Freddie Mac earned just $227 million in the fourth quarter, blaming the 90 percent sequential decline in profits on derivative losses of $3.4 billion. In a briefing with the media, Freddie CEO Don Layton went out of his way to explain that when interest rates eventually rise, the government-sponsored enterprise could benefit greatly. “I wish that accounting was more tied to economics but it’s not,” he said. Layton stressed...

Ocwen’s massive servicing portfolio (roughly $377 billion in UPB) is worth more than the entire market capitalization rate of the company...

Ocwen’s share price has almost doubled! How’s that? Well...

Roughly 18 current members of the FHLBanks are affected by the proposed ban, seven of which are mortgage real estate investment trusts.

The due diligence findings must be published within five days after a deal prices.

The Fair Housing Justice Center accused M&T Bank of violating the Fair Housing Act by offering higher loan amounts to white borrowers and allowing more flexible criteria...

Interest in the structured-finance market remains strong, but issuers continue to struggle with regulations and sometimes limited demand for their offerings. Just over 6,000 people registered for the ABS Vegas conference this week sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network, up from more than 5,300 registrants in 2014. Jade Friedensohn, a senior vice president at IMN, said the conference set an attendance record for the structured-finance industry. A poll of attendees by the conference organizers suggested...

Proponents of the non-agency MBS market continue to work on initiatives to revive the market, with progress somewhat slow but steady. The Treasury Department and the Structured Finance Industry Group are facilitating separate efforts to entice investors to buy new non-agency MBS. At the ABS Vegas conference sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network this week, Olga Gorodetsky, a senior policy advisor at the Treasury, said there’s no timeframe for when the benchmark non-agency MBS the Treasury is trying to facilitate might be issued. “It will be market driven,” she said. Gorodetsky said...[Includes one data chart]

Standard & Poor’s emerged as the top rating service in both non-agency MBS and non-mortgage ABS securitizations in 2014, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking. S&P rated $8.91 billion of non-agency MBS last year, or 25.4 percent of total issuance. Rating information is not available on most scratch-and-dent transactions and re-securitizations that are typically issued as private placements. S&P’s market share was down from 40.0 percent of non-agency MBS issued in 2013, when there were more transactions with multiple ratings. DBRS, which reports its ratings on re-securitizations, actually was involved...[Includes two data charts]

Were Bank of America, Citi and Chase manipulated into making donations to Democrat-leaning housing advocacy groups as part of their recent mortgage settlements with the Department of Justice? That seemed to be the implicit question underlying the grilling of a key Justice Department official by Republican members of a House Judiciary subcommittee during a hearing this week that focused on the donations the three mega-banks were directed to make to housing counseling groups as part of their $36.6 billion settlement with the DOJ. “The concern is...