The European Central Bank’s launch of a Fed-like quantitative easing program will likely keep the yield spread flat and interest rates low. The ECB plans monthly purchases of €60 billion in ABS and covered bonds issued by central governments, agencies and banks in the euro zone. U.S. experts have been mulling...

Standard & Poor’s agreed this week to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission and two state attorneys general regarding ratings on commercial MBS and non-agency MBS. Regulators suggest that further actions involving the ratings services are in the works, likely including a much larger settlement with S&P regarding activity before the financial crisis. S&P’s settlement this week involved post-2010 activity. The rating service agreed to pay the SEC and attorneys general for New York and Massachusetts more than $77 million. S&P will also take a one-year “timeout” from rating conduit/fusion commercial MBS. “They lied...

FirstKey Mortgage, which has big plans in the non-agency space that include lending outside the qualified mortgage box and securitization, late this week saw the departure of three of its top executives, including CEO Bruce Witherell. According to industry officials familiar with the situation, FirstKey’s parent company, Cerberus, was beginning to take more of an active role in how the lender/issuer was being operated, a situation that didn’t sit well with some senior executives at the nonbank, including Witherell. Witherell and FirstKey executives Randy Sidhu and David Essex have accepted...

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Truth in Lending Act only compels a borrower to file a written notice within three years of consummation in order to rescind a mortgage if the lender fails to provide the required disclosure, instead of formally filing a lawsuit within that period. This could spell bad news for the non-agency RMBS space, according to an amicus brief the Structured Finance Industry Group filed with the high court in the case, Jesinoski v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. The first problem SFIG noted with the position that the SCOTUS eventually upheld is that it will have a chilling effect on non-agency MBS. “A determination that mere notice is sufficient to effect a rescission would reverberate through all segments of the RMBS market, creating significant hurdles for originators, issuers, ratings agencies, servicers, and trustees alike, while breeding doubt among investors regarding the value of future and already-issued private-label RMBS,” said the trade group. That’s...

Mortgages included in jumbo mortgage-backed securities in 2014 showed some shifting characteristics while maintaining strong underwriting overall, according to a new analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Looser underwriting on jumbo mortgages has largely been at the fringes: some MBS have included a cluster of mortgages with combined loan-to-value ratios of 80 percent, a few borrowers with credit scores below 680 and ... [Includes one data chart]

Standard & Poor’s surveillance of seasoned non-agency mortgage-backed securities backed by jumbo mortgages and Alt A loans played a factor in the $77 million settlement the rating service reached this week with regulators. The Securities and Exchange Commission and state attorneys general for New York and Massachusetts largely focused their settlement with S&P on ratings for commercial MBS. Just $1.0 million of the settlement concerned surveillance of non-agency MBS ...

Kroll Bond Rating Agency updated the default and loss model the firm uses for non-agency mortgage-backed securities last week. Among other changes, the rating service reduced its loss expectations for purchase mortgages, reduced assumed timelines for foreclosures and formalized the penalty for mortgages with debt-to-income ratios above 45.0 percent. Titan Capital Solutions announced this week that it will purchase mortgages ... [Includes five briefs]

Issuers of non-agency MBS finished 2014 with a flourish, as production totaled $10.63 billion in the fourth quarter, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. But despite a 4.1 percent gain during the fourth quarter, 2014’s total issuance of $35.14 billion came up 9.6 percent short of the total for 2013. The only sector that showed any growth last year was the scratch-and-dent market, where issuance was up 17.6 percent from 2013. In fact, securitization of nonperforming and re-performing mortgages accounted for...[Includes three data charts]

Although Ocwen Financial is in regulatory hot water with California – a dicey proposition given the state’s importance to the mortgage industry – the nation’s fourth-largest servicer will continue with a strategy of non-agency MBS clean-up calls and Ginnie Mae buyouts. At least, that’s what company Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer John Britti told Inside MBS & ABS late this week. Britti confirmed continuance of the strategy, but declined to offer any new details or color. The big question, of course, is...

Even though modified loans represent a larger share of non-agency MBS trusts these days, structured product analysts at Wells Fargo Securities have detected a notable year-over-year decrease in modifications. To be sure, modified loans have become an increasing portion of such trusts lately. “About 62 percent of subprime in terms of [unpaid principal balance] has been modified, 39 percent of option adjustable-rate mortgages, 31 percent of Alt A, and 19 percent of prime,” the analysts reported. “Modification activity, however, has slowed down...