Mortgage application activity overall was essentially unchanged as slightly higher purchase activity was offset by a dip in refinancing.

Auto ABS performance diverged during 1Q12, Moody's Investors Service said in its latest quarterly auto loan, auto lease and auto floorplan sector updates.

Regulators still haven’t done enough to exempt some of the biggest buyers of corporate loans from onerous reporting requirements that go into effect next year.

Trafigura Securitization Finance's (TSF) series 2012-1 is in the market. The offering is backed by a pool of trade receivables originated by Trafigura Beheer B.V., Trafigura Pte. (Singapore), and Trafigura AG, according to Standard & Poor's.

Legacy last-cash-flow CMBS spreads rallied following the Federal Reserve’s Maiden Lane III auction on Thursday last week to finish the week unchanged on average, according to a report released today from FTN Financial.This happened after spreads widened by about ten basis points earlier in the week.Last Thursday the Federal Reserve Bank of New York held an auction and sold the entirety of the MAX CDO holdings from its ML III portfolio to Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank Securities. For the full story on the bidding process, please click here.With senior-subordinate or “AJ” tranches comprising almost half of the CDOs' underlying assets, the market's ability to absorb the roughly $7.9 billion in CMBS without considerable market disruption was "an impressive show of strength for the sector in general," according to FTN.The firm's daily regression showed that legacy CMBS spreads are close to two standard deviations cheap at current levels with an R-Square of 89%. This analysis predicts legacy CMBS spreads by using measures that track the ABX and Standard & Poor's REIT indices as well as the spread on 'A'-rated financials.At current levels, FTN's analysis showed the last-cash-flow legacy CMBS to be 50 basis points “cheap” on average.

Fannie Mae and Citibank officials were developing a principal reduction pilot program that was supposed to go live in July 2010 when it was “mysteriously” stopped and later terminated, according to congressional investigators.

The real estate owned-to-rental niche currently may be "the world's biggest $0 billion industry," as Rick Sharga of Carrington Mortgage Services said at the recent SourceMedia Mortgage Servicing Conference in Dallas, but it should start to grow.

The Trepp CMBS Delinquency Rate reversed course and is close to the highest reading of all time, according to the CMBS data provider. This happens just two months after matching its lowest reading in a year.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is turning its sights on companies’ in-house and outside lawyers for obstructing investigations and for green-lighting questionable mortgage bond deals, The Wall Street Journal reported this morning.

Industry veteran Tony Renzi, who joined Freddie Mac last spring as part of a major organization at the GSE, has resigned from the company effective May 11, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.

The Four Seasons debt restructuring took another step toward resolution last week with the announcement that the private equity company Terra Firma will fully acquire the second largest for-profit provider of elderly and specialist care services in the U.K.

While still a shadow of its former self, the bond insurance industry is showing signs of revival amid a pickup in issuance of deals backed by riskier assets.