Over the past year speculators have placed some heavy bets against certain publicly traded mortgage companies by shorting their stocks, a “trade” that could be petering out as investors take their money off the table. According to investors and analysts who track companies such as Nationstar Mortgage, Ocwen Financial and Walter Investment Management, the share price of all three has fallen so dramatically that the days of easy profits are over. Ocwen, for example, presently trades...[Includes one data table]

The pending TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule from the CFPB is going to raise the risk of losses for investors in U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities, according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service. Currently, as Moody’s points out, RMBS trusts are liable for lender errors in calculating the finance charge, the annual percentage rate (APR) and certain other disclosures required by the Truth in Lending Act. However, they are not liable for errors on itemized settlement charges and other disclosures required by the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. Further, under the current regime, TILA and RESPA each require lenders to deliver both an initial and a final disclosure to consumers. “Whether an assignee can be liable for lender errors ...

Banks and thrifts held $155.55 billion of non-mortgage ABS on their books as of the end of March, a 2.3 percent decline from the previous quarter, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of call-report data. The first-quarter figures mark the fifth straight quarterly decline in bank ABS holdings, which peaked at $173.80 billion at the end of 2013. Bank ABS holdings were down 9.9 percent from the first quarter of last year. Almost every ABS category was...[Includes two data tables]

A federal appeals court in Chicago has set aside a $2.46 billion judgment against HSBC’s Household International unit and three of its top executives and ordered a new trial. Investors won the judgment in 2009 based on charges that the bank and its top executives misled them about its mortgage lending practices. The price of the stocks subsequently collapsed as the subprime mortgage market unraveled, causing huge investor losses. The class-action lawsuit alleged...

A new analysis by an economist at the Federal Reserve suggests that the Dodd-Frank Act’s risk-retention requirements won’t adequately address the issues that caused the structured finance market to essentially freeze in 2007. A paper by Alyssa Anderson suggests a deposit insurance-like agreement between investors and private market firms or the government would better protect investors from losses and reduce ambiguity. She stressed that increased uncertainty about securities, the potential length and depth of a downturn and possible government intervention contribute to investors shying away from securitization markets. “Given the presence of ambiguity, the market freeze can persist...

Real estate investment trusts and new investors in the mortgage business could provide funding for nonconforming lending, but securitization remains challenged, according to various experts at the recent secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association. The non-agency mortgage-backed securities market is very subdued, said Laurie Goodman, director of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Issuance has been running at about ...

New entrants in the Ginnie Mae issuer community expand access to credit at lower cost, deepen the market for Ginnie mortgage servicing rights and help address the agency’s “too-big-to-fail” issue, said the agency’s top executive. “Our top concern is that issuers have the operational and financial strength to meet issuer/servicer obligations,” Tozer said during the recent secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association. The flood of new nonbank issuers into the program has been well documented. While they have diluted the heavy concentration of business in the hands of a few megabanks, many have complex financial structures that are less tested in the marketplace, he said. The pipeline of issuer applicants has dropped dramatically, the Ginnie executive reported. To get approved, an applicant has to show where the cash will come from to ...

Although no “large” mortgage companies have changed hands in quite some time, investor interest in small to medium-sized lenders remains strong as banks, private-equity funds and nonbanks continue to show their interest as buyers. Since last fall, at least 25 deals have been publicly disclosed, according to sales tracked by Inside Mortgage Finance, but none of the originators have been larger than $4 billion a year in production. According to interviews conducted over the past week with investment banking advisors, in the months ahead lenders that originate between $500 million to $2 billion a year are...

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...

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...