help resolve the so-called “TRID-lock” seen in the jumbo secondary market as industry participants try to sort out the liability posed by the controversial rule. “TRID has proved to be a very strong headwind,” Diane Wold, a managing director at Two Harbors, said last week at the ABS Vegas conference produced by ...
RSS