Borrowers have been protected from pricing swings on the back-end Connecticut Avenue Securities Structured Agency Credit Risk transactions thus far because guarantee fees on the GSEs’ mortgages are set by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Michael Heid, one of the new directors at Fannie Mae, recently retired as president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.

The average daily trading volume in agency MBS climbed to $215.9 billion in May, the highest reading of the year, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. But don’t get too excited. May’s activity is still below the two-year high established in January 2015 and nowhere near the peaks established back in 2008 when crumbling financial markets caused investors to go gaga for agency MBS. The relatively low daily trading volumes continue...

The weighted average loan loss severity for U.S. commercial MBS was 49.3 percent for the 139 loans liquidated in the first three months of 2016, versus 58.2 percent for 240 loans liquidated in the last three months of 2015, which was the highest quarterly loss severity since 2010, Moody’s Investors Service said in a new quarterly report. However, “In both quarters, severities topped the weighted average of 42.8 percent for loans liquidated between Jan. 1, 2000, and March 31, 2016,” the ratings service added. The Moody’s report tracks...

Walter’s stock price has declined by about 80 percent in the past year due to regulatory issues and other pressure on nonbank servicers...

Watt has given no indication that he wants to wade into this mess and has repeatedly stressed that it’s up to Congress to figure out what to do with Fannie and Freddie.

The settlement agreement stemmed from a complaint filed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development against First Citizens Bank and Trust Co. in 2011 after an analysis of 2010 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.

Some 4.0 million mortgage borrowers had negative equity at the end of the first quarter of 2016, down 21.5 percent from the first quarter of 2015.

The deal is the first post-crisis nonprime MBS to receive a credit rating and it will be the largest post-crisis nonprime MBS issued to date.

Merger-and-acquisition activity in the mortgage sector has been relatively mild so far this year, but suddenly the table has turned with a handful of deals announced over the past two weeks and some lenders publicly stating their intentions as buyers. And one thing seems certain: It appears that all of the acquisitions will be accomplished through “asset” purchases as opposed to the acquisition of stock, be it private shares or otherwise. Early this week, Guild Mortgage, San Diego, inked...