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.

Ginnie Mae set records for new issuance of single-family mortgage-backed securities in 2015 and 2016, but production sagged last year, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. The agency issued $443.20 billion of MBS backed by forward single-family mortgages in 2017, a 10.8 percent decline from the previous year. Including FHA reverse mortgages and that are not truncated, 2017 issuance fell 10.3 percent to $455.00 billion. Meanwhile, the private mortgage insurance business – based on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MBS data – saw a smaller decline of 5.0 percent from 2016 to last year. The VA program generally held up better than the FHA program during the fourth quarter, when refinance lending was climbing. But the FHA had a better year overall despite some loss of market share in purchase-mortgage activity. Deliveries of FHA loans into ... [ Charts ]

S&P Global was the most active rating service in the non-mortgage ABS market during the first nine months, having graded $95.88 billion in new issuance, or 58.5 percent of the market, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis.

It’s been an ugly year for retail chain bankruptcies, which means investors in commercial MBS backed by such properties are continuing to feel queasy about some of the bonds they own.

The agency MBS market continued to grow at a measured pace during the third quarter of 2017, with several key investor groups showing interest in the market, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis.

The average daily trading volume in agency MBS inched up to $223.6 billion in November, the second best showing of the year, according to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Finan-cial Markets Association. The only other month that was stronger was January at $229.8 billion.

Ginnie Mae this week announced new guidelines to curb the churning of VA loans and high MBS prepayment speeds – the first in a series of measures developed by a joint Ginnie/VA task force to address the problem.

Consumer debt reached a new high at the end of the third quarter of 2017, surpassing levels seen in the run-up to the financial crisis and prompting concerns about the systemic risk to MBS and ABS investors posed by consumer leverage.

Nonprime lenders allow credit scores as low as 500 and loan-to-value ratios up to 90.0 percent, but new originations don’t typically reach such extremes. According to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets, the average credit score on loans in nonprime/Alt A mortgage-backed securities issued in recent years was 701.1. The average combined LTV ratio for the loans was 74.9 percent and the average debt-to-income ratio was 37.0 percent. The analysis ... [Includes one data chart]