A week of predominantly housing reports, no Treasury coupon auctions, and very little Federal Reserve speak was supposed to provide a respite after the sharp sell-off last week via upbeat assessments of the economy in the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statement.

New York-based commercial real estate (CRE) finance firm Ladder Capital Finance Holdings appointed Michael Mazzei as president.

Most big lenders are proceeding as if new capital rules will inevitably force them to shrink their mortgage servicing rights, with a notable exception: Wells Fargo.

Auto ABS performed slightly better in January versus December with net losses and delinquencies dipping and recovery rates increasing, according to Standard & Poor's.

The current buoyancy underlying the U.S. CLO market can be attributed to a number of issuance friendly factors, not the least of which is significant interest from new buyers, market participants say.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts have updated their home price model and think that home prices are currently bottoming out.

In competitive sports, being first is always the goal. But the distance between the U.S. — at the head of the pack — and the rest of the world in crafting financial reforms is becoming a major hurdle for implementing the Dodd-Frank Act.

Administration officials are trying to get the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to reconsider its resistance to principal reductions on loans purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told lawmakers Wednesday.

Mortgage bankers issued $28 billion of Ginnie Mae MBS in February, down 7% from the prior month, according to new figures released Thursday.The new report shows that Ginnie-approved issuers securitized $26 billion in single-family loans, and $1.3 billion in multifamily loans in February. In addition, they securitized $718 million of FHA-insured reverse mortgages, up from $654 million in January.

Redwood Trust's second Jumbo RMBS for 2012 under its Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2012-2 or SEMT 2012-2 is currently marketing. The transaction is worth $327.9 million.

Mortgage rates jumped in response to the recent sharp sell-off resulting from perceived lower odds of further quantitative easing based on improving economic news.Freddie Mac reported 30-year fixed mortgage rates averaged 4.08%, a 16 basis points increase from last week. This is the highest level since late October. In addition, with an average 0.08-point, the no-point rate is near 4.30% and places 3.5% and some 4.0% coupons out of the refinancing window.