Ginnie Mae is expanding its guidelines to clarify the amount of risk it considers acceptable for an issuer’s mortgage servicing rights portfolio and what administrative actions an issuer with excessive portfolio risk could face. The move is part of the agency’s continuous monitoring of issuer activity and MSR portfolios to ensure they are not putting issuers, investors or the program at risk. In its revised MBS Guide, Ginnie provides examples that fall outside of the acceptable risk parameters. Issuers deemed to carry excessive risk will find their participation in the MBS program greatly restricted, the agency warned. In addition, Ginnie may require offenders to recalibrate their high-risk portfolio to more acceptable risk levels, diversify their portfolio, or restrict their participation in Ginnie’s co-issue program, Pool Issues for Immediate Transfer (PIIT) and/or multiple pools. Ginnie is urging issuers to review the ...

President Trump this week signed a short-term spending bill that would keep the government operating until Feb. 8, 2018. The bill ended a three-day shutdown after the previous spending authority for most of the government expired at midnight on Jan. 19. However, the threat of another shutdown looms. FHA and Ginnie Mae both had contingency plans in place in case the short-lived shutdown dragged on, as it had in 2013. That event lasted for 16 days, at a loss of $1.6 billion a day to the federal government. Under FHA’s emergency plan, the agency would continue to endorse new single-family forward mortgages, but not Home Equity Conversion Mortgages and Title I loans. Ginnie would reduce staffing to essential personnel but continue its secondary market operations. It would continue to remit timely payment of principal and interest to investors, grant commitment authority and support issuance of ...

The daily trading volume in agency MBS averaged $209.1 billion in 2017, the best showing in four years, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

Statistical sampling, which gained widespread acceptance in MBS repurchase cases after the housing crisis, is being rejected in many courts today, legal experts say.

Nonbanks will likely account for over half of outstanding agency single-family servicing by the end of 2018 if market trends continue as they have in recent years.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been charged with exploring options to update their current FICO credit scoring model and make a decision this year as to whether to make the switch in 2019.

Ginnie Mae is redefining the term “defective mortgage” to remind issuers of their obligations when confronted by a home loan that does not have federal insurance or a guarantee. The action also clarifies options issuers may consider in dealing with defective mortgages.

A planned MBS from affiliates of New Residential Investment received much higher ratings than a similar deal issued by the firm in 2016. The deals are backed by the excess spread tied to servic-ing rights on non-agency mortgages.

Critical components of loan structural quality in the commercial MBS space seem to be deteriorating, particularly when it comes to single-borrower deals, according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service.

DoubleLine Capital, an investor in non-agency mortgage-backed securities, established an entity in recent months with plans to issue non-agency MBS. The issuance and related activities will be conducted via the new Mortgage Opportunities Capital, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filings were completed in October but didn’t gain prominence until a recent story published by Bloomberg. Jeffrey Gundlach, DoubleLine’s CEO, initially pushed back ...