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 ]

Trading MBS will be slightly less expensive this year as the Fixed Income Clearing Corp. is preparing to eliminate a fee it imposed to help pay for technology upgrades. The fee applied to FICC members and generally ranged from $1,000 per month to $20,000 per month based on trading activity.

Investor demand for non-agency mortgage-backed securities with non-qualified mortgages appears to have been boosted by the performance of such deals issued in recent years. There have been some delinquencies – owing to somewhat loose underwriting standards – but investors have largely been protected from losses. DBRS recently analyzed 18 non-QM MBS issued since 2015 and found that only three deals had experienced losses as of September. A $150.4 million deal from ...

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.

Language in the pending Senate tax bill that could hammer the value of mortgage servicing rights is causing grave concern in the industry and, if the wording remains, nonbank mortgage firms could get hammered financially.

There may be more room for private investors in the secondary mortgage market sooner than ex-pected, if congressional testimony this week from Federal Reserve Gov. Jerome Powell, President Trump’s nominee to replace Fed chief Janet Yellen, is a reliable indicator.

Commercial banks and savings institutions boosted their holdings of residential MBS to a record $1.839 trillion during the third quarter, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis.

Real estate mortgage investment trusts continued to build up their agency MBS investment port-folios during the third quarter, though most REITs had a more difficult time in the less-liquid non-agency MBS market.

Credit Suisse and MBIA Insurance Corp. continued their wrangling in New York state appellate court in a $235 million MBS securities lawsuit brought by the bond guarantor in 2009.